Heartwarming and candid, this is the story of one of our foremost literary voices, told in her own words—a life beset by tragedy which yet carries a message of courage, hope and happiness.Growing up in pre-Partition Lahore, Ajeet Cour spent a childhood wrapped in warm and enticing experiences, despite her disciplinarian father. From such a beginning, her life moves on to a first, true love that is lost on account of a misunderstanding; a violent, bitter marriage th...

‘He was leaving behind the house which he no longer cared for but still felt in his blood. He’ll surely return but will the house then be as it is now? Will the people whose presence makes the house with five courtyards a veritable mohalla still be there?’ For a sprawling edifice with five courtyards, it was a flourishing house. The brothers who resided in the various quarters lived harmoniously under the supervision of a mother, Badi Amma, who was considered the head of the house after th...

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 fi...

Set around the time of Partition and written with absorbing intelligence and sympathy, Difficult Daughters is the story of a young woman torn between the desire for education and the lure of illicit love.' Difficult Daughters is intensely imagined, fluidly written, moving. Through our struggles with our parents, it flings us into their own momentous times, their youthful yearnings for love and independence and life. And so it becomes an urgent and ...

Srinagar, capital city of the famed ‘paradise on earth’, Kashmir. Ailan Gali, a deep, dark narrow lane that lies at its heart, where houses stand on a finger’s width of space and lean crookedly against each other, so deep, so narrow, so closely connected that even thieves do not dare enter. Yet people live and love here, they cling on to their old ways, they share stories and food, joys and sorrows, sufficient unto themselves. But the outside world beckons, youngsters begin to leave, and slow...

**Includes a new foreword by Pankaj Mishra**Bombay in the 1980s: Shyam Lal is a highly regarded voice teacher, trained in the classical idiom but happily teaching more popular songs to well-to-do women, whose modern way of life he covets. Sixteen-year-old Nirmalya Sengupta is the rebellious scion of an affluent family who wants only to study Indian classical music. With a little push from her mother, Shyam agrees to accept Nirmalya as his student, entering into a r...

In this exchange of letters dating from an extremely turbulent period of their lives, Nayantara Sahgal and E.N. Mangat Rai, two very public figures who had remained at the same time intensely private, broke their self-imposed silence for the first time.When Relationship was first published in 1994, it was received with varying degrees of shock and appreciation. This newly revised edition includes all of the correspondence carried in the previous one, with a short but significant addition: ...

'A wonderful, rich and humane novel... a classic' GuardianBorn at the stroke of midnight at the exact moment of India's independence, Saleem Sinai is a special child.However, this coincidence of birth has consequences he is not prepared for: telepathic powers connect him with 1,000 other 'midnight's children' all of whom are endowed with unusual gifts. Inextricably linked to his nation, Saleem's story is a whirlwind of disasters an...

The story of Tenzin Palmo, an Englishwoman, the daughter of a fishmonger from London's East End, who spent 12 years alone in a cave 13,000 feet up in the Himalayas and became a world-renowned spiritual leader and champion of the right of women to achieve spiritual enlightenment.Diane Perry grew up in London's East End. At the age of 18 however, she read a book on Buddhism and realised that this might fill a long-sensed void in her life. In 1963, at the age of 20, she went to India,...

Everybody loves Novice to Master! As you'll see in the glowing endorsements and reviews included below, this modern spiritual classic has been embraced by readers of all types.In his singularly humorous and biitingly direct way, Zen abbot Soko Morinaga tells the story of his rigorous training at a Japanese Zen temple, his spiritual growth and his interactions with his students and others. Morinaga's voice is uniquely tuned to the truth of the condition of the human mind an...

The dazzling new book from the winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize: one of the summer's most eagerly anticipated works of fiction.In his compelling new work of fiction, Aravind Adiga has imagined the small Indian city of Kittur, an everytown nestling on the coast south of Goa and north of Calicut. Through the myriad and distinctive voices of its inhabitants, an entire Indian world comes vividly and unforgettably to life.From a middle-aged Communist to an Is...

In Indus ancestral home, that she had escaped from so many years ago, nothing seems to have altered. Yet all is different. Akka, the rich family tyrant, is dead and the family is on the threshold of great change. And the key to their future now lies in Indus hands. This novel provides a penetrative insight into the joint family revealing its strengths and weaknesses, its props and parasites.