When aatish taseer receives a challenging letter from his estranged father in pakistan, he decides to set off on an expedition across the islamic world in search of his own islamic heritage, as well as to discover how other young people across the middle east felt about theirs in a post-911 world aatish is forced to confront himself and his relationship with the religious and secular worlds he moves in, as one of many crisis children living on the faultline of islam and modernity he explores issues of identity and religious self-discovery with a fascinating cross-section of people ranging from transvestites in full hijab in istanbul, and norwegians considering conversions in damascus, to hare krishnas in tehran as he travels, aatish tells the story of his own family over the past fifty years it is an absorbing and thought-provoking journey which culminates in an emotional reunion between aatish and his father in lahore, on a day that brings home the stark reality of attempts to reconcile old belief systems and liberal reform in a divided region where east meets west

Stranger to History

Aatish Taseer

Travel

Picador

The Way Things Were

The Twice-Born: Life and Death on the Ganges

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

C. Hurst & Co. Publishers Ltd.

Canongate Books Ltd.

Noon

Harpercollins

Stranger to History: A Son's Journey through Islamic Lands

Leaders & Notable People

HARPER/COLLINS

It is spring in Delhi when the narrator arrives. There are bright buses on new roads and metro construction is on in full swing. New townships called Sectorpur and Phasenagar have joined the metropolis' sprawl. Back after several years abroad, the narrator is intrigued by the transformations he sees. Amid this bustle, he wants to settle down to revise a novel, learn Urdu and join a gym. He meets Zafar Moradabadi, an old city poet, and Aakash Sharma. A beautiful friendship blooms with Zafar; but with the ambitious, irresistible gym trainer Aakash, something more sinister takes shape.  Spring turns to summer a summer abroad and summer to winter; his relationship with his lovely girlfriend Sanyogita starts to falter, his book suffers. He becomes entwined in Aakash's secret affair with a robust heiress. In growing to understand the ambitions and desires of those around him Zafar saab, Aakash, the healthy' Megha, Sanyogita, and her sexy aunt, the maharani-chief minister Chamunda in seeking out the experiences of this new Delhi of relaxed boundaries, he becomes aware of the million smouldering fights and affections that light up the city's life.

The Temple-Goers

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Harper-Collins India

Fourth Estate India

The Way Things Were opens with the death of Toby, the Maharaja of Kalasuryaketu, a Sanskritist who has not set foot in India for two decades. It falls to his son, Skanda, to return Toby's body to his birthplace, "a tin-pot kingdom" not worth "one air-gun salute." This journey takes him halfway around the world and returns him to his family, the drawing-room elite of Delhi, whose narcissism and infighting he has worked hard to escape. It also forces him to reckon with his parents' marriage, a turbulent love affair that began in passion but ended in pain and futility. Aatish Taseer's The Way Things Were takes its title from the Sanskrit word for history, itihasa, whose literal translation is "the way things indeed were." It is both an intimate portrait of a family and a panoramic vision of the last half century of life in Delhi, with Sanskrit woven in as central metaphor and chorus. Through one man's struggle with his inheritance, it explores the cultural schizophrenia of modern India and the difficulty of building honestly on the past.

way things were, the

Picador India

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Books by Aatish Taseer