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Gun Island
Bundook. Gun. A common word, but one which turns Deen Datta's world upside down. A dealer of rare books, Deen is used to a quiet life spent indoors, but as his once-solid beliefs begin to shift, he is forced to set out on an extraordinary journey; one that takes him from India to Los Angeles and Venice via a tangled route through the memories and experiences of those he meets along the way. There is Piya, a fellow Bengali-American who sets his journey in motion; Tipu, an entrepreneurial young man who opens Deen's eyes to the realities of growing up in today's world; Rafi, with his desperate attempt to help someone in need; and Cinta, an old friend who provides the missing link in the story they are all a part of. It is a journey which will upend everything he thought he knew about himself, about the Bengali legends of his childhood and about the world around him. Gun Island is a beautifully realised novel which effortlessly spans space and time. It is the story of a world on the brink, of increasing displacement and unstoppable transition. But it is also a story of hope, of a man whose faith in the world and the future is restored by two remarkable women.
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Blessing In Disguise
In Blessing in Disguise, Danielle Steel’s wise, warm-hearted novel, one of her most memorable characters discovers the highs and lows of being a mother to three very different daughters. As a young intern at an art gallery in Paris, Isabelle McAvoy meets Putnam Armstrong, wealthy, gentle, older and secluded from the world. Her time at his Normandy château is the stuff of dreams, for when she learns she is pregnant, she knows that marriage is out of the question. Returning to New York, Isabelle enters a new relationship that she hopes will be more stable but before long she realizes she has made a terrible mistake and once again finds herself a single mother. With two young daughters Isabelle unexpectedly finds happiness and a love that gives her a third child, a baby as happy as her beloved father. And yet, life brings more change . . . Her three girls grow up to be very different women and Isabelle’s relationship with each of them is unique. When one final turn of fate brings a past secret to light, it bonds mother and daughters closer, turning a challenge into a blessing.
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That Kiss In The Rain
Pallavi, an air hostess by profession, is a vivacious and venomous as hell girl, who lives her life out loud and on the edge. She lives by just one rule: fuck and forget. The one side that nobody knows about her is that she still hasn’t moved on from the hurt of her first love: Haasil. Haasil is a successful, self-made and young entrepreneur who is both physically and emotionally recuperating from a fatal accident in which he lost the true love of his life. Swadha is a corporate girl, who is cute, unintentionally funny and head over heels in love with Haasil. That Kiss in the Rain happens when Pallavi, Haasil and Swadha are touched by the sublime power of love in different ways, till their paths cross and their destinies collide, bringing them at a crossroad where each has to make a life-altering decision.
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Upon A Burning Throne
In a world where demigods and demons walk among mortals, the emperor of the vast burnt Empire has died, leaving a turbulent realm without a leader. Two young princes, Adri and Shvate, are in line to rule but birthright does not guarantee inheritance: Any successor must sit upon the legendary burning Throne and pass the test of fire. Imbued with dark sorceries, the throne is a crucible that incinerates the unworthy. Adri and Shvate are not the sole heirs to the empire, there is another with a claim to power, another who also survives. When this girl, whose father is the powerful demonlord Jarsun, is denied her claim by the interim leaders, Jarsun declares war, vowing to tear the burnt empire apart – leaving the young princes Adri and Shvate to rule a shattered realm embroiled in rebellion and chaos.
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Mothering A Muslim
The most hard-hitting book on the state of middleclass Indian Muslims today Nazia Erum runs a fashion start-up, and is the mother of an adorable little girl. But from the day Myra was born, she found herself asking questions she didn't have answers for. It began with her daughter's name – should Nazia choose a traditional Islamic name or a more non-religious sounding one so that her daughter couldn't be identified as a Muslim? Nazia was not the only modern middleclass Muslim asking this question. Soon she discovered that finding the right name for Myra was the least of her worries. Talking to over 100 children and their parents across 12 cities, what Nazia uncovers is deeply troubling. She heard stories of rampant bullying of Muslim children in many of the country's top schools, of six-year-olds being hit by their classmates because of their faith, of religious segregation in classrooms and of anxious Muslim parents across the country who monitor their children's dress, speech and actions to protect them. In Mothering a Muslim, she finally lifts the veil on this taboo subject, one that is spoken of only in whispers. Urgent, gripping and heartbreaking, this is essential reading for every Indian.
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Illiberal India-Gauri Lankesh And The Age Of Unrea
5 September 2017: journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot to death. Following in the method of previous murders of rationalists M.M. Kalburgi, Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar, Lankesh’s murder chilled the nation, sparking off protests across India. Even as the police unravels the plot behind her murder and connects it to the others, the larger forces that killed these four activists continue to grow. A fierce critic of the burgeoning Hindutva faction in Karnataka and elsewhere in India, and a strident supporter of separate-religion status for Lingayats, Lankesh’s activism had made her many foes. Fluent in Kannada and English, she was a particular threat to her ideological enemies – able to reach the influencers through a language of power and a wider audience at the grassroots through her mother tongue. In this personal-is-political narrative, senior journalist and analyst Chidanand Rajghatta examines the lives of two people against the volatile backdrop of an increasingly fractious and intolerant India. The two strands come together in the gutting death of a courageous woman who took on these forces and fought for a more equitable society, a better India.
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Footprints On Zero Line-Writings On The Partition
The Partition of 1947 has influenced the works of an entire generation of writers, and continues to do so. Gulzar witnessed the horrors of Partition first-hand and it is a theme that he has gone back to again and again in his writings. Footprints on Zero Line brings together a collection of his finest writings - fiction, non-fiction and poems - on the subject. What sets this collection apart from other writings on Partition is that Gulzar's unerring eye does not stop at the events of 1947 but looks at how it continues to affect our lives to this day. Wonderfully rendered in English by well-known author and translator Rakhshanda Jalil, this collection marks seventy years of India's Independence. Footprints on Zero Line is not only a brilliant collection on a cataclysmic event in the history of our nation by one of our finest contemporary writers, it is also a timely reminder that those who forget the errors of the past are doomed to repeat them.
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The Evolution of Religion
History has an unsettling effect on religion. Like science, history is fundamentally northing more than a range of theories based on objective evidence. Mythology becomes a byword for a traditions history, and hestoryin the objective sense that we understand it today becomes distorted. Thus through time both myth and history blend into an entertaining story of the world around them and their role in that world.
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Vedanta Treatise
The Vedanta Treatise expounds the ancient philosophy of the Vedas. It presents the eternal principles of life and living. Living is a technique that needs to be learnt and practised. The technique provides the formula for combining continual action with enduring peace. It further equips one with a clear intellect to meet the challenges of the world.