This is the story of Bhima, the second son, always second in line - a story never adequately told until one of India's finest writers conjured him up from the silences in Vyasa's narrative. M.T. Vasudevan Nair's Bhima is a revelation:lonely; eager to succeed; treated with a mixture of affection and contempt by his Pandava brothers,and with scorn and hatred by his Kaurava cousins.Bhima battlesincessantly with failure and disappointments. He is adept at disguising his feelings,but has an overwhelmingly intuitive understanding of everyone who crosses his path.A warrior without equal, he takes on the mighty Bakasura and Jarasandha, and ultimately Duryodhana, thus bringing the Great War to a close. However, all of Bhima's moments of triumph remain unrecognized and unrewarded. If his mother saw glory only in the skills of Arjuna and the wisdom of Yudhishtira, his beloved Draupadi cared only for the beauteous Arjuna. Bhima: Lone Warrior is the Mahabharata as only MT could tell it.It is a masterpiece of Indian literature.

Bhima Lone Warrior

Literature & Fiction

Nair, MT Vasudevan

Literary

Harper Perennial India

Interpretations of Valmiki's poem about the epic battle between Raman and his nemesis, Ravanan, tend to  focus on the glory and virtues of the hero. But in the Malayalam modern classic Oorukaaval - translated here  as The Vigil - Sarah Joseph tells a turbulent tale: that of Angadan, who believes that Raman killed his father Vali against all principles of dharma.  Unlike the celebrated central characters who are blind to or choose to ignore that which is inconvenient,  Angadan is acutely aware of the silent sufferings of the weak and disempowered. Over and over, the tormented  young vanara prince sees Raman act against justice and fair play, not the least of which is his consent to  Sita's fire ordeal. Ultimately, though, it is the person most wronged by Raman - Sita - who provides him  redemption from his searing quest for revenge.   In The Vigil, the familiar rhythm of the original poem is stirred up by Angadan's ascetic touch. Sarah Joseph  provides a new spin to the grand old story, bringing in contemporary concerns such as the environment, peace  and women's empowerment, and provides a new path, a fresh way of understanding it.

The Vigil

Joseph, Sarah

Mythology & Folk Tales

An anthology of short stories that master film-maker Satyajit Ray adapted into films. A rich zamindar has a dream that his daughter-in-law is an incarnation of Kali; a clerk's life turns upside down when he stumbles upon a magical stone which can turn any base metal into gold; a housewife steps out of her lowermiddle-class household into the big city to work as a salesgirl,and is awestruck by its labyrinthine ways; blessed with three magical boons from the king of ghosts, Goopy and Bagha fight the evil plans of the king of Halla and save the kingdom of Shundi; a group of friends run into a self-proclaimed ageless sage who claims to have been friends with Plato, Jesus and Buddha. With short stories from legendary writers like Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyay, Rajshekhar Basu and Premchand, Fourteen is a beautiful collection of tales Satyajit Ray transformed into films, that have endured and become classics we all love and admire.

14 : Stories That Inspired Satyajit Ray

Chattopadhyay, Bhaskar

Contemporary

'A masterclass of contemporary Tamil poetry' - Namita Gokhale In 2003, a group of men and women, setting themselves up as guardians of Tamil culture, objected publicly to the language of a new generation of women poets - particularly in the work of Malathi Maithri, Salma, Kutti Revathi and Sukirtharani - charging the women with obscenity and immodesty. More than a decade later, a deep divide still persists in the way readers and critics perceive women poets. Tamil women poets have been categorized as 'bad girls' and 'good girls'. The traditional values prescribed for the 'good' Tamil woman are fearfulness, propriety and modesty. Our poets have chosen, instead, the opposite virtues - fearlessness, outspokenness and a ceaseless questioning of prescribed rules. This anthology celebrates the poetry of the four poets through Lakshmi Holmstrom's English translation.

Wild Words: Four Tamil Poets

Holmström, Lakshmi

Poetry

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