Take this Quick Quiz about our Fabulously Feathered Friends, inspired by The National Park Explorers: Chaos at Keoladeo !

Experience all that the jungle has to offer with the first in The National Park Explorers series!

Sameera, Alex and Tarun are headed to Bharatpur with Uncle Avi. They’ve heard that the Siberian cranes have returned to Keoladeo National Park after more than twenty years.

But things just don’t seem right at the park. The three young explorers find themselves in the midst of things wondrous and wild as they spot birds and animals, bump into wildlife biologist Rauf Ali and sleuth around to solve mysteries along the way. Is the legend of the Maharani’s hidden gems more than just folklore? Who is that strange guy lurking around the park? And where are the fabled Siberian cranes everyone is talking about?

The Godmother of Silicon Valley, legendary teacher, and mother of three superstar daughters, shares her tried-and-tested methods for raising happy, healthy, successful children.

Being a parent is complicated – but the TRICK to succeed is simpler than you think.

There are no Nobel Prizes for parenting or education, but if there were, Esther Wojcicki would be the bookies’ favourite. Known as the Godmother of Silicon Valley – or simply Woj – Esther’s three daughters have all gone on to huge success in their professional fields and, more importantly, their personal lives. What’s her secret?

As we face an epidemic of parental and childhood anxiety, Esther Wojcicki’s intuitive, collaborative approach to parenting will let you climb out of the helicopter and relax.

Read on for ten essential tips to approaching parenting from a lady with incredible parenting credentials!

Respect your children for who they really are as individuals.

First, there is respect for your child as an autonomous person. Respecting the timeline of a kid’s development isn’t only about walking and talking. Development is also about turning into the person we’re meat to be. And this process requires a deeper layer of respect: accepting a child for who he is, and letting his life unfold accordingly.

∼

Let your kids take the lead in reasonable situations.

Kids need to be allowed to take the lead. That means you follow them. It pays to start early Letting kids take the lead when they’re young is important training for parents. Its gives us the skills we need to deal with more, should I say, advanced tasks once they’re older. Honestly most kids go through a period where they don’t know what the heck they’re doing—but I promise you eventually they’ll figure it out.

Trust yourself, trust your child. Trust is mutual your children must be able to trust you as a caregiver, and you must empower them by trusting them in return.

Trust is empowering in the classroom and in the world at large and this process starts earlier than you think. If children aren’t empowered with trust, if they don’t feel trustworthy, they’ll have a very difficult time becoming independent. The main problem is that they don’t learn to trust and respect themselves.

∼

Don’t do anything for your children they can do themselves, encourage them do simple tasks at least 20 per cent of the time, to instil independence.

Give them a chance. It takes more time, it can be really, really frustrating and they might end up with their shirt on backwards or their shoes on the wrong feet. I can’t tell you how many times I let my daughters out of the house looking completely crazy, but I wanted them to feel they had completed a task on their own. This is so important for instilling independence.

∼

While activities are to be encouraged, they cannot be forced on children with a complete disregard for their interests.

This is where I really differ from tiger and helicopter parents. The last thing I want to do is to force a kid into something he hates for hours on end. While we want to encourage children to try new things and not give up when they find an activity difficult, we still have to respect their feelings. We have to remember why our children have activities in the first place to promote their interests and engagement in life and to develop their character.

∼

‘Laying off’ kids is important for them to develop a sense of responsibility for their own lives.

That’s what kids need : not being constantly controlled or overprotected, but allowed to take responsibility for their own lives. For parents, that means giving kids responsibility-early and often. To say it another way, this means laying off. You have to offer guidance and instruction, but they can do a lot more and at a much younger age—than you think.

∼

Work with your children not against them, not with total control but by ‘scaffolding them with expectations’.

By contrast, authoritative parents create a warm positive but firm relationship with the child. Most notably these parents are willing to consider the child’s opinions and engage in discussions and debates, which likely contributes to the development of social skills.

