In a tour-de-force that is both an homage to an immortal work of literature and a modern masterpiece about the quest for love and family, Booker Prize-winning, internationally bestselling author Salman Rushdie has created a dazzling Don Quixote for the modern age.

Inspired by the Cervantes classic, Sam Du Champ, mediocre writer of spy thrillers, creates Quichotte, an ageing travelling salesman who falls in impossible love with a TV star. Together with his imaginary son Sancho, Quichotte sets off on a picaresque quest across America to prove worthy of her hand. Meanwhile his creator, in a midlife crisis, has equally urgent challenges of his own.

Woven into Rushdie’s expansive landscape are intriguing characters that inhabit his dizzyingly multidimensional world. Yet, their delusions, desires and aspirations strike a chord as they transcend into the reader’s psyche.

Find out how the characters from Quichotte reflect our own struggles-

Sam DuChamp

Straddling a narrow bridge built over the chasm of race and nationality, Sam Du Champs’ name is as splintered as his identity. His sepia toned memories of Warden Road, Mumbai, where he lived surrounded by the eclectic intelligentsia of the time, filter through the tattered fabric of his existence as a writer within this tale. Will his fortune change?

‘He wasn’t widely known, a situation that was unlikely to be altered by the Quichotte book, if he ever managed to get it written and published. Sam DuChamp, Author of the Five Eyes series, unacclaimed, un- famous, un- rich: when people did ask for a title of his in a store, they pronounced the pen name wrongly, calling him Sam the Sham…’

Quichotte

Driving dangerously on the road in search of the elusive joys of love, Quichotte maps the journey of an immigrant and a yearning father. Perched precariously on the edge of surrealism, will he fall into the abyss?

‘Welcome, my future son!’ he enthused. ‘Welcome to the present. We will woo your mother together. How can she resist being wooed not only by the future father of her children, but by one of those children too?’

Sancho

Born as the shadow of the long lost son of Quichotte’s creator, Sancho miraculously materialises into his physical form. Will his tenuous bond with his father survive the journey they embark on?

‘I’m a teenager imagined by a seventy- year- old man. I guess I have to call him Dad. But here’s the thing. How am I supposed to feel properly what’s the word. Filial. When we just met.’

Miss Salma R

Far from the reach of her admiring salesman, Salma shimmers in the glitz and glamour of her life as a TV star. Will the dark shadows of her early years stall her attempts to fly higher?

‘Maybe her spirit was more adventurous than she knew. Maybe there was something in her that wanted to test itself against the challenges of a wider world. Maybe she doubted her own worth and would not be able to think of herself as valuable if she did not pick up this gauntlet. Maybe she really was a gambler at heart and this was her spinning wheel.’

Sister

Left behind in the forgotten corners of her parental home while her only sibling charts his course in the world, Sister is a storm gathering force. Will she find her way back to ‘Brother’ or is his inherited name an ironical reminder of their broken relationship?

‘Feeling (quite rightly) like the less- loved child, she saw Brother (quite rightly) as the unjustly favoured son, and her rage at her parents expanded like an exploding star to engulf her sibling as well. The rift deepened and by now had lasted a lifetime.’

Teeming with life and energy, these vividly etched characters ride waves that take them out into the unknown. Find out what turn their lives take. Shortlisted for The Booker Prize 2019, Quichotte is a must read! 

One, an abrasive, fire-breathing demagogue, was seen as his uncle’s political heir whose behavioural traits he cultivated. The other, an introvert, is at his best when plotting strategies on the drawing board rather than the rough-and-tumble of street-corner politics that his party is known for in India’s financial capital.

Dhaval Kulkarni’s The Cousins Thackeray evaluates the political careers of Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray.

Read an excerpt from the book:

—

They may be first cousins twice over, but their personalities are poles apart.

One is abrasive, a fire-breathing demagogue, who is blunt to the point of being arrogant but remains one of the most popular crowd-puller in Maharashtra despite a string of electoral reverses. The other is introvert, soft-spoken, an enigma for many associates, and with his penchant for boardroom strategies, seems to be out of character with his rough-and-tumble party, which dominates the streets of India’s financial capital, thanks to its muscle.

This, in a nutshell, is a description of the personalities of the two warring Thackerays, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray and MNS chief Raj Thackeray.

A Shiv Sena loyalist attributes these differing styles to their starting points in politics. For instance, Raj cut his teeth in student politics, which was violent and rough in those days, while Uddhav’s springboard was the party newspaper Saamna. Hence, Raj gradually imbibed Balasaheb’s behavioural style realizing it would be his USP, thus fitting the stereotype of an archetypal Shiv Sainik, whereas Uddhav is more comfortable as a back-room manipulator, diplomat and strategist.

