Do you have numerous friends on social media, but hardly any in real life?
Do you find that your relationships don’t last?
Sustaining quality friendships and bonds have become even more important in today’s times. The warmth and companionship that a good friend can provide is unmatched.
In The Magic of Friendships, Shubha Vilas discusses, in a simple and straight-forward manner, what is missing in our friendships today and the various scenarios that prevent people from making and maintaining good friends. Find an excerpt below that explores the need for quality and strength of the friendship over the number of friends.
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Friendships Should Bring Joy
Blood relationships are formed when you share DNA, the substance of the body. Friendship is formed when you share the substance of the mind.
Most people today form friendships due to circumstances. These are called ‘circumstantial friendships’. Though some of them may end up becoming genuinely deep bonds, usually, they do not cross the first level of friendship. Now you may think, ‘What is Level 1 of friendship? How many levels does friendship have?’ Let me introduce you to the various levels of friendship before we take this conversation ahead. I will start with an example. Kamla was a smart and talented girl. It was no wonder she was popular in college. She also knew what made people happy: a little bit of kindness and a few words of appreciation. She used these generously in her dealings with everyone, and people were drawn towards her. Her life was busy, what with so many invitations and so many friends wanting her company all the time. She was always surrounded by people. Life felt like it could not have been better or happier for Kamla.
The Magic of Friendships || Shubha Vilas
One day, she woke very excited: they were celebrating Friendship Day in college. She had given a lot of thought to the matter of whom she wanted to give gifts to. She had many friends to choose from and she didn’t want anyone to feel left out. But she couldn’t possibly give gifts to each and every friend she had! So she finally settled on two people she had recently befriended. Of course, she was as excited about receiving gifts as she was about giving them. However, she was not prepared for what happened next.
She sought out both her friends, as she had planned, and gave them their gifts. They laughed and smiled as they chatted, but they did not give anything to her. She waited all day for gifts to come her way. She had imagined friends falling all over her, showering gifts on her. But nothing like that happened. In fact, she was the only girl in class who did not receive a single gift! She was in such shock that she went home in tears. How was it that a girl who was the life of every party did not receive a single present? Did she not smile and hug her friends often enough? Did she not call them regularly to chat with them? Did she not attend their parties when they invited her? All this and yet, no one thought of her as a friend? It was too much for her to bear.
Her family consoled her, but her mother pointed out that perhaps, in her effort to be a friend to everyone, she had not been a true friend to anyone; in an attempt to win a large number of friends, she had undermined the importance of building quality friendships. Kamla understood her mother’s words, but what could she do now?
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Which of your friends are you remembering today? Do drop them a (virtual) hug in the comments below!
Right from childhood, Sahil and Ayra have been very different from each other. While Sahil is careless, carefree, ‘new money’ and ‘the brat’, Ayra is sensitive, reserved, shy and not easy to talk to. And that is probably what attracts Sahil to her. Their story progresses slowly and delicately, and things gradually take on a love-tinged hue.
Find an excerpt below that gives a glimpse into how Sahil and Ayra’s relationship blooms.
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The earthy smell of damp soil filled the void between us. Semi-drenched, we took shelter in the nearest shop and I gave her the scarlet silk scarf that I had bought from the store earlier that evening—my first ever present to her. ‘Happy birthday!’ I wished her again as she placed the scarf around her neck. It complimented her skin and she looked lovely. Yes, I did curse myself for not being able to give her the pair of earrings, which were waiting for us at the restaurant but this was no way less. Like us, many other people pushed themselves under a tiny shelter and so she had to come closer to me. We spoke in whispers and marvelled at the rain. as the rain clouds started to disperse, people moved away and so did she. after around half an hour later, the rain finally stopped. It was time for us to part ways as I had to go to attend college the next day in another city and she had to get back home in time because that evening she was to be home alone. I offered to arrange a ride for her to go back home but she preferred to take an uber instead after she dropped me at the airport.
‘I hope I didn’t hurt you,’ she revisited the topic one last time as we were about to say goodbye to each other at the airport. There were so many people around going in and out of the place. I didn’t want to go in; I wanted to talk to her all night that night but I knew that we both had to go. It was getting dark already and a sudden worry around her safety crept into my head.
