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A Bend in Time
Description In this collection of stories and essays by children and young adults from different parts of India, we see unbridled imagination and empathy, as they write about what is happening around them. While one writer wonders why her dreams have gone missing, another turns to history to see what lockdowns would have been like in ancient times. There are heartrending and deeply emotional stories of lives lost and the stark inequalities that the pandemic has laid bare. Some writers wonder if the star of hope will ever shine again, and others look for relief in scientific thought, in writing, and in books. Throughout the collection there runs a sense of time lost and gained-of how this phase of global history is a bend in time. Intensely honest, wise yet innocent, thoughtful and full of hope, this anthology, introduced by award-winning children's writer Bijal Vachharajani, is a peek into the mind of a generation that could re-imagine our world and, if we are lucky, make it safer, wiser and more compassionate.
Coming Back to the City
Stories from the great metropolis--home to the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved. In Parel's Jupiter Mills chawl, one of the few remaining ones in Mumbai, live many long-time residents: Pooja, restless and trapped in an unhappy marriage, finds joy in her flourishing dabba service and attempts at learning English. Pooja's husband Mahesh whose only dream is to zip through the streets in his boss's yellow Mercedes-Benz. Dr Joshi who has hidden away two paintings: one of a murder he witnessed, and the other a striking portrait of Pooja. And Vasudha, a scheming single mother who hopes to give her daughter a better life in this treacherous city. In the parallel Mu...
CHILDREN OF THE HIDDEN LAND
Description Fifteen-year-old April lives in Imphal valley and has grown up learning to save herself from tear-gas shells and hearing stories about children disappearing. But when her best friend Henthoiba goes missing, she is determined to find him. April finds an unlikely ally in Shalini Gupta, her new schoolmate and the daughter of an army man recently posted in Imphal. With no real leads except for a bag with some of Henthoiba's belongings and sharp deduction and combat skills, the two set out to find him. As they get sucked into the investigation, they stumble upon a dangerous, unknown world-where children disappear and are trafficked and trained to be soldiers. A world where drugs, arms and gold are peddled across borders. Was Henthoiba abducted because he knew too much about this world? What awaits Shalini and April at the floating island on Loktak Lake where Henthoiba was last seen? Unflinching, tender and action-packed, Children of the Hidden Land is a story about two girls who overcome their prejudices to question their existing ideas about nation, friendship and ambition. Above all, it is a story of hope and courage.
I Have Not Seen Mandu a Fractured Soul-Memoir
Description When Swadesh Deepak-celebrated Hindi playwright and short-story writer- arrives at PGI, Chandigarh, after having tried to set himself on fire, the doctors don't know if he belongs in the burns unit or in the psychiatric ward. He's living a 'curse'. A dangerous seductress-his Mayavini-is taking revenge for his insulting rebuff at her wish to visit with him the famous lovers' palace in Mandu. She comes to him at night, sometimes with three white leopards, and she leaves the smell of her body in his nostrils. When he tries to kill himself, she tells him he will not die. He is firmly in her clutches, but he will tolerate anything for her, from humiliation at the hands of acquaintances to carnivorous worms under his skin. This fractured, shattering narrative-among the most unusual books ever published in India-records Deepak's descent into madness and his brief, uncertain recovery. Shortly after it was published, he left home for a walk one morning and never returned. As the translator, Jerry Pinto, writes in his introduction: '[Deepak's] words carry all the scars of who he was and what his illness had made of him... His voice echoes from the bottom of a well.'
A Thousand Yearnings
For many people, Urdu is indelibly associated with a bygone era: the cultural renaissance of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the face of colonial oppression, heady mushairas and romantic poetry. For others, it brings to mind the gritty prose of the Progressive Writers portraying the grim social realities of the mid-twentieth century. In this luminous collection of Urdu poetry and prose, Ralph Russell expands our world of Urdu letters to include folk and oral narratives, besides prose and poetry. By situating each form historically, he gives us a refreshing perspective on the diverse literary cultures and histories of India. Besides canonical short stories by the likes of Manto and...
Life in the Clocktower Valley
Description Srinagar, summer of 2008: the chinar trees are shedding leaves, outdated matadors are still polluting the streets and checkpoints with men in army fatigue dot the city. Samar, a college student, is head over heels in love with Rabiya, his batchmate. Secret rendezvous in matadors, campus corridors and at the city's historical sites help them to get to know each other better. But will their love survive the unending curfews and their families' opposing political allegiances? Sheikh Mubarak, Samar's neighbour, is a famed metal craftsman stuck in a loveless marriage. He is further distanced from his unsympathetic wife, Naziya, when he loses his cherished pregnant cow on a curfewed ni...
The Tiger Who Came to Tea (Read aloud by Geraldine McEwan)
This is a read-along edition with audio synced to the text, performed by Geraldine McEwan. The classic picture book story of Sophie and her extraordinary teatime guest has been loved by millions of children since it was first published more than fifty years ago. Now an award-winning animation!
The Last Email
'Your story has left me gasping. Though I did not remember the ferocious details, I had a fairly strong recollection of the incandescent feelings expressed in it. But I wasn't prepared for the full burst of passion shown by the lovers, and the fitting, though brutal, end. [...] When did you write it? No, don't tell me. I know you wrote it soon after I left India. But let me assure you, dearest Maya, that the passion still abides with me... or shall I say, with us...' Almost forty years after the end of their passionate affair in New Delhi of the late 1970s, Kevin, a vicar devoted to the political struggle for Scottish independence, and Maya, a reputed author of Hindi literary works, re-estab...
Connaught Place and the Making of New Delhi
New Delhi was the grandest planned capital city of the British empire. In its meticulous urban plan it owed as much to earlier imperial traditions of Delhi as it did to Western movements such as the Garden City and City Beautiful. It is interesting to examine the process by which this plan came into being, and the interactions between the people responsible for it. This new city also became the centre of a culture at the cusp of Indian and British Indian society - centering on the shopping precinct of Connaught Place, restaurants, clubs, cinema theatres and other institutions. In the years immediately following independence and partition, came a sudden expansion of the metropolis beyond the limits of New Delhi. This left the original New Delhi as a predominantly administrative centre, with a low density of population, and an oasis of green. Far from being a sterile space however, its many cultural institutions, public spaces and thriving shopping precincts have given it a persisting vibrancy.
How to Talk to a Tiger ... and Other Animals
A quirky compendium of animal chatterboxes Ever wanted to talk to a tiger? Or chatter with a cheetah? Or yak with a yak? This book brings together a babble of more than 100 beasties and explores the amazing ways they talk to each other. From fish that fart to alligators that dunk to fire worms that flash, you'll discover that wildlife have the strangest ways of sending a message . . .
