"What is sin?" a student in the Mauryan period (about 300 BCE) asks his guru. The guru sends two students to be apprentices to two prominent men, and report back to him after a year. The two men are poles apart. Kumargiri is a yogi; Beejagupta a hedonist who loves Chitralekha, the enchanting dancer. This story of the tangled lives of Chitralekha, Beejagupta and Kumargiri revolves around the student's question. Chitralekha draws on the traditional folk tale format in which two princes set out on difficult journeys, in completely different directions, to seek something rare. Bhagwati Charan Verma’s skilful use of this device, larger-than-life characters, clear descriptions and sensitive use of language made Chitralekha a landmark Hindi novel in 1934. Cernunnos Books is proud to bring you the first recent English translation of this literary jewel.

The Dancer, Her Lover and the Yogi: Chitralekha

Literature & Fiction

Verma, Bhagwati Charan

United States

Cernunnos Books

A loner finds solace near a cremation ground. A professor of fiction concocts anecdotes in her classes. A prisoner falls in love with a woman whom he can only look at through a hole in a wall. A film director enters a time machine that is in beta version. A hunted man goes to a temple to seek peace and comes out with his shirt drenched in blood. A god-man gives audience from a mansion that changes locations. A mother rushing to reach her ailing son runs into Satan in a train coach… In these pages, you will find stories with a voice that is unique. These are stories imagined by present-day Hindi writers. Hindi and its dialects are understood by about half a billion people mainly in the north and central parts of India, but modern Hindi literature remains largely ignored in the rest of the world. In 2015, Cernunnos Books and Kathadesh magazine launched the first Hindi Tales of Mystery and Imagination contest. The winning stories were published in Hindi in Kathadesh. This collection brings these stories together for the first time in English. Cernunnos Books proudly presents the first fruit of a rare project that combines new writing and translation.

Hindi Tales of Mystery and Imagination Volume 1

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Verma, Archana

Mystery

In the ancient republic of Vaishali, a childless couple discover an abandoned infant girl in a mango orchard. They name her Ambapali, one who sprouted from a mango. When she turns eighteen, Ambapali is forced to become a courtesan – the Bride of the City – under Vaishali’s laws which dictate that a woman as beautiful as her cannot be only one man’s wife. Ambapali bows before the iron law of her society, but does not allow herself to be crushed. She sets terms that make her residence, the Palace of Seven Worlds, a centre of power. While the richest and the most powerful men grovel before her, Ambapali bides her time even as she burns with revenge…\nVaishali Ki Nagarvadhu was published in Hindi in 1948-49. With its vast canvas of characters including the Buddha and Mahavir, its moods, and its depictions of lust, love, statecraft, sorcery, war, spiritualism, and above all, of the human condition, this is an unrivalled epic.

Bride of the City Volume 1: Vaishali Ki Nagarvadhu

Chatursen, Acharya

Genre Fiction

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