‘No!’ I said shaking my head. I was amazed that she felt the way she did because if someone had to be sorry it had to be me. Meeting her that day and then going away made me realize that I did not want to go back. all this was so new to me—the meeting and the parting all happening at such short notice. I wanted to know her more and ask her everything that she had to tell me. I knew that it was all so sudden and also kind of rushed. But you cannot control your feelings—I felt embarrassed by my feelings despite being aware that they were as genuine as they can be. She had touched my heart with her genuineness and I smiled at her to tell her that it was all good—nothing that she ever said could have hurt me.
To You, With Love || Shravya Bhinder
She gave me a warm smile in return and moved her tongue over her lips while she framed her thoughts into a sentence. In a grave, low voice—the kind that one uses with kids to make them understand very important matters of life—she told me, ‘Sometimes I feel that intelligent people are so full of doubts nowadays while fools are full of themselves and overly confident. If intelligent people do not follow their dreams and only fools do, the world will be a circus for the next generation. Think about it.’ With these words, she gently kissed my right cheek making me the happiest man at the airport at that time and murmured a soft goodbye. She walked away not looking back at me even once as I stood there almost melting under the cold breeze.
She was broken but pure magic. Her understanding of things made life so much simpler. Her presence was what I had been looking for in my life and by then I knew that as well.
When I reached home that night, I decided to work on my book as soon as I was done with the assignment from college. I will have to accept that I did struggle a lot trying to brush aside the memories of the gentle goodbye kiss, which took me by surprise. It was all happening very quickly and I wondered if I was living in some parallel universe. She was too good to be true and we had known each other for only a few weeks, yet it felt as if we had known one another for decades, and if you look at it, we really did. Her entry in my life made something click, like when a key clicks inside a lock and you know that you have found the right one.
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A beautiful story about how true love triumphs over all odds that life throws its way, To You, With Love is sure to tug at your heartstrings.
From the Green Revolution to the National Action Plan on Climate Change, Unearthed: An Environmental History of Independent India chronicles the country’s historical movements and significant green missions since 1947. Interspersed with lots of trivia, tales of eco-heroes and humorous cartoons, this easy-to-read account uncovers the story of a past with the hope that we will rewrite India’s future.
Read below an excerpt from the book:
Elephants are the world’s largest land animals and they need a large area to live freely—not just a forest, but entire landscapes or ranges with paths they can use to walk from one place to another in search of food and water. After all, their needs are also big. An adult Asian elephant can eat more than 100 kilograms of food and drink more than 100 litres of water in a day. Just one forest is not enough to meet these needs. That’s why they walk hundreds of kilometres every year, allowing forests along their way to regenerate in time for them to return several months later. In the first few decades after Independence, India was on a development drive. Land was cleared to grow crops, natural forests were replaced by plantations or mined to support industry, rivers were dammed, roads were built, factories, power transmission lines and railway lines were set up in more places and the human population began to explode. No one really thought about leaving room for elephants. As their habitats were lost to development, cases of human-elephant conflict began to rise. Among the most common forms of this conflict was crop-raiding. Hungry elephants found an easy supply of food in farmlands. So, they ransacked crops worth a lot of money and sometimes ended up injuring and killing villagers. In retaliation, angry villagers slaughtered elephants by poisoning or electrocuting them.
States found themselves struggling endlessly with this mammoth problem. Finally, in 1989, the central government set up a task force to look into the details of the problems being reported by different states. Among other things, the task force found that elephants had disappeared from many places in which they were once found. It also noted that the wildlife reserves set aside during Project Tiger in 1973 were woefully inadequate for elephants. Conserving elephants meant that India needed to think big. In 1992, the government launched Project Elephant to save its gentle giants.
