The music’s still playing, fifty years on . . .
It is 1965, and John, Paul, George and Ringo have lost themselves. Beatlemania is at its peak and the boys are overwhelmed by screaming fans, more money than they can count, and fame beyond their dreams. But one day, on the sets of the surreal Help!, George discovers the sitar, starting the boys off on a journey filled with
drug-induced introspection, transnational spirituality and damned fine music.
It is 1968, and John, Paul, George and Ringo have decided to find themselves. Following an eerie series of events, as if devised by fate, the boys are brought to Rishikesh, India, in pursuit of eternal happiness through a secret mantra from Transcendental Meditation guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Hoping to get the better of their personal demons, they seek to break the shackles of stardom even though it begins the unravelling of the band.
Across the Universe etches in lyrical detail a picture of the world’s greatest band torn apart by their inner dissensions yet bursting with creative genius. Full of characters and happenings delightful and evil, of comic excess and dark whimsy, the book traces the path the Beatles took to India and the dramatic denouement
of their sojourn at the Himalayan ashram. It is a modern fairy tale about four people the world has loved like no one else.
In 1963, a human skull was discovered in a pub in Kent in south-east England. A brief handwritten note stuck inside the cavity revealed it to be that of Alum Bheg, an Indian soldier in British service who was executed during the aftermath of the 1857 Uprising. Alum Bheg was blown from a cannon for having allegedly murdered British civilians, and his head was brought back as a grisly war-trophy by an Irish officer present at his execution. The skull is a troublesome relic of both anti-colonial violence and the brutality and spectacle of British retribution.
Kim Wagner presents an intimate and vivid account of life and death in British India in the throes of the largest rebellion of the nineteenth century. Fugitive rebels spent months, even years, hiding in the vastness of the Himalayas before they were eventually hunted down and punished by a vengeful colonial state. Examining the colonial practice of collecting and exhibiting human remains, this book offers a critical assessment of British imperialism that speaks to contemporary debates about the legacies of Empire and the myth of the ‘Mutiny’.
Has democracy in India fulfilled the aspirations of its people? Have institutions delivered? Have public policies succeeded in making substantial differences to living standards? Is the country secure on its external borders? Would the country become an economic powerhouse? And can India be a leading power in the years ahead?
All these and many more questions loom large as India completes seven decades of independence. Major challenges persist on the economic front and in providing adequate and quality healthcare, education, food, sanitation and drinking water. Regulatory preoccupations persist as policymakers continue to search for optimal solutions. The task is made harder by a socio-political environment shaped by various complexities. These include an expanding young workforce, a demanding citizenry, intense social media campaigns and a difficult neighbourhood.
Seven Decades of Independent India, edited by Vinod Rai and Amitendu Palit, reflects on the India of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, by gathering rare and candid insights from some of the most distinguished experts, practitioners and scholars on India. These include D. Subbarao, ex-governor of RBI; Rajiv Kumar, vice-chairman of NITI Aayog; S.Y. Quraishi, former chief election commissioner; Shivshankar Menon, former national security adviser; Ashok Gulati, professor ICRIER and former chairman of Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices; Sumit Ganguly, professor of political science, Indiana University; A.K. Shiva Kumar, director, International Centre for Human Development; Poonam Muttreja, executive director, Population Foundation of India; Tan Tai Yong, president and professor (humanities) Yale-NUS College, Singapore; Dipankar Gupta, sociologist and former professor, JNU; Pronab Sen, former chief statistician of India and many others.
Shayara Bano knocked at the doors of the Supreme Court to challenge her husband’s sudden decision of ending their marriage using the three dreaded words: talaq, talaq, talaq.
A 1980s Bollywood movie sparked off a national debate on the validity of instant divorce, which even saw Dawat-a four-page daily published by the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind-talking about triple talaq as per the Quran.
For a long time, the battle against instant talaq has garnered public attention. In Till Talaq Do Us Part, Ziya Us Salam, an eminent social commentator and an associate editor at Frontline, presents a holistic view of how divorce works in Islam. Ranging from triple talaq to talaq granted over three months to khula and talaq-e-tafweez, the book also discusses other methods of divorce available to a Muslim couple which go ignored thanks to all the attention on talaq, talaq, talaq.
Alongside his highly acclaimed novels, Mohsin Hamid has over the years written superb pieces about politics, literature and his own life. Collected together for the first time, they show that Hamid is not just a great novelist but ‘a master critic of the modern global condition’. Provocative, dexterous and full of ideas—this is a sparkling collection.
