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The Lovers is about a man in search of a love story. This man, our narrator, is Kailash-a new immigrant, eager to shine. His friends teasingly call him Kalashnikov and sometimes AK-47, even AK. In his account of his years at a university in New York, AK takes us through the bittersweet arc of youth and love. There is discovery and disappointment. There are the brilliant women, Jennifer and Nina and Cai Yan. There is the political texture of campus life and the charismatic professor overseeing these young men and women, Ehsaan Ali (modelled on the real-life Eqbal Ahmad). Manifest in AK's first years and first loves is the wild enthusiasm of youth, its idealism, chaotic desires and confusions.A decidedly modern novel that melds story and reportage, anecdote and annotation, picture and text, fragment and essay, The Lovers reminds us of the works of John Berger and Teju Cole. Funny, meditative and shot through with waves of longing, the book explores feelings of discomfort about cultural misunderstandings and the lack of clarity between men and women. At heart though, it is an investigation of love-'love despite, or in spite of; love beyond and across dividing lines'.

We lose it. We gain it. We hate it. We hide it. We shame it. We suck it in and we even suck it out. Fat is an international obsession, a dirty word and our least understood body part. A ground-breaking combination of historical, cultural and cutting-edge scientific research, The Secret Life of Fat reveals everything we need to understand fat, how it influences our appetite and willpower, how it defends itself when attacked and why it grows back so quickly. Find out how our genetics and hormones determine how much fat we have and where exactly it will show. Fascinating and surprising in equal measure, this book will give you a powerful new understanding of fat.

Swimmer Among the Stars announces the arrival of a writer who is gifted not just with extraordinary talent but also with a subtle, original and probing mind.' - Amitav Ghosh. The fiction debut of the year.An interview with the last speaker of a language. A chronicle of the final seven days of a town that is about to be razed to the ground by an invading army. The lonely voyage of an elephant from Kerala to a princess's palace in Morocco. A fabled cook who flavours his food with precious stones. A coterie of international diplomats trapped in near-earth orbit. These, and the other stories in this collection, reveal an extraordinary storyteller, whose tales emerge from a tradition that includes the creators of the Arabian Nights and the Kathasaritsagara, Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Angela Carter and other ancient and modern masters of fabulist, surrealist and magical short stories. Furiously inventive, beautifully crafted and remarkably assured, Swimmer Among the Stars announces the arrival of a blazing new talent.

Indian food is one of the world's most popular cuisines. Even as it has transformed the contemporary urban foodscape in this age of globalization, social scientists have paid scant attention to the phenomenon. The essays in this book explore the relationship between globalization and South Asia through food. Udipi restaurants, Indian food in colonial times, dum pukht cuisine, staples of the prepared food industry like Bangalore's MTR Foods, Britain's curry culture, Indian fast food in California-these and other distinctive aspects of South Asia's food and culture are examined to gain new insights into subcontinental food and the ways in which it has influenced the world around us

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Asia Reborn unveils the story of Asia's resurgence over the past century. In the first single chronicle of the modern economic and political history of the whole continent, Prasenjit K. Basu weaves together a compelling account of how Asia's nations overcame European domination in the twentieth century-and its legacies of war and famine-to begin the long climb to economic dynamism.Asia Reborn shows British, Dutch and French colonies to have had scant infrastructure or modern industry and to have consequently been far behind Taiwan, Manchuria and Korea in social indicators such as literacy and life expectancy by mid-century. In West Asia and Burma, the brief European imprint created the ethnic conflicts that still plague these regions. The British Indian Army held the edifice of empire together. Ultimately, it was the undermining of its legitimacy by the armies of Subhas Bose, Sukarno, Ho Chi Minh and Aung San that helped end the ravaging of Asia during the first half of the twentieth century. By the end of the century, the eastern part of the liberated continent, had emulated Japan and Singapore in transforming itself into an industrious, dynamic and increasingly creative force finally capable of taking its people to new heights in an Asian twenty-first century.