Saving Elephant Habitats
The task force had identified landscapes inhabited by elephants across India. These included the forest habitats of elephants, as well as corridors or routes they used to walk from one forest to another in search of food and water. One of the first strategies of Project Elephant was to set aside forests in different landscapes as elephant reserves, fortified with plant varieties that could serve as food. It also sought to secure the corridors connecting these reserves to each other. The idea was to limit the need for elephants to venture into surrounding human habitats for food and water. In 2001, Singhbhum in Jharkhand was officially declared the first elephant reserve of India. Sprawling over thousands of square kilometres across three south-eastern districts of the state, the reserve was part of an elephant range that also included other reserves in West Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh. Today, elephant reserves cover more than 65,000 square kilometres of forest land spread across eleven elephant ranges in different states in north-western, north-eastern, central and southern India. Meanwhile, more than 100 elephant corridors have been identified throughout the country with the help of the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI). Unfortunately, less than 30% of elephant reserves and corridors fall within legally protected areas of India. This has made it easy for land in elephant ranges to be diverted for everything from mining and agriculture to building tourist resorts and constructing roads. More than 60% of elephant corridors have a national or state highway passing through them while about twenty of them have railway lines. Hundreds of elephants have been killed in train accidents over the years. One of the worst accidents took place in 2013, when a passenger train passing through the Chapramari Forest in northern West Bengal failed to apply brakes on time and rammed into a herd of elephants that were foraging near and on the tracks. Five adult elephants and two calves were killed while ten elephants were injured. Various measures have been tried to prevent train accidents. These include reducing train speeds in elephant corridors and activating early warning systems. For example, in Tamil Nadu, sensors mounted on poles along the railway track monitor elephant movement. If an elephant sets off a sensor, a text message is sent to the railway staff and the animals are chased away. Railways have also experimented with some creative solutions such as devices that produce the buzzing sound of honeybees to keep elephants at bay. Long-term solutions include building overpasses or underpasses as safe crossing points for elephants, raising the railway track, or removing tracks from accident-prone areas.
A shrinking range, intersected by an ever-growing number of human settlements, farmlands, plantations, roads and railway lines, remains the biggest threat for elephants and a major reason behind human-elephant conflicts.
Get your copy of Unearthed: The Environmental History of Independent Indiahere
There’s nothing like a book that touches your heart and stirs your soul. Coming across such books is often followed by a joyous realisation that we have, perhaps due to sheer serendipity, chanced upon a writer we would keep going back to.
Today, we are celebrating 70 years of Sudha Murty by revisiting some of our favourite quotes by the writer, whose words deeply resonate with us and to whose books we often turn to for comfort and wisdom.
Three Thousand Stitches || Sudha Murty
‘We all lose a few battles in our lives, but we can win the war.’ ―Three Thousand Stitches: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives
The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk || Sudha Murty
‘I realized then that only diseases and not honesty and integrity are passed down to the next generation through genes.’
―The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk: Life Lessons from Here and There
How I Taught My Grandmother to Read and Other Stories || Sudha Murty
‘Doing what you like is freedom, liking what you do is happiness.’ ―How I Taught My Grandmother to Read and Other Stories
Wise and Otherwise || Sudha Murty
‘Life is an exam where the syllabus is unknown and question papers are not set. Nor are there model answer papers.’ ―Wise and Otherwise
Grandma’s Bag of Stories || Sudha Murty
‘We should always have some aim in life which we must try to achieve while being of help to others.’ ―Grandma’s Bag of Stories
House of Cards || Sudha Murty
‘Every woman values her freedom to choose— much more than her husband’s money or position.’; ― House of Cards
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We have a feeling these quotes would make you wish you could delve further into the brilliance of Murty’s elegant prose. To discover more such gems by her, you can simply visit here.
The first characteristic that I gave Tara was that she’s great at Maths, and that’s very funny, because I’m not, and it’s like projecting my fantasy of being a maths whiz onto my character. I had this image in my mind of this super sharp, entrepreneurial girl, one of those people you can’t pull one over. She’s always on her feet, boys her age are afraid to mess with her, and all of this stems out of the fact that she’s always felt put down by her cousins and her uncle, so she’s always trying to over-prove herself. It’s justa. mixture of some things I wished I was, some things I am, and also a synthesis of different people I have met in my life.
What is it like being a young author in India today?
