A Fine Family is the extraordinary chronicle-- rich in passion and incident--- of several generations of a Punjabi family. covers partition and then life in East Punjab.

A Fine Family

DAS, GURCHARAN

Literature & Fiction

Penguin Group USA

The prize-winning Larins Sahib is a historical play set in the 1840s a confused period after the death of Ranjit Singh when the British first arrived in the Punjab.  Mira, a rite of Krishna for five actor-dancers , explores what it means for a human being to become a saint through the story of Mirabai, the sixteenth-century Rajput princess poet.  9 Jakhoo Hill, the third play in this volume, is set in the autumn of 1962 in Simla. It examines a number of themes the changing social order with the rise of a new middle class (while the old class foolishly clings on to spent dreams), the hold of Indian mothers on their sons and the eventual betrayal of sexual love.  This trio of unusual plays, written by Gurcharan Das when he was in his twenties, will interest both general readers and theatre buffs.

Three Plays

Dramas & Plays

India Penguin

India Grows at Night: A Liberal Case for a Strong State

Indians wryly admit that India grows at night . But that is only half the saying; the full expression is: India grows at night... when the government sleeps , suggesting that the nation may be rising despite the state. India s is a tale of private success and public failure. Prosperity is, indeed, spreading across the country even as governance failure pervades public life. But how could a nation become one of the world s fastest-growing economies when it s governed by a weak, ineffective state? And wouldn t it be wonderful if India also grew during the day in other words, if public policy supported private enterprise? What India needs, Gurcharan Das says, is a strong liberal state. Such a state would have the authority to take quick, decisive action; it would have the rule of law to ensure those actions are legitimate; and finally, it would be accountable to the people. But achieving this will not be easy, says Das, because India has historically had a weak state and a strong society.

India Grows At Night: A Liberal Case for a Strong State

Essays & Correspondence

Acclaimed columnist and business leader Sujeev Shakya examines not only the squandered opportunities of the past but also what Nepali citizens need to do to escape from a feudal history of dependence and powerlessness. Here are resourceful village communities who manage their own electricity, aspirational Nepali youth, energetic migrant workers, and driven foreign-aid workers, who can make this dream a reality. Compelling and eminently readable, this updated and enriched edition brings the country alive with its acute business understanding, humour and local colour. Here is a Nepal that could be an Asian Tiger.

Unleashing Nepal

Business & Money

Economics

In the nineteenth century, a tiny community from the deserts of Rajasthan spread out to every corner of India. The Marwaris controlled much of the country s inland trade by the time of the First World War. They then turned their hand to industry and, by the 1970s, owned most of India s private industrial assets. Today, Marwari businessmen account for a quarter of the Indian names on the Forbes billionaires list. What makes the Marwaris so successful? Is it their indomitable enterprise, or their incredible appetite for risk? In this new book, Thomas Timberg shows how the Marwaris rely on a centuries-old system for conserving and growing capital which has stood them in good stead, alongside a strong sense of business ethics which has earned them respect. Family businesses in general and the Marwaris in particular might have a vital role to play in shaping India s economic future.

The Marwaris: From Jagat Seth to the Birlas

TOM.

Timberg, Thomas A

Allen Lane.

Another Sort Of Freedom

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Gurcharan Das is one of India's most popular playwrights. This volume brings together three of his English plays, two of which have never been published before: Larins Sahib, Mira, and Jakhoo Hill.

Three English Plays: Larins Sahib, Mira, 9 Jakhoo Hill

Oxford University Press

Gurcharan Das is one of India's most popular playwrights. This volume brings together three of his English plays, two of which have never been published before: Larins Sahib, Mira, and Jakhoo Hill.

Three English Plays: Lairns Sahib/Mira/9 Jakhoo Hill

Why should we be good? How should we be good? And how might we more deeply understand the moral and ethical failings--splashed across today's headlines--that have not only destroyed individual lives but caused widespread calamity as well, bringing communities, nations, and indeed the global economy to the brink of collapse? In The Difficulty of Being Good, Gurcharan Das seeks answers to these questions in an unlikely source: the 2,000 year-old Sanskrit epic, Mahabharata. A sprawling, witty, ironic, and delightful poem, the Mahabharata is obsessed with the elusive notion of dharma--in essence, doing the right thing. When a hero does something wrong in a Greek epic, he wastes little time on self-reflection; when a hero falters in the Mahabharata, the action stops and everyone weighs in with a different and often contradictory take on dharma. Each major character in the epic embodies a significant moral failing or virtue, and their struggles mirror with uncanny precision our own familiar emotions of anxiety, courage, despair, remorse, envy, compassion, vengefulness, and duty. Das explores the Mahabharata from many perspectives and compares the successes and failures of the poem's characters to those of contemporary individuals, many of them highly visible players in the world of economics, business, and politics. In every case, he finds striking parallels that carry lessons for everyone faced with ethical and moral dilemmas in today's complex world. Written with the flair and seemingly effortless erudition that have made Gurcharan Das a bestselling author around the world--and enlivened by Das's forthright discussion of his own personal search for a more meaningful life--The Difficulty of Being Good shines the light of an ancient poem on the most challenging moral ambiguities of modern life.

The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma

India today is a vibrant free-market democracy and has begun to flex its muscles in the global information economy and on the world stage. Now, acclaimed columnist Gurcharan Das traces India's recent social and economic transformations in an eminently readable, impassioned narrative. Das tells the stories of the major players in a period of rapid and profound change—from schoolchildren inspired by Nehru's speeches in the early days of Independence to the current software impresarios—and makes comprehensible and compelling the economic and political development responsible for these changes. He weaves his personal story into the larger context of contemporary history: his family's move to America in the mid-1950s, his education at Harvard, his years in India as a young marketing executive wrestling with a socialist system he feared would undermine the country's vast potential. He also shows us the reasons behind his optimism for his nation's future, among which is the exciting landscape of information technology today. Das argues that the changes of the past fifty years have, at last, amounted to a revolution—and it is one that has not been chronicled before. With India Unbound, he gives us a book that is at once vigorously analytical and vividly written—an essential insider's road map to India, then and now.

India Unbound

KNOPF

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