Lakshmi’s Secret Diary

Lakshmi’s Secret Diary
Author: Ari Gautier
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 179
Release: 2024-09-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0231559186

Seeking to escape captivity, Lakshmi the temple elephant sets out on a stirring journey toward freedom. On her way, she briefly experiences life as a film star and encounters a colorful cast including a three-legged dog named Tripod Dog Baba, other elephants in the Bandipur Forest, a chameleon facing an existential crisis, a moon who dances with an elephant, and a flying fish called Alphonse. Lakshmi’s Secret Diary is a remarkable Indian Francophone novel set in Pondicherry, the former capital of French India. Blending philosophical meditations, retellings of Sanskrit mythology, and social critique, Ari Gautier tells the story of Lakshmi’s attempt to escape her fate. From the point of view of animals, the novel explores concepts of destiny, freedom, and identity. It illuminates the paradoxes of animal-human relations in India, where animals are both abused and worshiped, and provides an imaginative critique of the caste system. Gautier’s vivid portrait of Pondicherry brings to life the religious, cultural, culinary, and visual diversity of the city’s districts and sheds light on the little-known history of French colonialism in India. An afterword explores issues such as reincarnation and Indian translation traditions in relation to the novel. At once tragic and comic, satirical and surreal, Lakshmi’s Secret Diary is a surprising, compelling, and moving novel from a gifted storyteller.

The Thinnai

The Thinnai
Author: Ari Gautier
Publisher: Hachette India
Total Pages: 141
Release: 2021-08-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9389253489

If there was anything our neighbours envied us, it was our thinnais. The working-class district of Kurusukuppam is not the Pondicherry of tourist brochures. Here, residents are a bewildering mix of Creoles, colonial war veterans, proud communists and French citizens who have never left India's shores. It is a place of everyday tragedies, melodramatic occurrences and stubborn, absurd hope. But life in Kurusukuppam is upturned by the arrival of a curious tramp, Gilbert Thaata, a wizened Frenchman who has clearly seen hard times. Settling down on the narrator's verandah, his thinnai, Gilbert Thaata begins to earn his keep by recounting the tale of the rise and fall of his family's fortunes as the custodians of a mysterious diamond, the Stone of Sita. The fanciful story that unfolds is one that stretches across centuries and encompasses the history of France's colonial legacy in India. As entranced as they are by the raconteur, his listeners cannot help but ask - just who is this old man and how did he fall on such misfortune? Masterfully translated from the French original by Blake Smith, Ari Gautier's The Thinnai offers a panoramic view of Pondicherry's past, the whimsical eccentricities of its present and shines a light on the quirks of history that come to define us.

Transfiction: Characters in Search of Translation Studies

Transfiction: Characters in Search of Translation Studies
Author: Marko Miletich
Publisher: Vernon Press
Total Pages: 138
Release:
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1648898122

This book explores the uses of translation, translators, and interpreters in fiction as a gateway to introduce issues related to Translation Studies. The volume follows recent scholarship on Transfiction, a term used to describe the portrayal of translation (both a topic and a motif), as well as translators and interpreters in fiction and film. It expands on the research by Kalus Kaindl, Karleheinz Splitzl, Michael Cronin, and Rosemary Arrojo, among others. Although the volume reflects the preoccupation with translator visibility, it concentrates on the importance of power struggles within the translatorial task. The volume could be an invaluable tool to be used for pedagogical purposes to discuss theoretical aspects within Translation and Interpreting Studies.

Dirty River

Dirty River
Author: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Publisher: arsenal pulp press
Total Pages: 139
Release: 2016-01-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1551526018

Lambda Literary Award finalist In 1996, poet Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha ran away from America with two backpacks and ended up in Canada, where she discovered queer anarchopunk love and revolution, yet remained haunted by the reasons she left home in the first place. This passionate and riveting memoir is a mixtape of dreams and nightmares, of immigration court lineups and queer South Asian dance nights; it reveals how a disabled queer woman of color and abuse survivor navigates the dirty river of the past and, as the subtitle suggests, "dreams her way home." Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's poetry book Love Cake won a Lambda Literary Award. This publication meets the EPUB Accessibility requirements and it also meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG-AA). It is screen-reader friendly and is accessible to persons with disabilities. A Simple book with few images, which is defined with accessible structural markup. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order and semantic structure.

Nocturne Pondicherry

Nocturne Pondicherry
Author: Ari Gautier
Publisher: Hachette India
Total Pages: 103
Release: 2024-06-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 935731458X

A postman struggles to deliver the last letter on his last day of work. A prostitute elopes with the auto rickshaw driver who arranged clients for her. An inspector discovers the dead body of the boy he had an altercation with the previous evening. In seven riveting stories, Ari Gautier peels back the layers of human emotions until glimpses of greed, anger and lust can finally reveal themselves. Unsettling and irresistible, Nocturne Pondicherry is an all too realistic collection where mundane situations - featuring common people, ill-fated street dwellers and hapless immigrants - pull readers in and fling them into the abyss.