I am not sure, because I actually don’t meet that many writers my age. To me it is a way of life and I can’t imagine not doing it. It’s really nice as well because I think India is a country hungry for stories, but also full of them, so I feel like a middleman trying to capture these stories and narrating them. The not-so-nice part is that there is a huge expectation on writers to have a huge following, so I feel many writers focus on that, being ‘authorpreneurs’ which is a bit of a ridiculous term- as a writer, one’s job is to write a good story, everything else should be secondary.
Your first book, Once Upon a Curfew, was set during the Emergency, while Lallan Sweets is set in the 90s. Is the element of nostalgia deliberate and where does it come from?
Once upon a Curfew was a bit more serious because it was a severe, dangerous time. There were great challenges, and it needed a lot of research because it’s so far in the past for me. 90s, however, was a much more fun time- there was all this foreign culture coming in after 1991, candies and food that people before never dreamt of. There was more to watch than Doordarshan, this great Bollywood era of Shah Rukh Khan and Yashraj and the feeling that love conquers all- I think it was a very fun and optimistic time, unencumbered by the limitless possibilities that technology offers, rendering an innocence to the time. I grew up in the nineties, and simply sought to capture my childhood by making it a setting for Lallan Sweets.
Lallan Sweets || Srishti Chaudhary
Lallan Sweets also talks about themes of family and traditions. What do those words mean to you – as an individual and as an author?
Family of course is the most enriching part of being human- there are these four or five humans around you who drive you absolutely nuts, but at the same time are crazy about you. Nobody else in the world is more annoying and more loving, and that is the dichotomy of family- they are there for you all the time (even when you don’t want). Traditions are nice and fun, if taken lightly; if you ask me, traditions are meant to be flouted, just like rules are meant to be broken. Traditions stop being important the moment they curtail someone’s freedom. Lallan Sweets shows that a traditional magic ingredient may be passed down for generations- but in the end, it’s what you make of the journey that counts.
What was the process of writing Lallan Sweets like and what kind of research did you do for it?
I had to find out about different cities since the story goes across Mathura, Agra, Bareilly, Delhi, Chandigarh and Ludhiana. The most fun part was creating my own little small town, Siyaka, which was a mixture of several small towns I have seen, but mostly a manifestation of my own childhood memories, which although was in a big city, yet my world was very small, so it had the feeling of a small town. Since it’s set in the 90s I got to revisit the pop culture of the time, which was honestly so fun- going back to Hum Paanch, Filmi Chakkar, Shaktimaan- all these series we used to watch. The games were different, past times had nothing to do with a screen- research was super fun because it was going back to an old me, like a friend I had forgotten about.
What advice do you have for other young authors aspiring to break out in the publishing space today?
Just to focus on writing a good story, make your friends read it, get sound feedback, and pitch like there is no tomorrow. Never ever be afraid of rejection- I go by the philosophy ‘fail faster, succeed sooner’ 🙂
This Independence Day, we recommend some immersive reads to help children understand our country, its triumphs and its struggles. Here are our top three picks for the curious minds. Read on!
Constitution of India for Children
The Constitution of India for Children || Subhadra Sen Gupta
Which language is our Constitution written in?
Were women a part of the team that drafted the Constitution?
Why do political parties have symbols next to their names?
What is the official language of India?
An essential handbook for every student and denizen of India, here is a compendium of knowledge that serves as an insightful introduction to the most important document of Independent India.
10 Indian Women Who Were the First to do What They Did
10 Indian Women Who Were the First to Do What They Did || Shruthi Rao
This book tells the stories of ten Indian women who were pioneers in diverse fields. While their stories and challenges are different, what is common is that they all opened up the way for all women to achieve their dreams. Shruthi Rao writes absorbing tales of the lives, times and societies that these women lived and worked in.
The Puffin History of India (Volumes 1 and 2)
The Puffin History of India (Volumes 1) || Roshen Dalal
Pick up these books for a rollercoaster ride through centuries of our country’s history! They pack in exciting trivia, numerous maps and illustrations that provide a breathtaking overview of Indian history. Ideal for students and young readers, this amazing reference guide helps to bring the past to life like never before.