∼

While as parents our instincts may be to shield children from all adversity and failure, a little failure is necessary to teach grit and a passion for life!

But I do want to point out that overcoming hardships can make us stronger, that sometimes it happens automatically, and that kids in difficult situations often end up building grit, resilience, patience and other vital life skills. But what about the rest of us? How do children raised in comfortable households develop grit? Are you praising your child’s effort over his talent? Are you teaching him that setbacks are a necessary part of learning?

∼

Instil a sense of gratitude which makes kids kinder and more willing to collaborate and best of all, less entitled!

Gratitude is part of kindness. It requires that you notice others, consider the ways in which they make your life better, and do something to show your appreciation/. Based on what I’ve seen, a lot of kids today don’t know what gratitude is. Perhaps it is because we are so focused on making sure our kids are happy. We do things for them all the time and they take us for granted. The kids are not grateful for anything because they just expect all.

∼

Instil a passion for service to raise children who are invested in improving lives, communities and the planet!

When kids have an awareness of the world around them and an interest in being of service, anything is possible. They find and champion their own causes. The great advantage of teaching journalism for teens is that it gives them a voice and an audience and they feel empowered to participate in a democracy and in the world. My students aren’t just consumers: in my classroom they become participants with a duty to serve.

Read How To Raise Successful People for more such insights!

t

t

There have been tectonic changes in the world over these past two decades—in customer expectations, environment, regulation, and above all, in technology. Disruptive technologies the likes of which we have not seen or could not anticipate have arrived or are already here. Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain, genomics, extended reality, 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT), drones and robots—each of them by itself is an earthquake; combined, they have the power to alter entire landscapes.

The Tech Whisperer, by Jaspreet Bindra, demystifies and simplifies these emerging technologies and narrates how companies can employ these to drive their digital transformation.

Demystifying Blockchain

‘It’s gold for nerds.’ – Stephen Colbert, Comedian

There are two good reasons why I am starting with blockchain. One is that I have received more CEO questions on blockchain than on any other technology over the last couple of years. The second reason is that blockchain transcends being just a mere technology. Somewhat like AI, it is a philosophy—a way to think about the world, a new structure of economic capitalism, a radically different way to live and to do business.

Defining Blockchain as a Universal Ledger

If you were to Google search a definition of blockchain, it will give you around 150 million results. So, that is not going to help. One of the best ways is to visualize it is as a ‘universal ledger in the cloud’… Most of the money in the world does not exist in physical currency form but actually as entries on a ledger. Now, imagine that if instead of these multiple distinct ledgers there was just one shared ledger, so each of the parties had a copy of the ledger. A transaction would be initiated by one of the parties and would only be consummated if every other party would authenticate and ratify the transaction. Only when this consensus was achieved would the transaction happen. This really is the principle of a blockchain.

Who owns a blockchain?

We saw that blockchain is shared among the participants/ nodes, and so the answer is that ALL these nodes own the blockchain. While this is a fine democratic concept, it is easier said than done. Maintaining and managing a blockchain requires a significant amount of money and effort—the cost of the servers, electric power, the management, etc. So, how do we get everyone to maintain it? This is where the genius of Satoshi Nakamoto comes in. Most of us know Satoshi Nakamoto as the inventor or founder of Bitcoin and blockchain. None of us, however, know who he, she or they are—person, people, or alien from Jupiter perhaps.

Satoshi created an incentive system when he created his bankless currency. He basically worked in a coin or a token in the system which would be rewarded to the people or organizations managing the original blockchain. This coin was Bitcoin, and so the ‘people’ who manage the largest blockchain in the world today, the Bitcoin blockchain, are Bitcoin miners—the keepers of the flame. Satoshi also made the Bitcoin finite. He created a total of 21 million Bitcoins only, which are generated between 2008 and 2140; after 2140, no more Bitcoins will be created. Also, the number of Bitcoins created halve approximately every four years. Thus, Bitcoins are finite, akin to other precious metals like gold, ergo Bitcoin is called digital gold.

