Feted for its electric chaos, the city of Bombay also accommodates pockets of calm. In one such enclave, Mohan, a middle-aged letter writer - the last of a dying profession - sits under a banyan tree in Fort, furnishing missives for village migrants, disenchanted lovers, and when pickings are slim, filling in money order forms. But Mohan's true passion is collecting second-hand books; he's particularly attached to novels with marginal annotations. So when the pavement booksellers of Fort are summarily evicted, Mohan's life starts to lose some of its animating lustre. At this tenuous moment Mohan - and his wife, Lakshmi - are joined in Saraswati Park, a suburban housing colony, by their nephew, Ashish, a diffident, sexually uncertain 19-year-old who has to repeat his final year in college. As Saraswati Park unfolds, the lives of each of the three characters are thrown into sharp relief by the comical frustrations of family life: annoying relatives, unspoken yearnings and unheard grievances. When Lakshmi loses her only brother, she leaves Bombay for a relative's home to mourn not only the death of a sibling but also the vital force of her marriage. Ashish, meanwhile, embarks on an affair with a much richer boy in his college; it ends abruptly. Not long afterwards, he succumbs to the overtures of his English tutor, Narayan. As Mohan scribbles away in the sort of books he secretly hopes to write one day, he worries about whether his wife will return, what will become of Ashish's life, and if he himself will ever find his own voice to write from the margins about the centre of which he will never be a part. Elliptical and enigmatic, but beautifully rendered and wonderfully involving, Saraswati Park is a book about love and loss and the noise in our heads - and how, in spite of everything, life, both lived and imagined, continues.
Do the elusive dollmakers, on a strange island forever adrift, really exist? What makes the new government and countless others suspicious of them? Are they simply waiting to return and claim their home once again?
Ronen Ghito would give his left hand to find out. But he needs Leela?s help. And Leela is too preoccupied, sitting under the watchful eyes of a cagey government, waiting for her Shyam to turn up on this very mysterious isle that exists on no map. When Leela does decide to co-operate with the government, she does it through long missives and emails, now that her voice is mysteriously lost too, revealing in bits and pieces lost myths and disquieting tales about the dollmakers from the time of the Mughal emperors to the present.
Alice-like in its feel and treatment, The Dollmakers? Island is an interesting perspective on the socio-political scenario in India through the ages. The narrative flows across and over time and space, breaking all barriers. The book is tongue-in-cheek, persistent, and fun to read.
This endearing, witty, self-deprecating memoir documents the life of one of the leading feminists of the contemporary Indian women's movement. Vina Mazumdar, one of the key reserchers and writers of the landmark report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India, Towards Equality, here documents her early life, her gradual politicization in a household of liberal, educated Bengalis, and her involvement in women's issues and the women's movement. Brought up to be outspoken and frank, Vinadi, as she is affectionately known, began by becoming involved in university-level politics in Bihar. Marriage and a young family did not prevent her from pursuing her studies and her career, in the teeth of considerable opposition from relatives but with constant support from her mother. On her return to India, Vinadi first moved into the field of education, and then with her involvement in the research and writing of Towards Equality, was catapulted into the women's movement. An activist and institution builder, Viandi set up the Centre for Women's Development Studies in Delhi, one of the leading research and outreach institutions for women in the country. In this rare memoir, Vinadi provides a rich history of the contemporary women's movement in India.
The six short stories are about ordinary and, sometimes, not-so-ordinary people. Though based in and around Delhi, these stories are really about people anywhere any-when; about people like you and I, and the eccentric world we live in. Swathes of the untold lie at the nub of "Turtle Dove: Six Simple Tales". Divya Dubey's book presents a stark yet compelling universe. The melange of stories sit on the cusp of the familiar yet not so familiar.
It all started in August 1968 when Babo, with curly hair and jhill mill teeth, became the first member of the Patel family to leave Madras and fly on a plane all the way to London to further his education. His father should have known there would be trouble: on the morning of the departure he had his first and only dream, in which strange ghosts threw poison-tipped arrows and all his family was lost...But off Babo went, and now here he is, in a flat off the Finchley Road, untraditionally making love to a cream-skinned girl from Wales, Sian Jones, who he fell head over heels for as soon as he saw the twirl of red ribbon in her hair. Ba-ba-boom, ba-ba-boom, ba-ba-boom-boom-boom. Theirs is a mixed-up love in a topsy-turvy world, and their two families will never be the same again. Meet the Patel-Joneses: Babo, Sian, Mayuri and Bean, in their little house with orange and black gates next-door to the Punjab Women's Association. As the twentieth century creaks and croaks its way along - somewhere out there Charles and Diana get hitched; Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her own bodyguards; cable TV arrives in India - these four navigate their way through the uncharted territory of a 'hybrid' family: the hustle and bustle of Babo's relatives, the faraway phone-line crackle of Sian's, the eternal wisdom and soft bosom of great-grandmother Ba, the perils of first love, lost innocence and old age, and the big question: what do you do with the space your loved ones leave behind?