The Puffin History of India (Volumes 2) || Roshen Dalal
The Anglo-Manipuri War of 1891 was hotly debated for months in Australia, Singapore, Great Britain and the United States. Highly controversial in the unfolding of the events of 1891 was the execution of Crown Prince Tikendrajit of Manipur. Today, the 13th of August, the day of the execution, is observed as Patriots’ Day in Manipur.
The day her uncle Crown Prince Koireng Tikendra Bir Singh was executed on the Mound of the Eunuchs by the royal market. Sanatombi saw this vividly before her eyes. It was the last time she saw her uncle. She leaned on a post and stood stock-still. She thought, ‘My uncle, hanged! Was the Indian who was also hanged for siding with the crown prince the Indian my uncle talked about? No, that was Niranjan the subedar. Then who was it? … … … Uncle, so was this what you meant when you said you would be back?’ Binodini, ‘The Princess and the Political Agent’.
Bir Tikendrajit
The Anglo-Manipuri War of 1891 was a highly controversial war that deeply convulsed the British Empire. In 1825, after seven years of occupation of the Tibeto-Burman kingdom of Manipur by the Burmese kingdom of Ava, the army of the East India Company and an army of Manipuri princes called the Manipur Levy joined forces to expel the Burmese. The subsequent Treaty of Yandabo of 1826 recognised the independence of Manipur.
The kingdom became a buffer state between the British and the Burmese. In 1834, under the regency of Crown Prince Narasingh, the Political Agency of Manipur was instituted by the British as a medium of communication between the East India Company and Manipur about the frontier between Manipur and Burma. The function of the Political Agent was dependent on the will and pleasure of the Maharaja of Manipur. British records described him as a British officer under Manipur surveillance.
The 1850s and the 1860s, however, saw a series of succession wars after the death of the popular and able Maharaja Narasingh in 1850. The instability led the British to provide a unilateral guarantee of protection of Manipur in 1865 by declaring Maharaja Chandrakirti Singh as an “Asiatic power” in alliance with the Queen of Britain.
In 1874 Chandrakirti and Lord Northbrook, Viceroy of India, reaffirmed the Anglo-Manipuri treaty of 1833. In 1886, the powerful and friendly Chandrakirti died and the British annexed Upper Burma as well. The weakened Manipur’s importance as a buffer state for the British came to an end. But the kingdom remained strategically important as it was located between Burma and Assam, two important possessions of the British Empire.
After the accession to the throne by Maharaja Surchandra, the eldest son of Chandrakirti, there was a palace coup in September 1890 led by his younger brother Prince Tikendrajit. The rebel faction deposed Surchandra and proclaimed Kulachandra, the next oldest brother, the king. Surchandra fled to Calcutta where he appealed to Viceroy Lord Lansdowne to reinstall him on the throne.
Instead, the British dispatched James Quinton, the Chief Commissioner of Assam, with an army to Manipur. His mission was to recognise Kulachandra as the king under the condition that they be allowed to arrest the coup leader Crown Prince Tikendrajit and deport him from Manipur. This aggressive imposition of British law in a sovereign state was rejected by the king, precipitating the Anglo-Manipuri War of 1891. The Anglo-Manipuri War was fought for over a month in the spring of 1891.
In its first phase, the British under the cover of night before daybreak attacked the palace of Manipur, in present day Kangla Fort. Defeated, they retreated but Manipuri forces surrounded the British Residency and five British representatives — Quinton, Frank Grimwood, the Political Agent in Manipur, and three other officers — emerged from the Residency under a flag of truce. A durbar was held with the king at Kangla Fort.
The British representatives were asked to surrender their arms. Upon their refusal, the officers were arrested and tried in the royal military court. The five were executed in Kangla Fort for their crime against the monarch. In the second phase of the war, the British invaded Manipur with three columns from the west, north and east. The Manipuris were defeated at the decisive Battle of Khongjom and in April, the British captured the palace of Manipur at Kangla Fort.