Go to any party, in any country, on any moonlit terrace of the world, the best dressed man is always the one from Patna. ' In these nine interlinked stories we meet the not so quintessential Patna man Hriday Thakur, Literature junkie, aspiring writer, inveterate lover of women and rain, Jishnu da, his acquaintance from Delhi University, who is now an 'importer of blondes', Samuel Crown, the fastidious proofreader who mentors Hriday and instils in him an irrevocable love for the art of 'book-making', the parade of women in Hriday's life: austere, doe eyed Charulata, love of his youth, the one who got away, Chitrangada, his wife, who works hard to be accepted in his world of books, art, politics and activism, the beautiful Anjali Singh Nalwa, ex-flame who is now a fiery, controversial novelist, Imogen Burns, the intrepid chronicler of graveyards, Sadaf Khan Abdali, who loves the smell of Listerine early in the morning and 'Sophia Loren', dream girl of many schoolboys, now a mother of two.

In this book, read three stories from Shiva's adventure-filled life. Find out the tale behind the origin of the river Ganga and what role Shiva had to play in it; how the Shiva lingam avatar of Shiva came about and how Shiva destroyed three demons with one arrow. Beautifully retold by Subhadra Sen Gupta and accompanied by Tapas Guha's magnificent illustrations, this book will be loved by every child.

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The Small Wild Goose Pagoda is a natural and social history of 433 square yards of India. On this piece of land in the foothills of the Himalaya, the Sealy family have a small brick house with one-and-a-half bedrooms, two-and-a-half gardens, front, back and side, an old Fiat, an internet link with the world, and a terrace roof for walking on under the sky. Here-surrounded by trees: litchi, rosewood, magnolia, silk cotton, jacaranda, a reluctant pear, a profusely flowering peach-Allan Sealy looks back on his life as he turns sixty and goes from Householder to Forest Dweller (the two middle stages in the life of a man - as set out in Indian philosophical tradition).Lending depth and texture to a narrative written in the form of an almanack is his experience of building, after a visit to China, a pagoda on his roof. As the pagoda takes shape we are introduced to a host of extraordinary characters who drift in and out of the 433 square yards: Dhani, family retainer and mali, bent in half by age; Habilis, master brick-layer and contractor with a roving eye; Beauty, part of Habilis's crew, who may or may not be his lover; Victor, stoic assistant to Habilis....In this remarkable book, his first in a decade, award-winning novelist and travel writer, Irwin Allan Sealy, gives us an evocative account of the drama of small town life; at the same time it is an extraordinary meditation on work, family history, nature, Indian society, and the passage of time.

Rich in detail, this eye-opening book explores the activities and political strategies of women political workers and leaders of Shiv Sena. Based on more than ten years of in-depth ethnographic fieldwork with dozens of women Sena workers in urban Maharashtra, the work shows how they conjure political authority through the inventive, dangerous, and transgressive political personas known as dashing ladies. Through the narratives of these women, Tarini Bedi develops a feminist theory of brokerage politics, and what can be termed 'political matronage'.

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A brave new voice on India's literary scene.' - Indian ExpressA teacher lies dead in a small village near Calcutta. Since the Chinese took over, things in the Bengal Protectorate have been sliding from bad to worse. It looks like the work of the New Thug Society, whose members are determined to free Bengal from Chinese oppression.Under Governor Wen, who is confused and slightly weepy, the law and order situation continues to deteriorate. Resurrected members of the Bengal politburo stalk the land, demoralizing all those who thought they were dead. The Maoists are still in the jungle, and remain strangely reluctant to re-integrate with the Motherland. Meanwhile, Didu has escaped, the price of fish is rising, and the Competent Authority, undisputed ruler of India, is trying to start a war with China Unimpressed by the rising threat of war, which is none of his business, Inspector Li of Lal Bazaar doggedly pursues his prey. Why is Propagandist Wang so keen that he investigate something else? What are mining magnate Sanjeev Verma and his partner Agarwal up to, and how is Governor Wen involved? Will Inspector Li be able to interview his suspects before General Zhou shoots them all? And why does his ex-wife keep calling, even though her new boyfriend is rich enough to have a duplicate Eiffel Tower in his garden?Outrageously funny and wickedly imaginative, Murder with Bengali Characteristics marks the return of one of our finest comic writers.