‘Raj is streetwise compared to Uddhav, who is a late bloomer in politics,’ explained the Sena source, who has worked with both brothers. ‘Uddhav was coming of age when the Shiv Sena was launched. Hence, he was seen as the party chief’s son and led a protected life,’ he said.

While Raj connected to his cadre via his aura and charisma, Uddhav had a strong party organization to back him. However, both lacked the ability Bal Thackeray possessed—going beyond one’s immediate circle and connecting with the workers at the grass roots. Being based out of Mumbai, where society is more cosmopolitan, they do not understand the finer points about caste politics that holds the key for any political mobilization in rural areas. This restricts their ability to launch any social engineering projects.

The Sena source said the cousins were also unable to hold on to influential leaders, choosing to rely instead on their close advisers with no real mass base. Uddhav is said to have a healthy distrust for mass leaders within his party. This may be because many of them like Chhagan Bhujbal, Ganesh Naik and Narayan Rane had grown beyond a point and then split from the Shiv Sena. Instead, he relies on people who are more comfortable with office-level politics.

A close associate of Raj Thackeray, who has since fallen out with him explained that the ‘interference’ of some of his advisers and personal friends in the party’s internal affairs, had led to influential party leaders deserting it in cities like Nashik, where the MNS had a strong presence.

‘These people would paratroop from Mumbai and dictate terms to local leaders with a mass following. The inevitable happened with them finally quitting the party,’ he said, adding that a sore point for many in the MNS was that many of Raj’s personal friends, who were not ‘professional politicians’ were calling the shots.Ironically, Raj had blamed the Shiv Sena’s coterie politics for his decision to quit the party.

The Cousins Thackeray examines questions about identity politics, and the social, cultural and economic matrix that catalysed the formation of the Shiv Sena and the MNS from it.

The book is available now.

Kuldip Singh Dhingra, the man credited with building Berger Paints, has remained a mystery. He is low-profile, eschews media and continues to operate from a small office in Delhi. Unstoppable is a candid and captivating biography in which Kuldip reveals his story for the first time.

Let these tips from Unstoppable inspire you to reach new heights just like Kuldip:

Focus on what you want and don’t let anything come in your way

Business is his[Kuldip’s] life, he lives for his business and will not let anyone or anything come in the way.

~

Don’t think short term

The thought of getting his father’s business back on track actually excited him. He realized that he had let the present circumstances colour his long-term thinking.   

~

Let each individual handle different aspects of business

Kesar Singh’s business was doing well and he wanted his sons to expand beyond Amritsar. However, he did not want all his sons to work in the same business…‘He told his sons to go out individually and expand the business in different cities.

~

Don’t hesitate to expand

Unable to expand their own families, the three eldest sons focused on expanding the geographical reach of their businesses.

~

Take the help of professionals

Each son had trusted professionals by his side to help him with the business. This arrangement worked well for them as it allowed them to achieve a work–life balance.

~

Sometimes you need to be ruthless to succeed

He[Kuldip] had a good understanding of business. He also had a ruthless streak when it came to business…

~

All kinds of experiences are important 

…Kuldip was a man who looked at the facts and took a decision fast. He processed all his thoughts, and came to the conclusion that three months in the life of the business would not mean much and that seeing the world would only widen his perspective.

~

See what the market demands 

He had been travelling to Delhi to book orders already… ‘Delhi was a bigger market than Amritsar. I thought, let me go and expand the business there,’ said Kuldip.

Unstoppable narrates what a man can achieve if he pursues his dreams relentlessly. The book is available now.

India’s start-up revolution began in 1998, when the first venture capitalists (VCs) arrived from the US and backed early businesses in IT services for global corporates. The second wave came in 2006 when home-grown VCs raised large amounts of capital and funded products and services companies for Indian consumers.
This is a gripping behind-the-scenes story of a VC’s journey, right from the beginning of the second start-up revolution in India in 2006 until the end of the funding frenzy in 2016. A story about how global conditions, local consumers, founder ambition and good old greed shaped the start-up story in India.
Rahul Chandra is the co-founder of Helion Ventures, and in this candid memoir he tells us about his journey building one of India’s oldest VC firms. In a remarkably gripping account, he recounts his adventures in India’s hyper-funded start-up ecosystem.

The Moonshot Game gives readers an insight into the secret world of a VC, with unguarded stories involving large bets and big mistakes, and tales of how one juggles several investments at the same time.
Rahul shows why being a VC is a constant journey of ups and downs, why building value is a long-term business, and why no amount of failure can be an excuse to lose optimism in the power of entrepreneurship.

Here’s an exclusive excerpt from the book!

