The most popular devotional text recounting the adventures of the Hindu god Ram
The Ramcharitmanas, composed by the poet-saint Tulsidas in the sixteenth century during a dynamic period of religious reform, was instrumental in making the story of Ram-and his divine feats against Ravan, the demon king of Lanka-widely accessible to the common people for the first time. Prior to that, this tale was exclusively the preserve of the priestly class who could read Valmiki’s Sanskrit epic, The Ramayana. By reimagining Valmiki’s text in the vernacular language, as a poem to be imbibed through recitation rather than reading, Tulsidas kindled a devotional revolution, forever changing the religious and social landscape of northern India.
Rohini Chowdhury’s exquisite translation brings Tulsidas’s magnum opus vividly to life, and her detailed introduction sheds crucial light on the poet and his work, placing them both in the wider context of Hindi literature.
Catagory: Non Fiction
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Two Plays
In Chandrasekhar Kambar’s timeless classic The Bringer of Rain: Rishyashringya, a village afflicted with a deadly famine eagerly awaits the arrival of the chieftain’s son, whose homecoming promises the return of rain. As the death toll rises, age-old secrets are unravelled and mythical forces step out of hiding. Will the sky relent?
Power and bloodshed run hand in hand in Kambar’s latest, Mahmoud Gawan. Set in the fifteenth-century Bahamani Sultanate, it follows Gawan’s rise to fame during a time of intense civil strife when empires routinely rose and fell.
Alluring and sublime, Two Plays is a must-read for anyone hoping to dip their toes into the rich waters of Kannada folklore and theatre.
The Minority Conundrum
The second volume in the Rethinking India series explicates what it means to be a minority in majoritarian times. The contributors identify vulnerabilities that encumber the quest for the realization of substantive citizenship by minority groups. The essays deal with educational attainments, employment prospects in a liberalized economy, possibilities of equal opportunity, violence of the state and vigilante groups, emerging questions of citizenship and employment, linking language with the material life of its speakers, and the receding political voice of minorities amidst a majoritarian upswing.
Also examined is the concept of minority being inextricably bound with two allied ideas equally foundational to the vision of the Indian Republic: secularism and nationalism. The three together form a conceptual whole to the extent that none finds its manifestation without reference to the other two. The take-offs of the minority question in India include the archetypal nationalist’s disapproval of the very endurance of the subject post-Independence. The secular-modernists and the Hindutva nationalists converge in prescribing assimilation-one into a modernist project, the other into a national culture defined by Sanskritic Hinduism-while the pluralist vision, tolerant of divergent practices, follies in assuming cultures and religious observances as frozen. This, along with several allied issues, forms the heart of this thought-provoking volume.
In Other Words
On a post-college visit to Florence, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri fell in love with the Italian language. Twenty years later, seeking total immersion, she and her family relocated to Rome, where she began to read and write solely in her adopted tongue. A startling act of self-reflection, In Other Words is Lahiri’s meditation on the process of learning to express herself in another language-and the stunning journey of a writer seeking a new voice.
Bridgital Nation
It is 2030. India is among the world’s top three economies. All Indians use advanced technology to either do their job or get their job done. All Indians have access to quality jobs, better healthcare and skill-based education. Technology and human beings coexist in a mutually beneficial ecosystem.
This reality is possible. It is within reach. With Bridgital.
In this ground-breaking book, N. Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, presents a powerful vision for the future. To the coming disruption of artificial intelligence, he proposes an ingenious solution, where India is perfectly positioned to pave a unique path from the rest of the world. Instead of accepting technology as an inevitable replacement for human labour, India can use it as an aid; instead of taking them away, AI can generate jobs.
Chandrasekaran and his co-author, Roopa Purushothaman, chief economist of the Tata Group, survey the country for inspirational stories of resilience and determination, and seek the ideal way to bring Indians closer to their dreams through on-ground application of a cutting-edge approach called ‘Bridgital’. This brilliant concept addresses India’s biggest challenges by bridging the huge chasm between rural and urban, illiteracy and education, aspirations and achievement. From healthcare to education to business, the model can be applied in various sectors, and, by a conservative estimate, it can create and impact 30 million jobs by 2025.
