Ratno Dholi

Ratno Dholi
Author:
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2020-10-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9390327792

Brilliant ... an iconic voice - Namita Gokhale One of the finest short story writers from India - Aruni Kashyap Jenny Bhatt ... deserves our gratitude and attention - Rita Kothari Train your telescopes, ladies and gentlemen, Dhumketu is here! - Jerry Pinto The tragic love story of a village drummer and his dancer lover... A long-awaited letter that arrives too late... A tea-house near Darjeeling, run by a mysterious queen... When Dhumketu's first collection of short stories, Tankha, came out in 1926, it revolutionized the genre in India. Characterized by a fine sensitivity, deep humanism, perceptive observation and an intimate knowledge of both rural and urban life, his fiction has provided entertainment and edification to generations of Gujarati readers and speakers. Ratno Dholi brings together the first substantial collection of Dhumketu's work to be available in English. Beautifully translated for a wide new audience by Jenny Bhatt, these much-loved stories - like the finest literature - remain remarkable and relevant even today.

The Shehnai Virtuoso

The Shehnai Virtuoso
Author: Dhumketu
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2022-07-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1646051696

When Dhumketu's first collection of short stories, Tankha, came out in 1926, it revolutionized the genre in India. Characterized by a fine sensitivity, deep humanism, perceptive observation, and an intimate knowledge of both rural and urban life, his fiction has provided entertainment and edification to generations of Gujarati readers and speakers. Ratno Dholi brings together the first substantial collection of Dhumketu's work to be available in English. Beautifully translated for a wide new audience by Jenny Bhatt, these much-loved stories — like the finest literature — remain remarkable and relevant even today.

Sulekha Select

Sulekha Select
Author: P. Nandy
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2003-03
Genre: East Indians
ISBN: 9780970815705

Rising above the Web sites that provide nothing but canned content, recycled news reports, seedy chat rooms, and mind-numbing Bollywood brain candy, this collection provides an unparalleled cultural context in which Indians from around the world express themselves and interact with each other. This book brings together 42 real-life stories from contributors to the Sulekha.com Web site. Selected by the Sulekha community from nearly 1,200 writings that have been published since 1998, this delightful and diverse collection of stories features Indians from all walks of life -- a CEO of an IT company in Singapore, a Ph.D. student at an American university, a Bangladeshi writer, and many others.

The Bronze Sword of Thengphakhri Tehsildar

The Bronze Sword of Thengphakhri Tehsildar
Author: Indira Goswami
Publisher: Zubaan
Total Pages: 97
Release: 2014-03-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9383074248

Indira Goswami’s last work of fiction, The Bronze Sword of Thengphakhri Tehsildar is the heroic tale of a Bodo freedom fighter who was, arguably, the first woman revenue collector, a tehsildar, in British India. Set in late 19th-century Assam, the novel generated a great deal of interest when it was published. Thengphakhri is a fascinating character that the author recreated from folklore and songs and stories that she’d heard in her childhood. The image of the protagonist, galloping across the plains of Bijni kingdom in lower Assam to collect taxes for the British, is a compelling one and one that inspires awe and admiration. At a time when educated Indians, social reformers and the British government were trying to fight misogynist practices such as sati, child marriage and the purdah system, here was a woman working with the British officers, shoulder to shoulder, as a tax collector who rode a horse, wore a hat and had knee-length black hair. Indira Goswami has woven a complex tale wherein the foundations of the colonial rulers were shaken by insurgents seeking freedom across Assam just before the rise of the Indian National Congress. Published by Zubaan.

Andal

Andal
Author: Priya Sarukkai Chabria
Publisher: Zubaan
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2016-03-11
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 9385932004

Ninth century Tamil poet and founding saint Andal is believed to have been found as a baby underneath a holy basil plant in the temple garden of Srivilliputhur. As a young woman she fell deeply in love with Lord Vishnu, composing fervent poems and songs in his honour and, according to custom, eventually marrying the god himself. The Autobiography of a Goddess is Andal's entire corpus, composed before her marriage to Vishnu, and it cements her status as the South Indian corollary to Mirabai, the saint and devotee of Sri Krishna. The collection includes Tiruppavai, a song still popular in congregational worship, thirty pasuram (stanzas) sung before Lord Vishnu, and the less-translated, rapturously erotic Nacchiyar Tirumoli. Priya Sarrukai Chabria and Ravi Shankar employ a radical method in this translation, breathing new life into this rich classical and spiritual verse by rendering Andal in a contemporary poetic idiom in English. Many of Andal's pieces are translated collaboratively; others individually and separately. The two approaches are brought together, presenting a richly layered reading of these much-loved classic Tamil poems and songs.

Maha Nayak: Subhas Chandra Bose - A Novel

Maha Nayak: Subhas Chandra Bose - A Novel
Author: Vishwas Patil
Publisher: Eka
Total Pages: 597
Release:
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9395767332

About the Book FIRST PUBLISHED IN MARATHI IN 1998, THE NOVEL HAS BEEN TRANSLATED INTO FOURTEEN INDIAN AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES. This iconic Marathi novel by Vishwas Patil brings originality and new ideas to the most storied of lives—Subhas Chandra Bose. Possibly the most enigmatic figure in the history of India’s freedom struggle, Bose’s ideological differences with the two stalwarts of the Independence movement, Gandhi and Nehru, split the Congress down the middle. And yet he held them in high esteem, just as they admired him. While Bose asserted the independence of his own values even as he sought help from the Axis powers—Nazi Germany, Italy and later Japan—during World War II, for the cause of a free India, it was seen as treasonous and dangerous by many. Vishwas Patil recreates the life of a man who was twice elected president of the Congress, and quit to follow his own vision, forming the Indian National Army. His defiant nationalism provoked anger and distrust. Mahanayak traces Netaji’s steps from India to Germany, Italy, Singapore, Japan and Burma, to paint a complex portrait of a man of immense strengths and fatal failings. Rich with details drawn from the colossal canvas of the Indian revolution, this is an immersive historical novel that reads like a fast-paced thriller.