—————————————————————–

A country with a growing middle class, millions of engineers and thousands of back offices building products for global customers. A new venture capitalist (VC) fund that would work collaboratively with entrepreneurs. Past success in building start-ups. This was our sales pitch to whoever cared to listen in the summer of 2005.

The four co-founders of Helion—Sanjeev Agarwal, Ashish Gupta, Kanwaljit Singh and I—were traversing North America, meeting investors who were intrigued by the unproven but promising land of India. China was also catching the fancy of US investors, and many a delegation had travelled to the large semiconductor plant in Pudong district in Shanghai to experience the country’s potential first-hand. Meanwhile, India had software product teams beginning to build new products out of Bangalore, instead of just following specifications from their US colleagues.
India and its billion people represented a virgin opportunity. Our pitches had borne fruit. Investors with long time horizons had chosen to back us with their capital. Capital that we would deploy in promising start-ups. Capital that would accelerate growth and help build industry leaders. The fundraise culminated rather quickly once our first few investors came in. These investors, known as LPs or ‘limited partners’, were taking a call based on our thesis, team strength and credibility. Overarching all this was their openness to India.

Our maiden fund was ready for deployment in May 2006. We had raised a cool $140 million and were ready to start. In June 2006, we formally opened for business. Ashish Gupta and I moved from Silicon Valley to India.

Ashish moved to Bangalore. He and Kanwaljit Singh would work out of our Bangalore office. Sanjeev Agarwal and I would work out of our Gurgaon office. It had been a month since I moved back to India after spending seven years in Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, and I was just getting re-adjusted to a new way of life. Delhi wasn’t home and
the peculiarities of Delhi life were just revealing themselves to me. It was frustrating to see how people said they were going to do something ‘now’, but that didn’t mean the present. It just meant sometime in the near future, and they called it ‘now’. We would earnestly wait for delivery people, electricians and plumbers to show up and then actually get frustrated over the shoddiness and work ethic. Living in the US had conditioned us to expect predictable outcomes. After returning to Delhi, it took us a few years to change our habit of linking work to a timeline. It would happen, at some time in the future. Letting go of the ‘when?’ question was the path to nirvana.

Read The Moonshot Game to know more!

In the sumptuously imaginative Quichotte, Salman Rushdie’s uniquely textured characters wade through a tumultuous period in America even as they deal with their own dilemmas. Staggering underneath the weight of a ruptured sense of self, struggling writer Sam DuChamp transfers the burden onto his alter ego, Quichotte. Marvelling at the changing world order, Quichotte, wonders, ‘There were no rules any more. And in the Age of Anything- Can- Happen, well, anything could happen’.

Just as Cervantes wrote Don Quixote to satirise the culture of his time, Rushdie takes the reader on a wild ride through a country on the verge of moral and spiritual collapse. And with the kind of storytelling magic that is the hallmark of his work, the fully realised lives of DuChamp and Quichotte intertwine in a profoundly human quest for love and a wickedly entertaining portrait of an age in which fact is so often indiscernible from fiction.

Lending a sparkle to the absurdly porous world they inhabit, Rushdie’s characters helplessly collide with the real and imaginary to create bewilderingly humorous moments. Here are 4 such instances:

1. In a hyperbolic leap, Quichotte, feeling the full effects of fatherly love, lays it on a bit thick only to have the unimpressed Sancho prick his flamboyant bubble.

‘Sancho,’ Quichotte cried, full of a happiness he didn’t know how to express. ‘My silly little Sancho, my big tall Sancho, my son, my sidekick, my squire! Hutch to my Starsky, Spock to my Kirk, Scully to my Mulder, BJ to my Hawkeye, Robin to my Batman! Peele to my Key, Stimpy to my Ren, Niles to my Frasier, Arya to my Hound! Peggy to my Don, Jesse to my Walter, Tubbs to my Crockett, I love you! O my warrior Sancho sent by Perseus to help me slay my Medusas and win my Salma’s heart, here you are at last.’

‘Cut it out, “Dad”,’ the imaginary young man rejoined. ‘What’s in all this for me?’

2. Sancho struggles to make sense of his baffling encounter with an insect that not only speaks English but also flaunts its Italian accent.

‘Grillo Parlante at your service,’ said the cricket. ‘It’s true, I’m Italian originally. But  you can call me Jiminy if you want.’

‘This isn’t really happening,’ (Sancho) said.

‘That is correct,’ said the cricket. ‘È proprio vero. I’m a projection of your brain, just in the way that you started out as a projection of his. It seems you may be getting an insula.’

‘A what?’