So what can blockchains be used for?

Thus, blockchain use cases range from money to financial services (remittances, stock exchanges, trade finance), agriculture, education, supply chain, energy, governance, etc. Wherever there are centralized business models, blockchain can help decentralize or distribute that. Think of it as distributed smart grids rather than centralized power, or peer-to-peer (P2P) money than central bank money.

Blockchain in Indian states

Many Indian states, led by Andhra Pradesh, are much more proactive than others in experimenting with and adopting blockchain. Andhra Pradesh is storing farmland records on blockchain and started PoCs for vehicle lifecycle management systems. They are experimenting with education records, and managing tamper-proof online exams and results, among other things.

Grab your copy of  The Tech Whisperer to demystify Blockchain along with other disruptive emerging technologies and understand how they can be leveraged for future success.

The authors of the highly acclaimed 2011 book, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, now have another reason to celebrate! On 14th October 2019, authors Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo were named as two of the three groundbreaking recipients for the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics! Of course, that is as strong a reason as any, but we have a few more words to add to the many reasons you should read their book:

“Poor Economics stands out in the literature on development economics in that it stays away from the ‘big questions’ to investigate the incredibly multi-faceted and complex lives of the poor, and imagines the policies that could have a real impact.”

Arnaud Vaganay, The London School of Economics and Political Science

“Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo want to reduce poverty. That goal is common—what distinguishes the work of these young economists, both at MIT, is their methods. They aim to inject scientific evidence into policy deliberation, and advance the debate with conclusions that can be widely agreed on while not being truisms.”

Prospect magazine

“A marvelously insightful book by two outstanding researchers on the real nature of poverty.”

Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University and winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics

“With regard to institutions and governance, Poor Economics suggests that there is more to improved outcomes than the veneer of participation. The authors’ findings affirm over and over again that knowledge really can be a powerful tool for change.”

Democracy, A Journal of Ideas

“This book is a must-read for anyone who cares about world poverty. It has been years since I read a book that taught me so much. Poor Economics represents the best that economics has to offer.”

Steven D. Levitt, William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and author of Freakonomics

“Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo are allergic to grand generalizations about the secret of economic development. Instead they appeal to many local observations and experiments to explore how poor people in poor countries actually cope with their poverty: what they know, what they seem (or don’t seem) to want, what they expect of themselves and others, and how they make the choices that they can make. […] I was fascinated and convinced.”

Robert Solow, Institute Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics

“Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo have written an engrossing, deeply readable book, one that moves beyond simple analyses of poverty. It examines, in powerful detail, the challenges poor households face in escaping their condition. It takes on existing poverty mitigation efforts  and puts them to test using real, empirical data.”

Nandan Nilekani, Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India

“It is [the] exploration into understanding the poor, rather than rendering a formula to end poverty that makes it a compelling and important read.”

Elmira Bayrasli, Forbes

“Books that make grandiose claims for themselves often disappoint – but this truly is a “radical rethinking” about global poverty. […] The result is a remarkable work: incisive, scientific, compelling and very accessible, a must-read for advocates and opponents of international aid alike, for interested laymen and dedicated academics.”

Keyur Patel, Financial World

“Highly decorated economists Banerjee and Duflo (Economics/Massachusetts Institute of Technology) relay 15 years of research into a smart, engaging investigation of global poverty—and why we’re failing to eliminate it. Aiming to change the stigma that revolves around poverty, the authors explore not just how many find themselves in economic quicksand, but why.”

Kirkus Reviews

Poor Economics: Rethinking Poverty and The Ways to End It will offer you pathbreaking insights into the causes of global poverty and the ways in which we can alleviate it.

Krishna Udayasankar is the author of the bestselling Aryavarta Chronicles (Govinda, Kaurava, Kurukshetra) based on the Mahabharata.

She has also written a book based on the founding legend of the island of Singapore titled 3 and the fantastical Immortal.