Maharaja Kulachandra and his brothers were deported to the British penal colony in the Andaman Islands. Queen Victoria tried to save Tikendrajit. She thought hanging him “would create very bad feeling in Manipur and in all India.”The Viceroy threatened to resign and refused to comply. He proceeded with the death sentence of Tikendrajit. The Crown Prince was hanged to death in August 1891. The deposed Surchandra died in British custody in Calcutta later that year.
The House of Parliament in Westminster debated the future status of Manipur. The British Raj declared that Manipur state was forfeited to the Crown, but decided to regrant it to a scion of another branch of the dynasty. Eight-year-old Churachand, great grandson of Maharaja Narasingh, was installed as the new king of Manipur in September 1891 by Political Agent Henry St. P. Maxwell. The Anglo-Manipuri War was hotly debated by the international community and remained for months on the front pages of newspapers in Great Britain, the US, and the crown colonies of Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
Representatives of Great Britain had, in an act of defiance of the British Empire, been beheaded by the public executioner in the presence of a big crowd. The imperial British could not accept the capital punishment meted to their five officers by a small kingdom. They termed it as “treachery” and “rebellion”, and as an act of barbarism. The New York Times opined that the conflict was a serious and threatening blow to British prestige, for instead of being the result of a casual riot, the murder of the English representatives was a quasijudicial act on the part of the native government.
International opinion also held Quinton guilty of attempting to capture Tikendrajit and for attacking a sovereign state without a proclamation of war. The international community censured the subsequent execution: “They were soldiers, but they were taken from their prison, led to a scaffold and there hanged like ordinary murderers.”
Coming after the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, native Indian newspapers condemned it as British colonialism, declaring the war as part of the general uprising against foreign rule in India.
Somi Roy is a film and media curator, cultural conservationist, and the translator of the works of his mother M.K. Binodini Devi. His latest translation, ‘The Princess and the Political Agent’, Binodini’s historical novel set in the years and events around 1891, is published by Penguin Random House India. Wangam Somorjit is a historian and the author of ‘The Chronology of Meetei Monarchs’ (2010) and ‘Manipur: The Forgotten Nation of Southeast Asia’ (2016). He lives in Imphal.
This article was first published in The Daily Guardian.
The Princess and the Political Agent || Binodini (Author), L. Somi Roy (Translator)
From stories of hope to the charm of friendships – our bookshelf for this month is all about life, love, companionship, and individual potential. We are sure everyone will have something to take away for those growing TBR piles!
Some Sizes Fit All
Some Sizes Fit All || Akhil Gupta
An oft-repeated dictum every time a company fails to replicate its past successes when introducing a new product or entering a new market is that one size does not fit all. Business gurus advise that every new situation, market and environment calls for a fresh approach and requires ‘unlearning’ what one might have learnt elsewhere, even if that had met with great success.
This is a must-read for anyone trying to build a robust and financially sound business.
The Victory Project
The Victory Project || Saurabh Mukherjea, Anupam Gupta
India’s economy has tripled in size over the past twenty years. And yet, the generation that propelled this growth is facing rising levels of stress and depression. Furthermore, the new generation entering the workforce today dreams big but faces a highly competitive work environment. How can both these generations fire on all cylinders and lead fulfilling lives?
The Victory Project is the ultimate guide to surviving and thriving in the professional and social domains, which are increasingly becoming tough, competitive, often cutthroat and deeply political.
Between Life and Death
Between Life and Death || Dr. Kashyap Patel
Dr Kashyap Patel is a renowned oncologist in the US who works with terminally ill cancer patients. Through him, we meet Harry, who, after a life full of adventure, is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. As he stares death in the face, Harry leans on Dr Patel, an expert in understanding the process of death and dying.
His questions and fears are addressed through the stories of many other patients that Dr Patel has treated-from the young and vivacious to those who had already lived full lives, from patients who could barely afford their rent to those who had been wildly successful.
The Magic of Friendships
The Magic of Friendships || Shubha Vilas
Today, more than ever, friendship has become more important than any other relationship. The warmth and companionship that a good friend can provide is unmatched and each one of us craves for that special friend to whom we can unburden our heart or seek help from in troubled times.
Shubha Vilas discusses, in a simple and straight-forward manner, what is missing in our friendships today and the various scenarios that prevent people from making and maintaining good friends.