3. Transitioning from a phantasmagorical desire into an assertive teenager, Sancho alerts his father to his recently acquired physicality  –

‘You’ll have to get me everything. I can’t wear the same thing every day, can I. So, shirts, pants, underpants, socks, sneakers, boots, hoodie, coat, hat. Plus, I’ll need to eat regularly from now on, so we’ll need to get extra food. Also, when we get away from here I’ll need a room of my own, to get away from that steam hammer in your nose.’

4. At the Lake Capote Campsite, a bemused Sancho watches Quichotte huddled over a map trying to chart out their journey to reach his beloved. An Osprey flying overhead delivers its load onto the map and to this, Quichotte joyously exclaims –

‘This is it!’ he cried.

‘This is what?’ (Sancho asked.)

‘The sign. The hunter has guided us, and the hunt is on! We must go immediately where we have been told to go.’

‘This is the sign?’ Sancho demanded with some indignation. ‘My transformation from a figment into a flesh- and- blood person, that’s not the sign? Birdshit is the sign?’

Quichotte is a rollercoaster that’s bound to leave buoyant with delight. Read the book for more of Salman Rushdie’s magic!

We don’t see them on TV, in textbooks or in newspapers, and most of us can’t name a single one. But there are thousands of women scientists in India, who perform experiments in laboratories, peer through powerful telescopes and camp out in harsh and extreme conditions.

31 Fantastic Adventures in Science presents the stories of thirty-one trailblazing women who work in a diverse array of fields, from environmental biotechnology to particle physics, palaeobiology to astrophysics.

Read on for a peek into 6 such stories-

Bushra Ateeq- Cancer biologist

‘She started her scientific journey by studying the damage that occurs in fish DNA on account of the fish being exposed to chemicals used in agricultural fields. The results of her study horrified Bushra. If these chemicals can cause so much damage at the chromosome level, surely they might also be affecting the human body when we consume food and water from toxic environments? she pondered. This was the moment Bushra’s scientific interest shifted from simply studying mutations to studying human diseases like cancer.’

*

Jahnavi Punekar- Palaeontologist

‘The end of the Cretaceous period is especially interesting to her as it marks the demise of the big dinosaurs. What killed so many dinosaurs? Was it the impact of a big meteorite crashing into earth as is popularly believed or was it a ginormous volcanic event that occurred around the same time? Jahnavi is trying to find out.’

*

Uma Ramakrishnan – Molecular ecologist

‘Finding out the whys in nature felt like detective work,’ Uma says. Why do elephants have trunks and why are goats great at climbing mountains? These were fascinating mysteries to the young Uma. Today a molecular ecologist working in Bengaluru, Uma leads the scientific minded bandwagon to save the Indian tiger from extinction. She is a special kind of conservation ecologist. Instead of spotting the animals with hidden cameras, she analyses the genetics of the animals from their poop and hair.’

*

Vidita Vaidya- Neuroscientist

Honoured with the biggest science award, the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize,Vidita is ‘trying to figure out which connections in the brain are responsible for the way we feel. Which brain connections are activated when you’re happy or jealous or stressed? Why do identical twins sometimes react differently to the same situations? Why do medicines for depression work for some people and not work for some others?’

*

Hansika Kapoor – Psychologist

‘One of her recent big projects researched negative creativity. ‘Negative creativity is when one uses creativity for a goal that is not considered “good”,’ Hansika explains. One example is finding a new way to cheat in an exam. Hansika set out to find if there was a difference between brain activity when creativity was used for good versus when creativity was used for bad.’

*

Vanita Prasad- Environmental biotechnologist

On a routine visit to a vegetable market, Vanita wondered, ‘What happens to all the vegetables, fruits and flowers that no one buys? Where does all the waste go? Can we make the waste useful?’ Today, Vanita works with an upgraded version of an old technique of breaking down waste to create useful energy which can supplement the needs of a big country like India.

Find out what drew them to science, read about how they deal with the difficulties and pressures of their work, and learn how they push the boundaries of human knowledge further and further every day.

Get your copy of 31 Fantastic Adventures in Science today!

The seemingly random number, 31, is meant to convey a sense of continuity—a tribute to the fact that the scientists featured in this book are only 31 of the thousands of inspirational stories out there.

The men who hunted terrorists in a magical Kashmir forest…a pair of young Navy men who gave their all to save their entire submarine crew…the Air Force commando who wouldn’t sleep until he had avenged his buddies…and many more. In this sequel to India’s Most Fearless, authors Shiv Aroor and Rahul Singh offer the reader a poignant insight into a few such instances.

