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My understanding of this ferocious, restless, relentless metropolis is that each of us who lives in this city carries a unique, if virtual, Delhi inside our heads.' Independence, four million refugees from Pakistan and the overwhelming presence of visible and invisible power that flows from New Delhi being the capital have transformed it from the unruffled imperial town it once was to the fearsome metropolis it is today. And yet, says Ranjana Sengupta, this largely unloved city deserves to be loved. Delhi is home to the most diverse population of any city in the country. The unceasing influx of migrants has unleashed new urban architectures of opulence and deprivation. Different groups have ...
‘Delhi is the twin of pure paradise, a prototype of the heavenly throne on an earthlyscroll’—Amir Khusrau A city of contradictions, where ancient traditions and modern aspirations jostle for space, Delhi has often been compared to a phoenix rising from the ashes. Its three thousand years of eventful history have witnessed the rise and fall of several empires, a process that continues today. City Improbable brings together writings by immigrants, residents, refugees, travellers and invaders who have engaged with India’s capital over different epochs. Babur shares his earliest experience of the city and Amir Khusrau praises the fine lads of Delhi; Ibn Battuta and Niccolao Manucci recor...
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*A 2011 National Book Award Finalist* A spellbinding story of renunciation, conversion, and radicalism from Pulitzer Prize-finalist biographer Deborah Baker What drives a young woman raised in a postwar New York City suburb to convert to Islam, abandon her country and Jewish faith, and embrace a life of exile in Pakistan? The Convert tells the story of how Margaret Marcus of Larchmont became Maryam Jameelah of Lahore, one of the most trenchant and celebrated voices of Islam's argument with the West. A cache of Maryam's letters to her parents in the archives of the New York Public Library sends the acclaimed biographer Deborah Baker on her own odyssey into the labyrinthine heart of twentieth-...
Appearing for the first time in English translation, In Freedom’s Shade is Anis Kidwai’s moving personal memoir of the first two years of nascent India. It is an activist’s record that reveals both the architecture of the violence during Partition as well as the efforts of ordinary citizens to bring the cycle of reprisal and retribution to a close. Beginning from the murder of her husband in October 1947, with a rare frankness, sympathy and depth of insight, Anis Kidwai tells the stories of the thousands who were driven away from their homelands in Delhi and its neighbouring areas by eviction or abduction or the threat of forced religious conversion. Of historical importance for its account of the activities of the Shanti Dal, the recovery of abducted women and the history of Delhi, In Freedom’s Shade also has an equal contemporary relevance. In part a delineation of the roots of the afflictions that beset Indian society and in part prophetic about the plagues that were to come, Anis Kidwai’s testament is an enduring reminder that memory without truth is futile; only when it serves the objective of reconciliation, does it achieve meaning and significance.
Penguin'S Annual Offering, First Proof Showcases New Writing And New Writers, The Purpose Being To Highlight Emerging Talent As Well As Writers Who Have Enjoyed Acclaim But Not As Wide A Readership As They Clearly Deserve. The Few Established Authors You Might Find Here Are Writing In A Genre Completely New To Them. A Selection Of Luminous Prose And Sparkling Poetry, First Proof 2 Covers Diverse Styles And Genres. From Reflections And Memories To Portraits And Biographies; From Society And Media Trends To Travel And History, This Second Volume Includes Works In Progress, Essays, Short Stories And, For The First Time, Poetry.
Writer, Educationist And Three-Time Lok Sabha Mp From Kolkata, Krishna Bose Gives A Compelling Account Of Her Journey From The Time She Was A Schoolgirl Witnessing Some Of The Tragic Scenes That Accompanied Partition To Her Stint As Chairperson Of The Parliamentary Standing Committee On External Affairs. Married Into The Family Of Subhas Chandra Bose, Her Acute Yet Sympathetic Observations In An Outsider In Politics Illuminate The Changing World Of The Kolkata Intelligentsia From The 1940S To The Present Day. She Writes Vividly Of Her Experiences As An Academic And A Working Mother And Gives A Ringside View Of The Drama Of Election Campaigns, The Complexities Of Parliamentary Politics And The Forces Shaping India&Rsquo;S Foreign Policy At The Turn Of The New Millennium. This Understated But Elegantly Written Memoir Combines Intimate Family And Social History With A Gripping Political Memoir.
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The attacks on Mumbai on 26 November 2008 brought home to Indians the full horror of terrorism. It also brought home, quite literally, the change in the contemporary face of war. War today is no longer confined to battle fields; it is right here. How is India equipped to deal with this menace which has been described as an 'ultramodern, and a very traditional, conspiracy'? In this collection of essays, nine eminent experts-strategic analysts and military historians-examine, among other issues, the capacity of India's police and paramilitary forces to deal with well-equipped, meticulously planned terror attacks, the army's ability to transform its 'reactive mode' to a more proactive approach and the complex dynamics of the nuclear terror threat. And, the big question, if elements within the Pakistani establishment are involved in the threat to India, what is the most effective way for the Indian state to respond? This collection illuminates one of the most burning issues facing Indians today.
The Gaudiya Vaisnava movement is one of the most vibrant religious groups in all of South Asia. Unlike most devotional communities that flourished in 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century Bengal, however, the group had no formal founder. Today its devotees are uniform in their devotion to the historical figure of Krishna Caitanya (1486-1533), whom they believe to be not just Krishna incarnate, but Radha and Krishna fused into a single androgynous form. But Caitanya neither founded the community that coalesced around him nor named a successor. Tony Stewart seeks to discover how, with no central leadership, no institutional authority, and no geographic center, a religious community nevertheless comes to successfully define itself, fix its canon and flourish. He finds the answer in the brilliant hagiographical exercise in Sanskrit and Bengali titled the Caitanya Caritamrita (CC) of Krishnadasa Kaviraja.