Here are 6 things about prolific author based in Singapore that you may not have known:

She knew by the age of five that she wanted to grow up to be a writer (or an astronaut)

~

Her first book was supposed to be satirical poem based on the Mahabharata but after researching more on the topic she ended up writing The Aryavarta Chronicles

~

She did research to write a book on dogs but was unable to do so because the topic was too close to her heart. She ended up writing Beast, a book that focused on werelions instead.

~

Krishna Udayasankar is a Rajinikanth fan!

~

She lives in Singapore with her family, which includes three bookish canine children, Boozo, Zana, and Maya.

~

Krishna holds an undergraduate degree in law and a PhD in strategic management.

~

The writer is/was a lecturer at the Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University.

~

She has co-authored two well-adopted textbooks: International Business: An Asian Perspective  and Global Business Today.

Check out the fantastic backlist of Krishna Udayasankar featuring titles like Govinda, Kaurava, Kurukshetra, 3 and Immortal.

Margaret Atwood’s dystopian masterpiece, The Handmaid’s Tale, is a modern classic. Now she brings the iconic story to a dramatic conclusion in The Testaments.

Read to know about her writing process, what prompted her return to Gilead and more:

What prompted your return to Gilead?

There have been many requests for a sequel. As time moved on, instead of moving further away from Gilead we started moving towards it, especially in the United States. While I couldn’t continue with Offred’s narrative, I could continue with other characters.

How do these kind of regimes disappear? I was interested in exploring that and what it would be like for the second generation in Gilead – this is all they know, this is normal life to them, they’re not engaged in the violent part of the affair.

One of the narrators grows up in Gilead, one across the border in Canada and one was there for the founding. We see Gilead from within, from without and from the founding.

On Aunt Lydia

We’ve only seen Aunt Lydia from the outside in The Handmaid’s Tale. How do people complicit to these regimes get into it? What do they use that power for? What is their justification to themselves?

How much has your involvement in the TV series affected the way you wrote the book?

Bruce Miller and I talk on the phone and we have important conversations. I read the scripts and make notes. I don’t have any actual power to make changes, but some influence. We’re in accord most of the time. He’s now read the book and has so much more whiteboard space!

How does it feel to see your book being used again in protests?

That started in Texas where an all-male legislature was bringing in more laws about women’s bodies. The photos looked like shots from the TV series. It’s the perfect form of protest because it’s peaceful. It’s a very striking visual image, too.  It’s a question of things escaping from a book into the real world. None of this would be happening if countries weren’t putting people in charge of women’s bodies who aren’t those women.

Until the Cold War ended, the US presented itself as the liberal alternative. They weren’t showcasing their shadow side. But once that opponent was gone, everything could come out of the cupboard that has always been there, and out it has come.

How much pressure did you feel writing this book three decades later? 

There’s a danger of letting down the audience at every turn on every occasion. The audience will have different opinions. There’s a danger, but it’s a danger I’ve faced before.

Do you consider The Testaments dystopia?

A dystopia is an imagined society that we assume is worse than the one we live in. A utopia imagines a better world. The nineteenth century was an age of the utopia because it felt it was improving things and things would keep on getting better. That changed around the turn of the century. After WWI & WWII, utopias became hard to write. Is The Testaments a dystopian world? Let us hope so.

What do you make of the reaction at midnight last night? 

London loves a happening! It’s quite amazing how people came in the middle of the night to see the books revealed. It was lots of fun. People had a pretty grand time!

Are you overwhelmed by the launch? Do you consider yourself a literary rockstar?

Well I haven’t yet died of an opioid overdose… but there’s time! Am I overwhelmed by it? I’m very pleased and grateful to the readers and the teams of people across the world who’ve been putting it all together and protecting the manuscript.

When did you start writing the new book?

I sent a two-paragraph summary to my publishers in February 2017. I think they were terrified. I must have been far enough along with it then to tell them what I was doing. I was thinking about it in 2015 and started proper planning in 2016.

Would you go back to Gilead again?

I never say never to anything.

Do you think writing is an act of faith?