Read an excerpt from the book below:

—

Just after 3.30 a.m. on 26 February 2019, climbing abruptly to 27,000 feet in dark airspace over Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), an Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot flying in a single-seat Mirage 2000 fighter jet pushed a button on his flight-stick. A few feet below him, from the rumbling belly of his aircraft, an Israeli-made bomb silently detached itself and dropped away to begin a journey—first gliding and then careening— towards a target over 70 km away. The bomb, fed with satellite coordinates and an on-board guidance chip, had all the information it needed to hurtle to its destination.

The Mirage 2000 was far from home. It had taken off from the Gwalior air force base over 1000 km away earlier that night along with at least six more Mirage jets from the three squadrons based there. Over the hour the jets flew over central India and into the northern sector. Following in their wake, five more Mirage 2000 jets took off in the darkness from an air base in Punjab.

The dozen Mirages, flying in three separate and unequal formations, weren’t alone in the air. Two airborne early warning jets, an Embraer Netra from the Bathinda air base and a higher performance Phalcon jet from Agra were already in the air, their powerful radars and sensors on full alert to the mission ahead. Communications between aircraft were kept to a minimum. This was a mission with almost no room for deviation unless absolutely necessary. And it needed to last for as little time as possible.

As the three Mirage formations flew in a circuit at low altitude, very much in the manner of night flying training sorties conducted by squadrons, ten jets more roared off the tarmac from two more air bases, including Sukhoi Su-30 MKI fighters from the forward air base at Halwara. It was this pack of Su-30s that would play a crucial role in what came next.

With a total of twenty-two IAF fighters in the air, the jets slowly mixed their formations to create three separate packs— two mixed packs of Mirage 2000 and Su-30 fighters. And a third pack comprised only of Su-30s. While it’s tempting to think of these three packs as neat little jet formations in the sky, it was nothing quite like that. The jets in each pack flew tens of kilometres from each other, and were only bound by a loose common flightpath and mission profile.

Shortly after 3 a.m., the mission began with a pre-planned deception.

The third fighter pack, consisting of big, heavy Su-30 jets, turned south, heading out of Punjab and into the Rajasthan sector, all the while ensuring it remained prominent and visible to Pakistani radars on the other side of the international border. Turning around over Jodhpur, the fighters began provocatively flying in the direction of the international border north of the Chandan firing ranges, their noses pointed towards a Pakistani city that couldn’t possibly have been on a higher alert at the time—Bahawalpur, 250 km to the north, the city that was home to the Jaish-e-Mohammad’s (JEM’s) headquarters and largest terror training facilities. The IAF planners had counted on Pakistan’s ‘hair-trigger’ state of alert to provoke a reaction. It happened within minutes.

The Pakistan Air Force scrambled a group of F-16 jets from the Mushaf air base in Sargodha about 320 km to the north of Bahawalpur. Just as the jets were getting airborne and moving south to fend off any possible attack by the Indian Su-30s, the second IAF pack, comprising Mirage 2000s and Su-30s, broke away from its circuit and turned south over Jammu along a radial pointed towards Sialkot and Lahore in

Pakistan, both large and commercially important cities. This second pack split further, with one part flying along a radial that would pass through Pakistan’s Okara and lead once again to Bahawalpur.

The twin air manoeuvres from two directions doubled the air threat to the ‘capital city’ of the JeM. More F-16s departed Sargodha to engage with this second Indian threat. Pakistan’s instantaneous scrambling of fighters wasn’t surprising to Indian radar controllers and sensor operators on the two airborne early warning jets. The country’s air defences would have been on their highest state of readiness since the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, an act of carnage terrible enough that it got India to seriously consider retaliatory air strikes for the first time.

And now, for twelve days without pause, Pakistan’s military had cranked its alertness levels to maximum.

Eleven days earlier, at 9.30 a.m. on 15 February 2019, the chiefs of the Indian armed forces and intelligence agencies, top ministers and the National Security Advisor arrived at Delhi’s leafy 7, Lok Kalyan Marg compound where the Prime Minister of India lives and sometimes operates from. It was far from a routine weekly meeting for the Prime Minister to take stock of national security.

Eighteen hours earlier, 800 kilometres north, in the Lethapora area of Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district, a vehicle packed with explosives and driven by a young man named Adil Ahmad Dar, had managed to snake between vehicles of a large convoy of Srinagar-bound trucks carrying 2500 troops from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and rammed it. The explosion killed forty troops, spattering the highway with their blood and body parts. Minutes after the blast, a stream of pictures of the mangled vehicles and sickening carnage taken from mobile phones of locals and first responders flooded social media.

With the Pakistan-administered JeM terror group claiming responsibility for the attack, the Prime Minister had convened this meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) solely to assess how India could respond. Forty minutes later, the meeting was finished. Asked if air strikes on a terror target were a viable option, IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa responded in the affirmative, also briefing the Cabinet Committee that the country’s jets would be ready to strike with confirmed targets in a matter of days. He was given two weeks.