One of the country’s foremost industry leaders and pioneers, N. Chandrasekaran brings his expertise of over thirty years with the Tata Group to offer a blueprint for building a prosperous India, where everyone is included in the growth story.
Foreword by Ratan N. Tata
Everybody Loves a Good Drought
A CLASSIC OF REPORTAGE FROM RURAL INDIA BY AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR, WITH A FOREWORD BY GOPALKRISHNA GANDHI
– Prescribed in over 100 universities
– Reveals the human face of poverty
– Key to understanding issues of globalization, human rights, development economics in India
– One of the classics of journalism
Acclaimed across the world, prescribed in over 100 universities and colleges, and included in part in The Century’s Greatest Reportage (Ordfront, 2000), alongside the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Studs Terkel and John Reed, Everybody Loves a Good Drought is the established classic on rural poverty in India. Twenty years after publication, it remains unsurpassed in the scope and depth of reportage, providing an intimate view of the daily struggles of the poor and the efforts, often ludicrous, made to uplift them.
An illuminating introduction accompanying this twentieth-anniversary edition reveals, alarmingly, how a large section of India continues to suffer in the name of development so that a small percentage may prosper. Besides exposing chronic misgovernance, it is also a devastating comment on the media’s failure to speak for the voiceless.
Democracy on the Road (Hindi): Loktantra via Sadak Marg
On the eve of a landmark general election, Ruchir Sharma offers an unrivalled portrait of how India and its democracy work, drawn from his two decades on the road chasing election campaigns across every major state, travelling the equivalent of a lap around the earth. Democracy on the Road takes readers on a rollicking ride with Ruchir and his merry band of fellow writers as they talk to farmers, shopkeepers and CEOs from Rajasthan to Tamil Nadu, and interview leaders from Narendra Modi to Rahul Gandhi.
No book has traced the arc of modern India by taking readers so close to the action. Offering an intimate view inside the lives and minds of India’s political giants and its people, Sharma explains how the complex forces of family, caste and community, economics and development, money and corruption, Bollywood and Godmen, have conspired to elect and topple Indian leaders since Indira Gandhi. The ultimately encouraging message of Ruchir’s travels is that, while democracy is retreating in many parts of the world, it is thriving in India.
Democracy on the Road
On the eve of a landmark general election, Ruchir Sharma offers an unrivalled portrait of how India and its democracy work, drawn from his two decades on the road chasing election campaigns across every major state, travelling the equivalent of a lap around the earth. Democracy on the Road takes readers on a rollicking ride with Ruchir and his merry band of fellow writers as they talk to farmers, shopkeepers and CEOs from Rajasthan to Tamil Nadu, and interview leaders from Narendra Modi to Rahul Gandhi.
No book has traced the arc of modern India by taking readers so close to the action. Offering an intimate view inside the lives and minds of India’s political giants and its people, Sharma explains how the complex forces of family, caste and community, economics and development, money and corruption, Bollywood and Godmen, have conspired to elect and topple Indian leaders since Indira Gandhi. The ultimately encouraging message of Ruchir’s travels is that, while democracy is retreating in many parts of the world, it is thriving in India.
Wisdom for Start-ups from Grown-ups
What makes some companies survive the test of time while others struggle and perish?
Corporations do not exist in isolation; they are always part of something else, something bigger-an ecosystem. Inspired by the secrets of shinise (Japanese companies dating back to the time of samurais), R. Gopalakrishnan and
R. Narayanan take a deep dive into the art of growing and sustaining a business. Over the forty-eight years of his close association with Unilever and Tata, Gopalakrishnan has gathered experiences and know-how about what makes companies tick, while Narayanan, having worked with Coca-Cola, Nestlé and then two start-ups of his own, has developed keen insights about angel investing and mentoring.
Wisdom for Start-ups from Grown-ups is the culmination of their collaborative effort to bring the best of what grown-ups have to offer to start-ups, presented in the form of all-important lessons.
Land Of The Seven Rivers-Pb
Did ancient India witness the Great Flood? Why did the Buddha give his first sermon at Sarnath? How did the Europeans map India?
Combining scholarship with sparkling wit, Sanjeev Sanyal sets out to explore how India’s history was shaped by its geography-answering questions you may have never thought to ask. Moving from geological and genetic origins to present-day Gurgaon, Land of the Seven Rivers is riveting, wry and full of surprises.