The Greatest Ode to Lord Ram: Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas Selections & Commentaries

Religion & Spirituality

Pavan K. Varma

Hinduism

Tranquebar

Some years ago, a book was published that would change the way one looks at railway junctions forever. Bishwanath Ghosh had got down at Itarsi junction to grab a cup of chai while travelling from Kanpur to Chennai. Sipping on the tea, as he heard the recorded voice announcing the arrivals and delays of the many trains that pass through the station, it struck him that while Itarsi junction connects the length and breadth of India on the rail map, almost nothing is known about Itarsi, the town. Thus began Ghosh's quest to tell the story of the towns behind some of the country's biggest junctions: Itarsi, Mughal Sarai, Jhansi, Shoranur, Arakkonam and Jolarpettai-places that are always a stopover and never a destination; familiar and yet unknown. Chai, Chai, a definitive work on small-town India, went on to become an instant success and continues to draw readers with its abundant wit and charm.

Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop but Never Get Off

Literature & Fiction

Ghosh, Bishwanath

World Literature

Naia, looking for her birth family in India after the bizarre death of her parents in Southern California. Leon, photographer, who cannot resist a chance to put his life in danger, whether from dysentery or bullet wounds. Samaad, Kashmiri, fighting to save a piece of his homeland from destruction by the two countries on either side of it, and who may well be the enabler of Leon s self-destructive visions. For them, and for the reader, Kashmir Blues is an unexpected journey the atmospheric streets of Bombay and Delhi, the valley of flowers, guns, Shiva, carpets, sapphire mines, addiction, and, love and death.

Kashmir Blues

Deshpande, Urmilla

Literary

Hello Bastar is the inside story of the current Maoist movement in India

Hello Bastar

Pandita, Rahul

The Tigerclaw Tree

Krishnan, P.A.

On Rishad Saam Mehta's journeys - and as a travel writer and all-round road-trip junkie, he's been on many - there's a particular thing he noticed. There's not a highway, road or dirt track in India where you can't find a cup of chai whenever you want it. And with those cuppas come encounters and incidents that make travelling in India a fascinating adventure. In this riveting book, which includes stories of honey- and saffron-infused tea shared with a shepherd in Kashmir, and a strong brew that revives the author after almost getting lynched by an irate mob in Kerala, Rishad takes you across the length and breadth of India, from Manali to Munnar, from the Rann of Kutch to Khajuraho, with a wonderful combination of wit, sensitivity and insight.

Hot Tea Across India

Mehta, Rishad Saam

'While in other big cities tradition stays mothballed in trunks, taken out only during festivals and weddings, tradition here is worn round the year.' This is just one of the author's many keen observations of Chennai. With mordant wit, this biography of a city spares neither half of its splitpersonality: from moody, magical Madras to burstingattheseams, techsavvy Chennai. And, a minute into the book, the reader knows they are inseparable-and Bishwanath Ghosh refuses to take sides. And yet, he tells us, while Chennai is usually known as conservative and orthodox, almost every modern institution in India-from the army to the judiciary, from medicine to engineering-traces its roots to Madras's Fort St George, which was built when Delhi had only just become the capital of the Mughal Empire, and Calcutta and Bombay weren't even born. Today, the city once again figures prominently on the global map as 'India's Detroit', a manufacturing giant, and a hub of medical tourism. There have been sweeping changes since preIndependent India, but even as Chennai embraces change, its people hold its ageold customs and traditions close to their heart. 'This is what makes Chennai unique,' says Ghosh, 'the marriage of tradition and technology'. Bishwanath Ghosh wears a reporter's cap and explores the city he has made his home, delving into its past, roaming its historic sites and neighbourhoods, and meeting a wide variety of people-from a top vocalist to a top sexologist, from a yoga teacher to a hip transsexual, from a yesteryear film star to his own eightyfiveyearold neighbour, from the ghosts of Clive, Wellesley, Hastings and Yale to those of Periyar and Mgr, two people who redefined the political skyline of Tamil Nadu. What emerges is an evocative portrait of this unique city, drawn without reservation-sometimes with humour, sometimes with irony-but always with love.

Tamarind City: Where Modern India Began

40 Retakes: Bollywood Classics You May Have Missed

Humor & Entertainment

Ghosh, Avijit

Movies

Alternative Realities is a travelogue, a memoir, a satire and a feminist critique of Muslim women s lives, interwoven with the author s own ongoing struggles as a Muslim woman. Each chapter presents personal stories of women living in cities, small towns and villages in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh the three lands to which Nighat Gandhi belongs. In writing their stories, she attempts to break the silence enshrouding Muslim women s sexuality, and the ways in which they negotiate the restrictions placed on their freedoms within the framework of their culture. Women like Ghazala, who prefers the life of a second wife, living like a married single woman , to being bound within the ties of a conventional marriage; Nusrat and QT who believe theirs is a normal marriage, except that they are both women; Nisho, who refuses to accept that her trans-sexuality should deny her the right to love, and Firdaus, writer and feminist, who can walk out of a loveless marriage but not give up on love, with or without marriage. Nighat also explores her own story as a woman who dared to make choices that pitted her against her family and cultures. Alternative Realities is her jihad or struggle to deconstruct the demeaning stereotypes that prevail about all Muslim women. It is a reflection of the myriad ways in which, despite these misogynistic forces, they continue to weave webs of love and peace in their own lives and in the lives of those they live with.

Alternative Realities: Love in the Lives of Muslim Women

Politics & Social Sciences

Gandhi, Nighat M.

Social Sciences

On 26 December 2012, Narendra Modi was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Gujarat for the fourth time to extend his record tenure in office. “Mass Murderer” or “Development Man”? It depends on which side of the spectrum he is viewed from, because Narendra Modi is one of those politicians whose name prompts extremes of hate-filled anger or outright adulation. Despite polarizing Gujarat and India in more ways than one, Modi brilliantly does what it takes to survive in a democracy: win elections. Written by veteran journalist and writer, Nilanjan after several in-depth interviews, meticulous research and extensive travel through Gujarat, this book reveals hitherto unknown aspects of Narendra Modi's psyche: as a six year- old boy selling tea to help out his father and distributing badges and raising slogans at the behest of a local political leader; abandoning his family and wife in search of his definition of truth; initiation into the Rss as a fledgling who ran errands for his seniors; his idea of Gujarati pride and Indian-ness; and finally, his meteoric rise which gave him a distinct identity post the 2002 Godhra riots. Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times is a definitive biography of a man who may have challenged the basic principles of a sovereign secular nation but emerged at its destination as an undisputed and larger-than-life leader.

Narendra Modi The Man, The Times

Biographies & Memoirs

Mukhopadhyay, Nilanjan

Community & Culture

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Tranquebar publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Tranquebar