A Kitchen in the Corner of the House collects twenty-five gem-like stories on motherhood, sexuality, and the body from the innovative and perceptive Tamil writer Ambai.In A Kitchen in the Corner of the House, Ambai's narrators are daring and courageous, stretching and reinventing their homes, marriages, and worlds. With each story, her expansive voice confronts the construction of gender in Tamil literature. Piecing together letters, journal entri...

Myths and legends jostle with the contemporary in these stories where social issues of our times resonate with the inevitability of the past.The lyricism of Carnatic ragas permeate the pages of this quiet and powerful book in which love is rendered in all its immeasurable avatars—parental, carnal, platonic, romantic, divine. There is the woman who reinvents the notion of love in a unique way that amalgamates technology and spirituality through the internet; a man full of love who c...

‘Since she was valorous, she said she was a man, and since Mahishan was speaking of love, he was feminine... If she was a combination of feminine and masculine qualities, why could he too not be a combination of the masculine and feminine?’Setting the stage with the Asura Mahishan’s doomed love for the beautiful Devi, Ambai deftly combines myth and tradition with contemporary situations. In the title story, the woman who is mother, daughter, solver of all problems for her ...

Caste, as it is experienced in everyday life, is the pièce de résistance of this book. Thirty-two voices narrate how from childhood to adulthood, caste intruded upon their lives—food, clothes, games, gait, love, marriage and every aspect of one's existence including death. Like the editor Perumal Murugan says, caste is like god, it is omnipresent.The contributors write about the myriad ways in which they have experienced caste. It may be in the form of forgoing certain kinds of foo...

There is more to love than just loving . . . It is also a promise Lavanya Gogoi is from the scenic hills of Shillong while Rajveer Saini belongs to the shahi city of Patiala. Worlds apart from one another, the two land up next to each other on a flight from Mumbai to Chandigarh. It's love at first flight, at least for one of them. For the other . . . well, it's going to take more than a plane ride! And when love does finally happen, there are more obstacles to overcome. Rajveer has to stan...

India for first time visitors. A guide to the cultural quirks of India.

This small eBook deals with 'grieve' in connection with the death of a son. Osho uses a Zen story and unfolds a unique and different way of dealing with grieve, death and dying. He acknowledges that it is very difficult not to grieve when somebody you loved has died. Not to grieve is possible only if you have an understanding and an experience of the essential, something of the deathless.

A sharply funny travelogue from a fantastic travel writer. Lucy Edge tells the story of her personal quest for serenity and yogic flexibility through the ashrams and gurus of India.After over a decade spent working and drinking too much in the world of advertising, Lucy decided she had to leave town for an altogether more spiritual and, well, meaningful way of life - And whilst she was at it, she could acquire a newly lithe and supple body.Would she come home looking like C...

On November 1st 1984, a day after the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, a nineteen-year-old student travels back from a class trip with his mentor and chemistry teacher, Professor Singh. As the group disembark at Delhi station a mob surrounds the professor, douses him in petrol and sets him alight. Years later the student, Raj, is compelled to find his professor's widow, the beautiful Nelly. As the two walk through the misty mountains of Shimla, Nelly comes up against a...

The man with the gun pushed me down onto the carpet. I tried to cower to make my body curl smaller, instinctively covering my head.‘Oh God, please don’t kill me.’ My words clung to my teeth and now my whole body was so cold. All I had left were these words.‘Please. Please don’t kill me. Jesus. God. Please.’I wanted to live and I knew it with absolute certainty. I don’t want to die.Emma Slade was a high-flying debt analyst for a large investment bank, when she wa...

'The next Bill Bryson.’ New York TimesWorld-weary, distracted and more often than not the worse for wine, Michael Booth really needed to make some major changes to his life. Instead, he embarks on an over-ambitious, self-indulgent attempt to write the definitive book on Indian food, taking his wife and two young children in tow.They criss-cross India, from mist-shrouded Delhi to Mumbai and the slums of Dharavi, meeting the locals and samplying diff...

Zen Buddhism is well known for its stories and anecdotes. It is more likely that the reader remembers the contents than if it were presented as dry theory. Many stories in this book are educational, have a moral or provide an insight. Most of the stories derive from Zen Buddhism but the author will also explore Taoism.At the end of the book you will find instructions on how to meditate, the most important practice in zen. Together with the collection of stories, this book gives a g...