Writing is always an act of hope because it assumes a reader, no matter what the content.

What has it been like seeing the US moving closer to Gilead?

If you look at the legislative moves made in the US you can see they’re almost there. The message is that the state will own women’s bodies. You’re forcing women to deliver babies. Cheap labour, and that’s a pun.

The Testaments contributes to a conversation that’s already taking place. For a society that claims to value individual freedom, evidently they think this freedom doesn’t extend to women.

The Testaments seems a lot more optimistic than The Handmaid’s Tale, why is that?

The Handmaid’s Tale is optimistic. I didn’t kill off the central character and we have the symposium at the end which proves Gilead didn’t last.

It’s the same with The Testaments. It’s still clear that Gilead is over and it crumbled partly from within.

Margaret Atwood’s dystopian masterpiece The Testaments is available now!

Diwali is round the corner and we are sure your young ones are jumping with excitement! The festival season is full of cheer, lights and colour, and India has so many of them!

Celebrated children’s author, Sonia Mehta, is back with Festivals of India to introduce your young ones to all the festival cheer that India has to offer. With its diverse range of communities and cultures, our country has many, many reasons to celebrate all year long. Here is a message to your kids from author Sonia Mehta herself!

Hello Kids!

Here’s an incredible thing about India. Because India is a mix of so many cultures, there are literally hundreds of festivals that people celebrate. I thought it would be a great idea to get to know some of them.

Many festivals have stories and legends behind them. Sometimes, people forget the reason they are celebrating a festival in the first place. I’ve tried to share with you as many of the stories and legends behind the festivals as I could. It’s not possible to write about all of them – that would end up being a giant book – but this book contains some of the better-known and lesser-known ones!

Lots of love,

Sonia Aunty

Festivals of India is part of the Discover India series of books that contain lots of fun facts and engaging activities. Through these books, get the young ones to explore the history and stories that make India such a diverse and fascinating nation!

A man, an actor, a husband, a friend, a parent, a patriot and a legend with a host of admirers like Amitabh Bachchan and Om Puri, Balraj Sahni led the golden era of Indian cinema.

He was known to be true to his principles, a non-conformist often remembered for his portrayals of the underprivileged. Read his story, written by his son Parikshat Sahni, and celebrate the life, times and impact of a simple man who inspired an entire generation of actors and continues to do so even today.

Here are some moments from Parikshat Sahni’s book that we found memorable:

(Balraj Sahni) had worked with Mahatma Gandhi for a year in Sevagram in 1938. The following year, he was called upon to leave Indian shores and take a ship to England, to broadcast programmes in Hindi for Indian soldiers fighting overseas. He didn’t hesitate for a minute. He was unlike anyone else in the family. Influenced by the Romantic poets, he was a swash-buckling adventurer always looking for and taking on dangerous new challenges. He was a non-conformist and not one to pursue traditional lines of work. 

~

(Balraj Sahni) craved for romance and adventure. He fell madly in love with his first cousin, Santosh Kashyap (Byron was in love with his half-sister) and a great romance developed between them till it was discovered by their elders. They were horrified and afraid it would sully their name in the Arya Samaj fold, particularly as my grandfather was the head of the samaj in Rawalpindi. The family was quick to quash this budding romance before it flourished. 

~

(At a fancy party, Balraj Sahni) piled his plate with a generous helping of rice and dal and half a tandoori chicken. He started eating the chicken with his hands. The woman, who had been witness to Dad’s rustic antics, could not help coming up to him once again with a plate of salad and some steamed vegetables, topped with a piece of chicken. Picking at her food daintily with her fork and depositing it carefully in her mouth, she asked, ‘Don’t you actors have to look after your figures?’ She pointed to the mound of rice, dal and tandoori chicken on Dad’s plate. I could see that by now Dad had had enough of this elderly woman and her persistent efforts to needle and belittle him. ‘No madam, not character actors like me. I like to eat well.’ 