From 16–20 February, the IAF worked with intelligence agencies at the operations room in Delhi’s Vayu Bhawan. With National Security Advisor Ajit Doval receiving a daily update on proceedings, the deliberations were honed by satellite imagery, human intelligence from the ground in Pakistan and PoK, and photographs from a pair of Heron drones flying daily missions along the Line of Control (LoC).

On 21 February, the IAF presented a classified set of ‘target tables’ to the government via the National Security Advisor. The first in the list of seven separate target options was a JeM terror training compound that sat on a hill called Jabba Top outside the city of Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa province. The IAF recommended Balakot, just 100 km from Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, since it was a secluded target with the lowest probability of non-terrorist casualties.

Untold accounts of the biggest recent anti-terror operations, India’s Most Fearless 2, get your own copy today!

Bhakti took birth in Dravidian lands,

Ripened in Karnataka,

Came to womanhood in Maharashtra,

And grew crone-like in Gujarat,

Reaching Vrindavan, she re-emerged

A nubile young woman

Between the third centuries BC and AD were written thousands of verses in Tamil that have collectively come to be known as Sangam literature. The expressions of love between a man and a woman in these love poems gave way to passionate expressions of devotional love, where the heroine became the devotee and the hero became God.

The individual outpourings and the unfettered voices of these women refused to be drowned in the din of patriarchy, gathering momentum until this became a pan India movement.

In For the Love of God, Sandhya Mulchandani delves deep into historical accounts of these women who defied societal norms, and the strictures of both literature and religion, and fell in love with God.

Here are some voices from the book that are a force to be reckoned with!

Andal

The poetess was found as a baby near a Tulsi bush, and eventually ‘married’ Lord Ranaganatha. Her works are included in the ‘Nalayira Divya Prabandham’—a collection of 4000 Tamil verses. Andal is the only woman who is acknowledged to be an Alwar.

“Soon enough, Andal blossomed into a beautiful young woman but one who refused to marry anyone else but Lord Ranganatha, the reclining form of Lord Vishnu, who resided at the great temple town of Srirangam. Legend has it that again, one night, Lord Ranganatha appeared to Vishnuchitta and asked for Andal be sent to Him in all her wedding finery. Simultaneously, the Lord also appeared before the priests at Srirangam and asked them to prepare for the coming of Andal… It is said that Andal merged with her Lord in a blaze of light.”

∼

Ammaiyar

The ghoul of Karaikal, she was one of only three women in the Saiva saints known as Nayanars. Born a beautiful woman, she came to identify herself as a peey (a ghoul) or Shiva’s gana,  the impish, grotesque creatures who were part of His entourage. She was the first saint to have written verses to Shiva in Tamil.

“Paramadathan truthfully explained to those assembled that his wife was no ordinary woman, that she was a goddess, and he could only look to her as Ammaiyar (his mother). Understanding her husband’s dilemma, Punithavathi prayed to the Lord. Her prayer was thus immediately granted, and she was transformed into a withered skeleton-like crone. Shorn of her beauty and youth, she was set free from the trappings and expectations of society.”

∼

Mahadevi

The naked mystic, Mahadevi was one of the most famous composers  of vachanas. She was married to King Kaushika who was smitten by her beauty, but reserved her passion for Shiva. She eventually renounced royal life and joined the Vira Saivas.

“One day, frustrated with his unconsummated marriage, his uncommunicative wife and her stubborn rejection of him, the king goaded her, saying that while she kept rejecting him, everything she wore, ate and lived in belonged to him and not to Shiva. It is said that she immediately discarded everything, including her clothes, shocking the court and all the people around her.”

∼

Muktabai

She along with her three male siblings—Nivruttinath, Gynandev and Sopandev—was responsible for laying the foundation of one of the best-known Bhakti cults in Maharashtra which strived for liberation from oppressive scriptural orthodoxy.

“When they saw the five-year-old Mukta, they shooed her away, believing that the little girl would be frightened seeing a dead body. Mukta however wanted to know why they were waiting outside and was told that they were waiting for Changdev to bring the dead body back  to life. On hearing this, the little girl said that she too could wake it up. Running towards the dead body, she whispered ‘Vitthala Vitthala’ in its ears, and then she simply turned and walked away. The dead body immediately sat up and started chanting ‘Vitthala Vitthala’.”

 ∼

Atukuri Molla

The daughter of a potter, she was one of the first Telugu poetesses, and the creator of the first Telugu Ramayana, which brought her great renown in the court of Krishnadeva Raya.