Phoolsunghi

Phoolsunghi
Author: Pandey Kapil
Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2021-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780670095193

'Babu Sahib! You must have heard of a phoolsunghi--the flower-pecker--yes? It can never be held captive in a cage. It sucks nectar from a flower and then flies on to the next.' When Dhelabai, the most popular tawaif of Muzaffarpur, slights Babu Haliwant Sahay, a powerful zamindar from Chappra, he resolves to build a cage that would trap her forever. Thus, the elusive phoolsunghi is trapped within the four walls of the Red Mansion. Forgetting the past, Dhelabai begins a new life of luxury, comfort, and respect. One day, she hears the soulful voice of Mahendra Misir and loses her heart to him. Mahendra too, feels for her deeply, but the lovers must bear the brunt of circumstances and their own actions which repeatedly pull them apart. The first ever translation of a Bhojpuri novel into English, Phoolsunghi transports readers to a forgotten world filled with mujras and mehfils, court cases and counterfeit currency, and the crashing waves of the River Saryu.

South to South

South to South
Author: Khem K. Aryal
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2024-09-03
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1680032976

This anthology of eight short stories and eight narrative essays depicts diverse facets of the South Asian experience in the American South. Some of them relate to the proverbial longing for what the immigrants have left behind, while the others spotlight the immigrants’ struggles to reconcile with realities they did not sign up for. In Chaitali Sen’s “The Immigrant,” Dhruv is unable to talk about a lost boy because he feels “as if he were trapping the boy with his story,” as if the lost boy’s story were his own story of getting lost in a foreign country. In Hasanthika Sirisena’s “Pine,” a Christmas tree becomes more than “only a pine tree with decorations thrown on it” when Lakshmi’s ex-husband lets her know he is converting to Christianity “to get ahead in this country.” Aruni Kashyap’s “Nafisa Ali’s Life, Love, and Friendships, Before and after the Travel Ban” tell a post-2016 immigrant story in which love is baffling. In “Gettysburg,” Kirtan Nautiyal asks, how does an immigrant become part of the new country’s history? Soniah Kamal’s essay “Writing the Immigrant Southern in the New New South” reflects on what it means to be an immigrant writer and if one can write from two places at once. Together, the stories and essays in the anthology compose a mosaic of South Asian lived experiences in the American South.

Silent Winds, Dry Seas

Silent Winds, Dry Seas
Author: Vinod Busjeet
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021-08-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0385547021

ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A sweeping debut novel that explores the intimate struggle for independence and success of a young descendant of Indian indentured laborers in Mauritius, a small multiracial island in the Indian Ocean. "The beauty of Busjeet's splendid, often breathtaking book is, like the best stories of journeys to young adulthood, the precious and well-observed and heartbreaking details of day-to-day life." --Edward P. Jones, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Known World In the 1950s, Vishnu Bhushan is a young boy yet to learn the truth beyond the rumors of his family's fractured histories--an alliance, as his mother says, of two bankrupt families. In evocative chapters, the first two decades of Vishnu's life in Mauritius unfolds with heart wrenching closeness as he battles to experience the world beyond, and the cultural, political, and familial turmoil that hold on to him. Through gorgeous and precise language, Silent Winds, Dry Seas conjures the spirit and rich life of Mauritius, even as its diverse peoples live under colonial rule. Weaving the soaring hopes, fierce love, and heart-breaking tragedies of Vishnu's proud Mauritian family together with his country's turbulent path to gain independence, Busjeet masterfully evokes the epic sweep of history in the intimate moments of a boy's life. Silent Winds, Dry Seas is a poetic, powerful, and universal novel of identity and place, of the legacies of colonialism, of tradition, modernity, and emigration, and of what a family will sacrifice for its children to thrive.

Karachi Raj

Karachi Raj
Author: Anis Shivani
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2015-11-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9351160823

The collective, indeterminable madness of Karachi And how is one to extract Karachi from oneself? The city gathers wanderers and dreamers into its bosom, contradictory, impenetrable, endlessly jostling its subjects to make room for new ones. And in this city of subterranean terrors and surprising bouts of goodness, a brother and a sister grow into their own. Seema and Hafiz, born into a Basti, long to make something of themselves. But when Seema wins a scholarship to attend university, she finds that social barriers are not easily defied, and when Hafiz finds himself smitten by a coworker's wife, he learns of the mutability of love and friendship. Meanwhile, Claire, an American anthropologist, discovers that while her professional training will only take her so far in her quest to unravel Karachi, living in the Basti is an education in itself. Anis Shivani's debut novel is an ambitious work that aches with intimacy even as it encompasses an entire generation into its bold, panoramic vision. Karachi Raj is the sort of book that will shape our understanding of urban Pakistan for years to come.