Much of the current work on extremism in Pakistan tends to study extremist trends in the country from a detached position-a top-down security perspective that renders a one-dimensional picture of what is at its heart a complex, richly textured country of 200 million people. In this book, using rigorous analysis of survey data, in-depth interviews in schools and universities in Pakistan, historical narrative reporting, and her own intuitive understanding of the country, Madiha Afzal gives the full picture of Pakistan’s relationship with extremism. The author lays out Pakistanis’ own views-on terrorist groups, jihad, religious minorities and non-Muslims, America, and their place in the world. The views are not radical at first glance, but are riddled with conspiracy theories. Afzal explains how the two pillars that define the Pakistani state-Islam and a paranoia about India-have led to a regressive form of Islamization in Pakistan’s narratives, laws, and curricula. These, in turn, have shaped its citizens’ attitudes.
Afzal traces this outlook to Pakistan’s unique and tortured birth. She examines the rhetoric and the strategic actions of three actors in Pakistani politics-the military, the civilian governments, and the Islamist parties-and their relationships with militant groups. She shows how regressive Pakistani laws instituted in the 1980s worsened citizen attitudes and led to vigilante and mob violence. The author also explains that the educational regime has become a vital element in shaping citizens’ thinking. How many years one attends school, whether the school is public, private, or a madrassa, and what curricula are followed, all affect Pakistanis’ attitudes toward terrorism and the rest of the world.
In the end, Afzal suggests how this beleaguered nation-one with seemingly insurmountable problems in governance and education-can change course.
Raised in a progressive Muslim family in the shadows of the Himalayan mountains, where she attended a Catholic girls’ school, Daisy experienced culture shock when her family sent her to the States to attend high school in a mostly Jewish Long Island suburb. Ambitious and talented, she quickly climbed the corporate ladder after college as an architectural designer in New York City. Though she loved the freedom that came with being a career woman, she felt that something was missing from her life. One day a friend suggested that she visit a Sufi mosque in Tribeca. To her surprise, she discovered a home there, eventually marrying the mosque’s imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, and finding herself, as his wife, at the centre of a community in which women turned to her for advice. Guided by her faith, she embraced her role as a women’s advocate and has devised innovative ways to help end child marriage, fight against genital mutilation, and, most recently, educate young Muslims to resist the false promises of ISIS recruiters.
Born with Wings is a powerful, moving, and eye-opening account of Daisy Khan’s inspiring journey-of her self-actualization and her success in opening doors for other Muslim women and building bridges between cultures. It powerfully demonstrates what one woman can do-with faith, love, and resilience.
BBC and Google have used it in their offices
Oprah Winfrey promoted it on her show
Aamir Khan loved it on Satyamev Jayate
Mira Nair filmed a documentary, The Laughing Club of India, on itLaughter yoga is a revolutionary idea: simple and profound. A practice involving prolonged voluntary laughter, it is based on scientific studies that have concluded that such laughter offers the same physiological and psychological benefits as spontaneous laughter.
Today, laughter yoga has become popular worldwide as a complete workout. It is practised in more than 100 countries, with as many as 2.5 lakh people laughing out loud in India alone.
This comprehensive book by the founder of the laughter yoga club movement, Dr Madan Kataria, tells you what laughter yoga is, how it works, what its benefits are and how you can apply it to everyday life.
Shivshankar Menon gives an insider’s account of the negotiations, discussions and assessments that went into the making of five pivotal choices in India’s recent history. These include the decision not to use overt military force against Pakistan after 26/11; the civil nuclear deal with the United States; the border agreement with China; the response to the last months of Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war; and the thinking that underlay India’s No First Use nuclear policy. Drawing on his long and distinguished career as a diplomat holding critical positions in India’s external affairs ministry and in the prime minister’s office, Menon considers each situation against the backdrop of India’s evolving definition of her place in the changing global landscape. He brings out the history, politics and principles involved, while examining and dissecting the reasons for the outcome. Analytical, lucid and illuminating, Choices is an unmatched insight into the intellectual heft of foreign policy decision-making by one of India’s most formidable diplomatic practitioners who was actively engaged in these five defining moments.
In the 1970s, Rajesh Khanna achieved the kind of fame that no film star had ever experienced before-or has since. But then he saw it all vanish. They say superstardom destroyed him. But was it something else buried deep in his past?
In this riveting biography, award winning journalist Yasser Usman examines Rajesh Khanna’s dramatic, colourful life in its entirety: from little-known facts about his childhood to the low-down on his relationships and rivalries, from his ambitious hopes to his deep-seated insecurities. What emerges is a tantalizingly written, meticulously researched chronicle of a fascinating and mercurial man-one who was both loved and feared by those closest to him. It is a story that encapsulates the glittering, seductive, cut-throat world of Bollywood at its best and its worst.