~

How did Balraj Sahni become a Marxist? One of the reasons that he went to England, I think, was to take a closer look at the nation that ruled India. It was there that the Marxism bug bit him. He became an admirer of the Soviet state, not by reading the tomes of Lenin or Das Kapital, but by watching Soviet films, which were widely shown, as the British and Russians were allies then. As he mentions in his autobiography, it was a Russian film called Circus that converted him. 

~

During an occasion in Srinagar, Balraj Sahni was, among others, in the company of Mufti Saheb’s daughter, who later, like her father, became the chief minister of Kashmir. She was in her early twenties at the time. If I am not mistaken, she is not a very tall lady and Dad towered over her. She looked up at him adoringly, but he wanted to impress her and the others in the room by appearing even taller. So he balanced himself on a little wooden strip that separated one room from another (as was customary in the wooden houses in Kashmir in those days) and stayed perched.

Those who only saw him on the screen loved him for his realism and projection of his art; those who saw him on the stage loved him for his contribution to their cultural life; those who only read his books loved him for his literary prowess; those who knew him socially loved him for his gentlemanliness and affability; those who knew him politically loved him for the commitment and dedication he brought to whatever cause he espoused and those who knew him personally loved him for his honesty and simplicity. Read the book to get to know Balraj Sahni better!

The Moonshot Game by Rahul Chandra, the co-founder of Helion Ventures, describes how global conditions, local consumers, founder ambition and good old greed shaped the start-up story in India. It is a candid memoir in which Rahul tells us about his journey of building one of India’s oldest Venture Capital firms. In a remarkably gripping account, he recounts his adventures in India’s hyper-funded start-up ecosystem.

Here are some anecdotes from the book that stayed with us:

Prior to EyeQ, we came across a childbirth clinic that was attempting to make childbirth a pleasant experience for the expectant mother. The team was a combination of an obstetrician and a businessperson from a real estate background. A single location of a childbirth clinic could generate Rs 2-3 crore and lowered the complexity bar for the number of locations. This made it very attractive. We decided to invest in this company and called a few VCs to co-invest with us. One of them liked the company so much that they decided to keep us out and funded the company entirely on their own. It was a strange experience, but we admired the VC firm for their single-mindedness. 

~

Founder salaries are Gandhian tools to keep the balance between founders and investors. They are Gandhian because it’s a moral position achieved through a personal sacrifice. How much is a founder’s salary worth? When everyone around the table knows the salary-earning potential of a founder who has chosen to take an income only for sustenance, the power of that moral stand helps maintain the balance in the board. As an investor, I have tremendous respect for founders who forego high salaries to put the company’s interests first. The cash is limited; it can be dissipated in high salaries or be used to build more equity value for everyone. I saw an example of this in Mr Ashok Soota, co-founder of IT services company Mindtree. After the dotcom collapse in a tough market, he decided to cut his salary in half. As a young VC working at Walden, I was awestruck by this act of leadership by Ashok. The board had to work hard to convince him to consider a cut that was not too deep! 

~

What should have been a simple first round of financing was a drama of epic proportions. Our lawyers presented the company with a first draft of the lengthy agreement called the Shareholders Agreement, the SHA for short. After UnitedLex went through the SHA, a frustrated cry of disbelief went up. They thought the SHA draft was a piece of shit. I got a call from the co-founder. You need to immediately fire your law firm, he said. The partner who is talking to us doesn’t know how to even draft. And don’t even mention the abilities of the associate in the law firm. I was yet to figure out that this sort of extreme views would be the opening lines of many other conversations that would follow. I am a good listener, but a good listener needs to dispel notions. I laid out my sympathies but ended the call with a fait accompli. The law firm would stay. We have got to live with our displeasures. 