Tangy Tart Hot and Sweet

Tangy Tart Hot and Sweet
Author: Padma Lakshmi
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2021-03-16
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 0306926059

Find a dazzling variety of recipes from around the world in this entertaining cookbook that combines life lessons and delectable meals—written by the host of Bravo's Top Chef and Hulu's Taste the Nation. Inspired by her travels to some of the most secluded corners of the planet, Padma Lakshmi shares the origins and secrets of her latest recipes for simple to prepare, international cuisine. She makes it easy to delight your guests with savory and sweet dishes such as Keralan Crab Cakes, Fresh Green Beans with Lentils and Coconut, Krispy Fried Chicken, BBQ Korean Short Ribs, and Chocolate Amaretto Ice Cream. By introducing a host of enticing flavors and spices, an everyday kitchen is transformed into a global one. Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet is both a culinary and personal scrapbook of Padma's life, highlighted by dazzling photography and evocative personal stories about her lifelong connection to food and cooking. From appetizers to entrées, soups to desserts—Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet is perfect for anyone who wants cooking to be easy, elegant, and unforgettable.

Enlightenment Is the Secret to Fly

Enlightenment Is the Secret to Fly
Author: Devinder Sharma
Publisher: Author House
Total Pages: 721
Release: 2011-10-28
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1456786121

Each one of us is confronted with the same question at sometime or the other, "Who am I"? There is no one person within struggling with a monkey on their shoulders. Either we tame this monkey and experience true happiness, joy and enlightenment or surrender which take us on the road to disillusionment, surrender to the meandering mind and a wasted life. Search for one's soul is a difficult road but there is light at the end. The path whether religious, humanistic, mystic or scholarly or work centered releases energy within and creates opportunity to break out of our shackles. Sincere effort is rewarded with direction, provoked by unfathomable forces. As one traverses the path of self discovery milestones have no meaning, but what matters is to find wings to fly. Enlightenment is the Secret to Fly, wrestles with "Who am I"? The novel a fictional story takes the reader on a tour of beliefs, thoughts, customs and sensibilities of Indian spiritual and religious thought and explores concepts of happiness, joy and enlightenment. The protagonist is a middle aged company executive who wants to opt out from the rat race and his efforts brings him to a sadhu who has achieved enlightenment at a young age and the novel follows the life of this sadhu from childhood, schooling, his tragedies, training in a hermitage and his eventual enlightenment, his leaving the hermitage and his travels. As he travels in the Himalayas he encounters people from many parts of the world seeking peace, happiness, tranquility and a meaning in their sufferings and life. Life outside his hermitage is very different and he is saddened with the injustice, insensitivity and the unhappy lives of people. He seeks a different enlightenment and believes that institutions including hermitages where he spent many years, temples, organized religion or governments unable to provide the means for peace and happiness in spite of the many organized entities intruding in peoples lives individual unhappiness and disillusionment were increasing. Since what men seek lie within hence solutions to ones discontent is personal. He finds a simple solution at the end of his travels that will end mans misery and brings joy back in their lives.

The Diary of a Snake Charmer

The Diary of a Snake Charmer
Author: Sandeep Saxena
Publisher: Notion Press
Total Pages: 746
Release: 2016-06-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1945400927

“‘Utthisht Bharat,’ he said, and in that magical moment I felt that the river, the trees, and the sky…were saying, ‘Utthisht Bharat.’ I got up, never to look back or have doubts again.” Just as the Bharata of yore responded to the Lord’s call to rise up from dejection, to fulfill his glorious destiny, this modern day Bharat too rises up from the pits of despair and defeat, to set out steadily on his appointed path of duty. Bharat, an IITian, with a management degree from IIM, had a ‘successful’ innings in the corporate world, with overseas postings too. Having acquired a substantial bank balance, he has the urge to set up a business in rural India, which will bring greater profits to the farmers. Predictably, he is ruthlessly pushed out, and systematically ruined by the vested interests that feel threatened. Deep in despair, he gets help from a most unexpected quarter, a poor tribal snake charmer, known as Nagbaba… A gripping tale of how he comes out from the mires of debt and ruin, to rise up again, wiser but undeterred from his chosen path… A story of modern India, the two Indias of the cities and the villages… the urban, educated, elite youth with modern knowledge from science and technology, and the illiterate people of the forests, who have the wealth of wisdom passed down from centuries… the development of cities, which takes place at the cost of the proliferation of slums… the two different cultures that coexist in mutual wariness and mistrust…

The lost DNA 2050

The lost DNA 2050
Author: Kava Kamz
Publisher: Pustaka Digital Media
Total Pages: 142
Release: 2021-11-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Mix of Indian Mythology and Science We, the Homo sapiens, are uninformed of the mysterious history which our early ancestors lived through for millions of years. The characters of this novel, including an investigative journalist, anthropologist, brain and neurology professor, physical research head, space scientist, archaeologist, cancer specialist and siddha scientists, will lead you along the unimaginable hidden secrets of our world which are set to happen in the near future. More than half of this novel is set in 2050, where you will be astonished by the modern technology and the evolution of life. The love, friendship, trust, hate, betrayal and greed of the characters depict the reality of human nature. So get ready for a fascinating science fiction story! Welcome to the future!

Log 23

Log 23
Author:
Publisher: Blue Rose Publishers
Total Pages: 120
Release: 2024-09-03
Genre: True Crime
ISBN:

8 victims, 8 days and a case that was closed 5 years ago — Anna Cadel, a 16 year old girl’s investigation, to prove her teacher, Mr.Bardot’s innocence, had ceased 5 years ago after he was convicted. However, a recent murder of a 43 year old, in Apex Grove and its eerie similarity with the homicides 5 years ago reignite a will and curiosity in Anna to reopen the case and regain her trust in Mr. Bardot. A chance encounter, misleading evidence and deceiving alibis define Anna’s journey in unveiling the truth behind the murders.