To You, With Love
To You, With Love || Shravya Bhinder
Right from their childhood, Sahil and Arya have been very different from each other. While Sahil is careless, carefree, ‘new money’ and ‘the brat’, Arya is too sensitive, reserved, shy and not easy to talk to. Slowly and very delicately their story progresses, and in comes love and things begin to take on a golden hue.
However, soon their life begins to unravel. Sahil learns why Arya is so private when the most damning truth about her life is revealed. And as soon as they cross that bridge and move on, another cruel blow threatens to tear them apart.
Running Toward Mystery
Running Toward Mystery || The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi
The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi’s profound account of his lifelong journey as a seeker. At its heart is a story of striving for enlightenment, the vital importance of mentors in that search, and of the many remarkable teachers he met along the way, among them the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Mother Teresa.
Running Toward Mystery is the beautiful story of a singular life compelled to contemplation, and a riveting narrative of just how exciting that journey can be.
You People
You People || Nikita Lalwani
The Pizzeria Vesuvio looks like any other Italian restaurant in London – with a few small differences. The chefs who make the pizza fiorentinas are Sri Lankan, and half the kitchen staff are illegal immigrants.
At the centre is Tuli, the restaurant’s charismatic proprietor and resident Robin Hood, who promises to help anyone in need. But when Tuli’s guidance leads them all into dangerous territory, and the extent of his mysterious operation unravels, each is faced with an impossible moral choice.
The Three-Box Solution Playbook
The Three Box Solution Playbook || Vijay Govindrajan, Manish Tangri
Along with Manish Tangri, a corporate dealmaker at Intel, Govindarajan goes deeper into the most crucial box of all: creating the future. Together they provide a repeatable process for companies to create new breakthroughs–from ideation through incubation to scaling.
Full of worksheets, exercises, tools, and examples, The Three-Box Solution Playbook is the guide you and your team need to drive innovation and growth–and continually revitalize your company.
Coronavirus: Leadership and Recovery (Insight Series)
Coronavirus: Leadership+Recovery || Harvard Business Review
Lead through the crisis and prepare for recovery.
As the Covid-19 pandemic is exacting its toll on the global economy, forward-looking organizations are moving past crisis management and positioning themselves to leap ahead when the worst is over. What should you and your organization be doing now to address today’s unprecedented challenges while laying the foundation needed to emerge stronger?
Think Like a Rocket Scientist
Think Like A Rocket Scientist || Ozan Varol
In this accessible and practical book, Ozan Varol reveals nine simple strategies from rocket science that you can use to make your own giant leaps in work and life — whether it’s landing your dream job, accelerating your business, learning a new skill, or creating the next breakthrough product. Today, thinking like a rocket scientist is a necessity. We all encounter complex and unfamiliar problems in our lives. Those who can tackle these problems — without clear guidelines and with the clock ticking — enjoy an extraordinary advantage.
Leading Without Authority
Leading Without Authority || Keith Ferrazzi
The world of work is changing at an unprecedented rate leaving many organisations struggling to cope. At a time when constant innovation, agility, and speed often mean the difference between success and failure, we can no longer afford to waste time navigating the complex bureaucracy present in most companies.
Drawing on a decade of research and over thirty years helping CEOs and senior leaders drive innovation and build high-performing teams Ferrazzi reveals how we can all transform our business and our relationships with the people around us.
The Body
The Body || Bill Bryson
Full of extraordinary facts and astonishing stories The Body: A Guide for Occupants is a brilliant, often very funny attempt to understand the miracle of our physical and neurological make up.
A wonderful successor to A Short History of Nearly Everything, this new book is an instant classic. It will have you marvelling at the form you occupy, and celebrating the genius of your existence, time and time again.
Rodham
Rodham || Curtis Sittenfeld
‘Awfully opinionated for a girl’ is what they call Hillary as she grows up in her Chicago suburb. Smart, diligent, and a bit plain, that’s the general consensus. Then Hillary goes to college, and her star rises. At Yale Law School, she continues to be a leader- and catches the eye of driven, handsome and charismatic Bill. But when he asks her to marry him, Hillary gives him a firm No.