~

On 5 July 2013, Apoorv Sharma of Venture Nursery sent me a mail connecting me to the founder of a company called Oravel that they had seed-funded. The founder, Ritesh, wrote me a nice short mail introducing himself…. His mail was an eye-catcher in which he precisely captured the key points of what they did, how they had been growing, their credentials and when they would like to raise their next round… Ritesh was nineteen years old at that time. I introduced Ritesh to my colleague who was covering travel. He had met Ritesh earlier but still did a perfunctory catch-up. The age factor was an oversized oddity. The ability of a nineteen-year-old to build a business was highly questionable. Oravel did not even make it to the priority list in our internal filter. Better known as OYO, Oravel would be running 12,000 hotels in 337 cities by 2019 and would be valued at $5 billion.

~

On 15 October 2010, I was hosting some close friends at home. We had known each other since eighth grade and it had been a fun evening. I had a barbeque going in the front lawn and I was in charge. There was nice wine to go with the food and the weather in Gurgaon was perfect to sit outdoors. My friends were sitting around the barbeque. Around 9.30 p.m., my BlackBerry started buzzing. I had been very careful about not burning the food on the barbeque, but this buzzing somehow compelled me to pull out my phone. I squinted to read in the dim outdoor light, and an email containing breaking news from Andhra Pradesh confirmed my worst fears. Now oblivious to the barbeque, the implications of what I was reading started to slowly sink in. The ongoing battle of words between the state administration and the ‘highflying’ microfinance companies had escalated to a full assault. The state had passed a promulgation that banned microfinance activity in the state. This promulgation would throw three of the largest microfinance companies under the bus. A total of Rs 7000 crore would go up in smoke. We all had burnt food that night.

Grab your copy of the book today to learn more about a VC’s constant journey of ups and downs and why no amount of failure can be an excuse to lose optimism in the power of entrepreneurship!

Munir Khan, a recent widower from Toronto, meets the charming and witty Mohini Singh, a married liberal newspaper columnist, in the bar of the high-brow Delhi Recreational Club. Will their passion survive the menacing shadows of terror attacks and the wounded memories of Partition?

Written with trademark sensitivity and a sharp, affecting vision, A Delhi Obsession is M.G. Vassanji’s most urgent novel yet. Set in contemporary times, it unravels an unexpected yet prophetic story of passion, love and faith.

Read on about 4 instances from the book that showcase the struggle between love and faith:

Now, whenever they argued, and it seemed they did so frequently, he was likely to come out with a mocking, ‘And I guess you find that Khan of yours perfect!’ Once he said, ‘Still pining for that Muslim! Don’t forget your parents escaped with their lives, from the other side, his side!’ This was not usually like him, he was deliberately provoking her with these cheap communal references, and she had replied sharply, ‘He’s not my Muslim!’

∼

He had read that the term ‘Hindu’, derived from the name of the river Indus, originally referred to the natives of that area. That included those who had opted to follow Islam. Only later had it begun to acquire its rigid exclusivity. The population of Afghanistan, where his paternal ancestors came from, had been mainly Buddhist originally. His mother’s people came from Gujarat, where the current prime minister of India was from. What was Munir Khan, then? ‘Asian’ had been good enough in Nairobi. Now art moved him; music and literature. That was his worship, there lay his gods. He had been happily, willingly deracinated. Now, with a visit to Delhi, his grandfather’s city, he was saddled with this question: was he a Muslim? But did that—whatever it meant—matter? It seemed to matter very much in India. Everyone had a brand, and that indelible brand carried a violent history from the time of Barani that still mattered centuries later. Your people ruled us for seven centuries, as Mohini had said so casually. It was a troubling reminder.

∼

‘We are different, Hindu and Muslim, like day and night . . . But whether Hindu or Muslim, you are a married woman with a home, Mohini!’

∼

She had not promised to God. Only to a holy man. To be chaste and pure. And she believed sincerely that her love was pure. She wasn’t promiscuous. She was modest and generous, she had been attentive to her parents. She had not lied to Ravi . . . just kept things from him. Between them was the arrangement of marriage; respect and care, duty. Affection too, at times. But nothing like what she felt for Munir, and he for her. She and Munir were meant to be, and they had found each other.

Get your copy of A Delhi Obsession today!