A couple of decades from now, India is not shining-the Chinese have nuked large parts of the country. Bombay has been obliterated, Delhi is in the throes of rigorous reconstruction, Bengal has seceded and is now a protectorate of China, the Maoists have taken over much of what remains. The southern states are a distant and tranquil place that nobody has visited in years. The most powerful person in the country is a deranged bureaucrat called the Competent Authority, who has used his official position as the head of the Bureau of Reconstruction, to subvert all forces of governmental authority. Cloaked in anonymity, his identity known only to his terrified minions, the CA rules the remnants of India with an iron fist.Although, in theory, the government and the armed forces still exist, the Prime Minister, who looks very familiar and the General, who commands the Army, are mere puppets in the hands of the Competent Authority. All they can do is watch in horror as he tries to put in motion a fiendish plan to annihilate everyone in the country, for reasons that are completely logical. The only person who can stop him is Pintoo, a mutant twelve-year-old from Shanti Nagar, where all the poor people live. Determined to thwart the CA's plan and save the country from disaster, Pintoo employs three reluctant henchmen to help him: Pande, a corrupt and vicious policeman, Chatterjee, a pessimistic but determined CBI officer and Ali, the last surviving member of Al Qaeda. And then there's also the matter of the hand that has a mind of its own

The monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have severely limited the portrayal of the divine as feminine. But in Hinduism 'God' very often means 'Goddess'. This extraordinary collection explores twelve different Hindu goddesses, all of whom are in some way related to Devi, the Great Goddess. They range from the liquid goddess-energy of the River Ganges to the possessing, entrancing heat of Bhagavati and Seranvali. They are local, like Vindhyavasini and global, like Kali; ancient, like Saranyu and modern, like 'Mother India'. The collection combines analysis of texts with intensive fieldwork, allowing the reader to see how goddesses are worshiped in everyday life. In these compelling essays, the divine feminine in Hinduism is revealed as never before-fascinating, contradictory, powerful.

Salil Tripathi brings together the narrative skill of a novelist and the analytical tools of a political journalist to give us the story of a nation that is absorbing, haunting and illuminating.' Kamila Shamsie, author of A God in Every Stone. Between March and December 1971, the Pakistani army committed atrocities on an unprecedented scale in the country's eastern wing. Pakistani troops and their collaborators were responsible for countless deaths and cases of rape. Clearly, religion alone wasn't enough to keep Pakistan's two halves united. From that brutal violence, Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation, but the wounds have continued to fester. The gruesome assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country's charismatic first prime minister and most of his family, the coups and counter-coups which followed, accompanied by long years of military rule were individually and collectively responsible for the country's inability to come to grips with the legacy of the Liberation War Four decades later, as Bangladesh tries to bring some accountability and closure to its blood-soaked past through controversial tribunals prosecuting war crimes, Salil Tripathi travels the length and breadth of the country probing the country's trauma through interviews with hundreds of Bangladeshis. His book offers the reader an unforgettable portrait of a nation whose political history since Independence has been marked more by tragedy than triumph

In June 2001, the king of Nepal and almost his entire family were massacred. Unrest, simmering over the previous decade, boiled over and pushed the nation into free fall. In 2005, the dead kings brother reinstated monarchy, crushing any hope that parliamentary democracy would flourish in Nepal. A period fraught with uncertainty and intense turmoil ensued: the Maoists waged a bloody Peoples War; the monarchy mounted a bloodier counter-insurgency effort; political parties bickered and fought endlessly; and the citizens bore the brunt of it all. Wide-ranging in scope the book spans the beginning of the monarchy, through the early democratic movements, to the present Forget Kathmandu is many things: history, memoir, reportage, travelogue, analysis. But, above all, it is an unflinching, clear-sighted attempt to make sense of the bad politics that plagued and continues to plague the country. It remains as worryingly relevant to present-day Nepal as it was when first published in 2005.

In Accidental India: A History of the Nation's Passage through Crisis and Change, noted journalist-analyst, Shankkar Aiyar, examines India's ascent through the paradigm of seven game changers: the economic liberalization of 1991, the Green Revolution of the sixties, the nationalization of banks in 1969, Operation Flood in the seventies, the mid-day meal scheme of 1982, the software revolution of the nineties, and the passing of the Right to Information Act in 2005. He argues that these turning points in the country's history were not the result of foresight or careful planning but were rather the accidental consequences of major crises that had to be resolved at any cost