How might things have turned out for them, for America, for the world itself, if Hillary Rodham had really turned down Bill Clinton?
The Authenticity Project
The Authenticity Project || Clare Pooley
Julian Jessop is tired of hiding the deep loneliness he feels. So he begins The Authenticity Project – a small green notebook containing the truth about his life.
Leaving the notebook on a table in his friendly neighbourhood café, Julian never expects Monica, the owner, to track him down after finding it. Or that she’ll be inspired to write down her own story.
Redhead by the Side of the Road
Redhead by The Side of The Road || Anne Tyler
Micah Mortimer isn’t the most polished person you’ll ever meet. He is content with the steady balance of his life.
But then the order of things starts to tilt. His woman friend Cassia (he refuses to call anyone in her late thirties a ‘girlfriend’) tells him she’s facing eviction because of a cat. And when a teenager shows up at Micah’s door claiming to be his son, Micah is confronted with another surprise he seems poorly equipped to handle.
Out-Innovate: How Global Entrepreneurs – from Delhi to Detroit – Are Rewriting the Rules of Silicon Valley
Out-Innovate || Alexandre Lazarow
Startups have changed the world. In the United States, many startups, such as Tesla, Apple, and Amazon, have become household names. The economic value of startups has doubled since 1992 and is projected to double again in the next fifteen years.
For decades, the hot center of this phenomenon has been Silicon Valley. This is changing fast. Thanks to technology, startups can now take root anywhere–and they are, from Delhi to Detroit to Nairobi to Sao Paulo.
With rich and wide-ranging stories of frontier innovators from around the world, Out-Innovate is the new playbook for innovation – wherever it has the potential to happen.
FAKE: Fake Money, Fake Teachers, Fake Assets: How Lies Are Making the Poor and Middle Class Poorer
Fake || Robert Kiyosaki
Robert kiyosaki ― author of the #1 personal finance book of all time ― has built a legacy around simplifying complex and often-confusing subjects like money and investing. He continues to challenge conventional wisdom and asks the questions that will help readers sift through today’s information overload to uncover ways to assess what’s real… and what isn’t. And use truth and facts as a foundation for taking control of their financial lives.
It’s a new month and we have new friends and new adventures lined up for the young minds!
Which ones would they like to begin with?
Friends Behind Walls
Friends Behind Walls || Harshikaa Udasi
Why won’t anyone let Inu and Putti be friends?
Putti is spending his summer vacation in Deolali and he thinks life is going to be fun with his new friend Inu. But with their parents FORBIDDING them from playing with each other, the two kids are flabbergasted. Flab-ber-gas-ted. Means shocked. Nothing to do with food and farts.
Join the two of them have decided to find out why.
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Ladakh Adventure
Ladakh Adventure || Deepak Dalal
On their visit to the Changthang plateau of Ladakh, Vikram and Aditya find themselves on the run along with Tsering, a young Tibetan boy they meet while camping on this grand yet barren frontier of India.
Determined to protect Tsering from the mysterious band of men chasing him, the three boys traverse the majestic land beyond the Himalayas in search of answers.
Join them to journey across journey across one of India’s most splendid destinations.
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Unearthed
Unearthed || Meghaa Gupta
Protesting against dams, protecting tigers, hugging trees, saving seeds, making room for elephants, battling mountains of waste, fighting air pollution, coping with soaring temperatures-India and its people have shared a remarkable relationship with the environment.
Full of trivia, tales of eco-heroes and humorous cartoons, this easy-to-read account uncovers the story of a past with the hope that we will rewrite India’s future.
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Rowley Jefferson’s Awesome Friendly Adventure
Awesome Friendly Adventure || Jeff Kinney
You’ve never seen the Wimpy Kid World like this before – an entirely new, awesome, friendly, truly fantastic fantasy quest from #1 international bestselling author Jeff Kinney!
From the imagination of Wimpy Kid’s Rowley Jefferson comes an adventure of epic proportions! Join Roland and his best friend, Garg the Barbarian, as they leave the safety of their village and embark on a quest to save Roland’s mum from the White Warlock. Will our heroes survive?