“Molla’s Ramayana is of special significance because she audaciously chose to rework this timeless story in colloquial Telugu stating that if the  reader could not easily understand the work, it would be like a dialogue between deaf-mute people. Written in both padyam (verse) and gadya (prose), she does not blindly follow Valmiki’s magnum opus. Taking liberties with the original, she adds fictional accounts while condensing portions that were too descriptive but goes on to write her own descriptions that are tongue-in-cheek when read in Telugu.”

∼

Kanhopatra

Born into a family of courtesans, Kanhopatra was a prostitute who despite her famed beauty and charm longed for a life of piety. Persecuted  by her father Sadashiva and a local potentate, she was finally granted the sanctuary of death at the feet of Lord Vitobha in Pandharpur.

 “Meanwhile, Sadashiva, who had not given up his pursuit of Kanhopatra, sought the help of the Bahamani badshah of Bidar. Hearing numerous tales of her beauty, the badshah ordered for her to be brought to him. When she refused him too, the badshah sent his troops to bring her by force; he laid siege to the temple and threatened to destroy it if Kanhopatra was not handed over to him. Kanhopatra requested a last meeting with Vithoba before being taken. Although the circumstances are unclear, by all accounts, Kanhopatra died at the feet of the Vithoba image.”

Read about more such powerful female saints in For The Love of God

After thirty-two years in Japan, Pico Iyer can use everything from anime to Oscar Wilde to show how his adopted home is both hauntingly familiar and the strangest place on earth. He draws on readings, reflections and conversations with Japanese friends to illuminate an unknown place for newcomers, and to give longtime residents a look at their home through fresh eyes.

Read an excerpt from his latest book, A Beginner’s Guide to Japan below:

—

WHAT LIES WITHIN

Japan likes to present itself to the world in its
collective, corporate face— in groups— and we like
to see it in terms of stereotypes. Yet everything fresh,
surprising and warm in Japan takes place at the level
of the individual: Japan’s great accomplishments may
be communal, but its treasures are its constantly
unexpected and passionate people.

*

Nowhere else I’ve been, in fact, are individuals so
disengaged from the political domain; my Japanese
friends assume they can no more address their
leaders than they can a group of look- alike men in
suits in a corporate boardroom with the doors locked
and the curtains drawn. So they turn their backs on
the public sphere, and make fantastic worlds out of
their passions, counter- societies out of their hobbies.

*

“Success and satisfaction could rarely be sought by
way of public accomplishment,” writes Krista Tippett
of East Germany in the 1980s. “In response, ordinary
people defended and grew their inner lives defiantly.”

*

Pragmatic to the core, my Japanese pals are happy
to take four- day trips around Europe, because they
know that four days of novelty can furnish forty
years of memories. Experience is less important than
what we make of it.

*

If they can’t get to Europe, they’ll find their way to a
local theme- park Eiffel Tower. Even a place that we
write off as “inauthentic,” they realize, can arouse
emotions that are entirely authentic.

*

At a Starbucks in central Kyoto, seats are lined up in
a row, so you can look out at a sixth- century temple
in a courtyard. At the National Museum of Modern
Art, not far away, chairs are likewise set out in a line
in a large empty room so you can look out at the
busy streets, the girls flowing past in spring kimono,
the cherry trees framing a thin canal.

*

No one married to a Japanese would ever call her
“repressed.” She simply has a sharp and unwavering

sense of where emotion is appropriate and where not;
she lives in the gap the British classicist Jasper Griffin
explained to his friend Ved Mehta between denying
one’s emotions and choosing not to indulge them.

*

“Have more than thou showest,” as his Fool advises
Lear, “speak less than thou knowest.”

*
Read the classic poems of Kyoto and you see that
a night of love is less important than the way
one anticipates it or the words with which one
commemorates it. What we do with our feelings
lasts longer than the feelings themselves.

*
In the most celebrated modern essay on classic
Japanese aesthetics, In Praise of Shadows, Tanizaki
extols the beauty and suggestiveness of all you can’t
see, because that gives the imagination, the inner
world, more to work with.

*

By the time of Haruki Murakami, however, the
outside world has become such a mist, a mystery,

that one descends into the hypnotic passageways of
an inner world that seems to lead nowhere at all.

*

Four million people pass through Shinjuku Station
in Tokyo every day— it’s the busiest station in the
world— but many Japanese believe that hundreds
remain within its bowels, unable or unwilling to
come up to any of its two hundred exits. Real lives
are played out under cover.

*
As many as one million people in Japan are so estranged
from the outside world that they are shut- ins, living in
their own heads, much like the dangerous dreamers
of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, who, in Murakami’s
nonfiction book about them, inhabit the subterranean
tunnels of delusion, working to hatch utopias.