In Dagran society, Alex is the lowest of the low?a ?mare?, an object to be used by the nobility. When her owner, Stephen Garnath, gifts her to his greatest rival, she begins plotting her path to freedom. Nothing and no one will ever control her again. Not her degrading past, and certainly not her growing attraction to a man reputed to be an even crueler master than Garnath. Robert Demeresna is instantly suspicious of such a generous gift. Yet she comes to him armed with only her sharp mind?a potent weapon he can use to defend his people from the enemy. And underneath, an unbreakable spirit that besieges the walls of his heart. Slowly, Robert chips away at Alex?s defenses, striking sparks that make her begin to believe even a lowly whore like her could be worthy of him. Until Garnath springs a trap so cleverly hidden, war is unleashed before either of them sees it coming. A new kind of war fought with steam engines, explosives?and magic with a killing edge? [Warning: Contains violence, steam engines, steamier sex and multiple explosions of the unstable chemical variety. :-)]
Seelawathi, a young village girl is brought to the city to care for Cat, the daughter of a prominent Colombo family. With her parents involved with each other and their active social life, Cat soon comes to regard Seelawathi as her parent and best friend. They build their own happy microcosmic life within the large household, and are relatively content until Seelawathi falls in love. Her forbidden relationship challenges the rigid boundaries of society and leads to a cataclysmic end of innocence. The Lament of the Dhobi Woman explores the issue of class in Colombo society and the fragile intricacies of love and forgiveness.
3 January 2000. It is the start of the new millennium. On Ammanagudi Street in Bangalore, a strange creature is spotted. As the beast seizes the imagination of the city, the first people to sight it—Shrinivas Moorty, a teacher in a local college, Pushpa Rani, who works in a call centre, Neela Mary Gopalrao, secretary to an influential man, and Sukhiya Ram, her office boy—are invited to talk about it on Bali Brums’s hugely popular radio show. What was it that they saw? A bat? A malevolent avatar? A sign of the displeasure of the gods? The grotesque mascot of a city that is growing too fast and crumbling too soon? Or merely a monkey that has lost its way?
In Shadow Princess, Indu Sundaresan picks up where she left off in The Twentieth Wife and The Feast of Roses, returning to seventeenth-century India a few years after Mehrunnisa's death, as two royal princesses struggle for power.
The daughters of the emperor, Jahangir and Roshanara, conspire and scheme against one another in an attempt to gain power over their father's harem. As royal princesses, they are confined in the imperial harem and not allowed to marry. However, this does not stop them from having illicit affairs or plotting who will be the next heir to the throne.
These royal sisters are in competition for everything: control over the harem, their father's affection, and the future of their country. Unfortunately, only one of them can succeed. And despite their best efforts to affect the future, their schemes are eclipsed, both during their lives and in posterity, as they live in the shadow of the greatest monument in Indian history, the Taj Mahal.
Long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize, The Moon in the Water is a story of a young woman?s search for family. An unexpectedly revealed secret threatens to destroy her very identity, family bonds and reveal complicated threads of love. Khadeeja Rasheed has the perfect life in far away Geneva. A loving family, a fulfilling career and an adoring boyfriend. When her father is accidentally killed in a bomb blast she returns home to Sri Lanka. There she discovers a secret that threatens to destroy family bonds and reveal complicated threads of love, loyalty and betrayal. The Moon in the Water brings a young women's search for recognition and family vividly to life. In this story of deep desires, identity and passion, Ameena Hussein draws a dramatic portrait of loss, bewildering love and possible forgiveness.
At twenty-one, Deen is dismayed by the poverty around him and trappedin negativity. Alienated from family and society, heroin is his drug of choice. Deen and his partner in crime, AJ, ride high on acid and amphetamines, philosophize in the university canteen, party in a politician's posh pad and contemplate God at a roadside tea stall. From Maria, a chemically imbalanced diva, to a rickshaw-walla who reflects on the importance of positive energy, to a group of fakirs who sing about love, and a detective who has his own take on addiction, the characters in Shazia Omar's debut novel crackle with life. They represent the despair, hopes and aspirations of a generation struggling to survive in the harsh realities of life in modern Dhaka.
Following the success of her first novel Monsoons and Potholes, Manuka Wijesinghe digs deeper into the history and psyche of her native Sri Lanka with this story of a village schoolmaster who finds his unwavering faith in Theravada Buddhism and the British education system challenged by the irrational forces of astrology, numerology and human desire. Told with characteristic passion and humour, the story combines a satirical take on the Sinhala myth with a healthy dose of its own brand of mysticism. Manuka's strengths are her unique narrative voice, her playwright's ear for dialogue, and her idiosyncratic perspective on her nation's history and culture. Following the success of her first novel Monsoons and Potholes, Manuka Wijesinghe digs deeper into the history and psyche of her native Sri Lanka with this story of a village schoolmaster who finds his unwavering faith in Theravada Buddhism and the British education system challenged by the irrational forces of astrology, numerology and human desire. Told with characteristic passion and humour, the story combines a satirical take on the Sinhala myth with a healthy dose of its own brand of mysticism. Manuka's strengths are her unique narrative voice, her playwright's ear for dialogue, and her idiosyncratic perspective on her nation's history and culture.
These ten memorable stories explore interior worlds and moments of intensity, either awakening or loss, in the lives of diverse characters?mostly young girls and married women, but also boys and long-laboring men. Whether Hindu, Muslim, or Christian, they are all burdened by the complex layerings of class and gender, and are variously able or unable to find escape from the conditions of oppression that surround them. Some manage to rise above their situations by experiencing the denials and hardships of their lives as temporary; others find no such relief.
‘I wish I had known his nature before our marriage. Maybe that would have helped me decide.’ Sheena, a busy professional, is happily married (or so she thinks). Life has become humdrum, and she has more or less accepted her fate, when suddenly life takes a turn and she finds herself trapped between duty and lost love. Caught in the temptation, she struggles to hold onto her married life. Can she find a way out?