*
On being awarded the Kyoto Prize, the artist William
Kentridge was greeted by the mayor of Kyoto. The
man wore a kimono that was completely plain,
Kentridge noted. But when the mayor opened it up,
his visitors saw that the inner lining, the part almost
nobody would ever see, was fantastically embroidered.

A Beginner’s Guide to Japan is a playful and profound guidebook full of surprising, brief and incisive glimpses into Japanese culture.

The Assam Accord, signed in the early hours of August 15, 1985 at Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s residence marked the end of a bloody era in Assam, albeit temporarily, which had seen the fall of four state governments, three spells of President’s Rule—all in a span of six years due to the massive support that the signatories of the Accord received in the state.

Assam– The Accord, The Discord by Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty brings to light the moments that led to the MoU, giving a blow-by-blow account of what happened before and after the signing of the Accord.

In the interview below, Sangeeta talks about her book, NRC and more!

What inspired you to write the book?

As I said in the Introduction to the book, the initial idea was to look back at the agitation and the insurgency period from a personal stance, what we gained, what was lost, considering me and several others from my generation had left Assam in search of a better future. The state couldn’t promise us anything then – the 1980s and the 1990s.

But with the growing mainstream India attention over the update of the National Register of Citizens, mainly of the national media primarily focussing on the NRC only from the Hindu-Muslim binary in a BJP-ruled state, and lack of a book in English by a mainstream publisher that holds the multiple nuances and complexities that the festering Assam issue embraces, led me to think of writing a different book. One that takes the signing of the Assam Accord as the basis to not only talks back at the long-drawn-out ‘Assam problem’ but also define the politics of the state within the context of three important markers of history – the Partition, the Emergency and the politics that emerged from it, and the impact of the Bangladesh Liberation War. I call Assam’s anti-foreigner agitation from 1979-1985 an offshoot of Emergency politics.

How difficult was it to collect authentic information about events that occurred in the early ’80s, for instance? Any particular interview that is memorable?

Many of the memories of the agitation days and prior to it are still part of drawing room conversations, are in oral form, among the older generation. Even if you go back to Assam Accord, it is already 34 years old. So it is not difficult to find many from the younger generation in Assam wondering what really happened then. Depending on which community or valley you come from, the memories differ. I tried to include as many aspects as I could. I had to leave out some of the things because the book was getting fatter by the day!

Apart from looking at older books on Assam history, both in English and Assamese, I was also lucky to have found substantial material at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in Delhi on the state. I also conducted a series of interviews of people from different communities, the leaders who played a role not just during the agitation but also in the subsequent years. Everybody cooperated. Before the book was published, one of the two surviving signatories of the Accord, Biraj Sarma, passed away. He too helped me a lot to retrace the times apart from, now the only surviving signatory of the Accord, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta.

Various interviews with politicians of the times brought out so many intrigues and the manoeuvrings of the central governments to keep the state under control. Also, personally, I found interesting tid bits from the interviews, like, how the All Assam Students Union flag was inspired by the Mukti Bahini flag fighting for creation of Bangladesh and in the subsequent times, the AASU flag became a symbol of the agitation against ‘illegal Bangladeshis’.

Do you think the provisions of the Assam Accord have been fulfilled, now that the final NRC list has been released? 

Barely an hour after the final NRC was published on August 31, all the stakeholders rejected it. Some did it saying the number it sieved was too less, some on the ground that genuine citizens are out of it while ‘illegal immigrants’ are in it. Update of the NRC, before the Supreme Court came into the picture, was a social understanding between various stakeholder communities to once and for all find a closure to the foreigner issue. But looking at the present reactions, it is sure that this NRC will find it difficult to get overall social acceptance in the state. This will give the leeway to various political forces to play and win elections.

As per the provisions of the Accord, the government was to detect, delete and deport all those found to be staying without documents in the state post March 24, 1971. It is still stuck in the detection process

Another complication is, the five-judge constitutional bench is yet to look into the validity of an exclusive cut-off date set for Assam while it is uniform for rest of India. So the fate of this NRC hangs in balance.

How do you think your own life has impacted the writing of this book?

That I come from the state has really helped me see the entire canvas. Many of the things I was already aware of. That helped me to zero in on some of the players of the times without any initial research. I was conscious of the fact that people from all communities have gone through a lot due to the unsolved issue. That, each looks at itself only as a victim and the rest as perpetrators even though each has been both a victim and a perpetrator in various times, at least in each other’s eye. That I come from the state also made many stakeholders from across the communities open up to me better. I thank all for expressing their thoughts freely and thereby enriching the book.

Want to read Sangeeta’s book? Assam – The Accord, the Discord  is available now.