Book Reviews
Pittho's World
Murtaza Razvi
No, I am no Scheherazade of the Arabian Nights, I tell Rani, when she agrees to listen to my stories. And I am no depraved king, she says ... Pitthos World is the magical domain of storytelling, of Sheikhu and his lover Rani, of parents, Big Brother, uncles, aunts and grandparents. And of course, Aunt Pittho, she of the big hips, wielding magic and a stick. The stories originate in Iran, move through Afghanistan to Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, before returning to rest in Pakistan....
Prophet of Love
Farrukh Dhondy
An ashram in northern India becomes the arena for a tale of love and intrigue, against the backdrop of communal Achants and exaggerated paraphernalia of public spirituality. It begins with the appearance of a traumatized young woman, Diamond or Ma Vidhyadhari, at the doorstep of a rookie journalist, Farrukh Dhondy. She has been banned from the ashram, but her daughter, Sapphire, has been held hostage to ensure her silence. She seeks justice and the return of her child; he is an idealist who...
Crimes Against Women: Three Tragedies and the Call for Reform in India
Paul Beckett, Krishna Pokharel
A serious and timely exploration of the hopes and catastrophes, the bravery and the abuse, that are the daily lot, of millions of India’s women. As 2012 came to a close, news of the gang rape of a young woman in India’s capital generated headlines around the world. Her assault on a moving bus with a metal rod, and her death two weeks later from her injuries, focused attention on the dark side of the world’s largest democracy: the struggle that faces many Indian women in a country where...
The Caretaker - A Novel
A.X. Ahmad
A compelling thriller that introduces a new hero for our times: Ranjit Singh, former captain in the Indian Army, illegal immigrant in the heart of white America and caretaker to the rich and famous. One harsh winter, Ranjit illegally moves his family into an empty, luxurious vacation home belonging to an African-OAmerican Senator. Ensconced in the house, he tries to forget his brief affair with Anna, the Senator’s wife, and focuses on providing for his family. But one night, their idyll...
Director’s Cut - 50 Major Film-makers of the Modern Era
M.K. Raghavendra
Director's Cut: 50 Major Film-makers Of The Modern Era, published in 2013, is an analysis of the fifty best filmmakers in the last few decades. This book brings together essays that focus on a wide range of work by these directors. Since the 1950s, cinema has taken a completely new look. Though the changes in filmmaking have been radical, cinema criticism has not quite evolved over time. This book has been written to fill that gap. It analyses renowned filmmakers starting from the 1960s.
Shooting for a Century
Stephen P. Cohen
The India-Pakistan rivalry has been labeled as intractable. In thirty-five years this armed standoff will be a century old, and the chances of realizing that dubious anniversary seem quite good. The rivalry is one reason why South Asia remains the least integrated region in the world. Shooting for a Century is the first comprehensive survey of the deep historical, cultural, and strategic differences that make it probable this conflict will endure, despite many efforts by the international...
The New Bihar - Governance and Development
N.K Singh & Nicholas Stern
During the 1990s, Bihars development failed to benefit from the acceleration in Indias economic growth and, in fact, slowed compared to the 1980s, principally because of a steep decline in the already low standards of governance Bihars fortunes of governance and economic performance changed dramatically after November 2005, when Nitish Kumar government came to power. Within a short time, major initiatives were launched in improving governance, infrastructure, education especially primary and...
Silent Cinema in India
B.D. Garga
This extraordinary book documents a glorious phase of cinema in India – the silent cinema era. Of the approximately 1,300 silent films produced between 1913 and 1931, barely one per cent have survived, and not all of these in their entirety. The book traces the stories of its earliest practitioners, who overcame many obstacles and pioneered several innovations to develop a cinema that often matched the standards of film-making in the West. B.D. Garga, arguably India’s finest film...
Billionaire Boy
George Beahm
The third in a bestselling series of inspiring quotes from business leaders The Mark Zuckerburg most people know is the one depicted in Academy Award–winning film The Social Network: a nerdy, insecure and socially awkward young man – hardly the image of a top-flight CEO in command of one of the world’s largest and most successful companies. Achieving the growth of Facebook as fast as Zuckerburg has is no mean feat, especially when you consider that he had never raised a dollar from...
The Tower of Silence
Phiroshaw Jamsetjee Chevalier
A long-lost Sexton Blake mystery, 1920s detective fiction at its best Historian Gyan Prakash of Princeton University stumbled upon part of the unpublished manuscript of Tower of Silence by Phiroshaw Jamsetjee Chevalier (or Chaiwala, as he called himself) in the British Library. After scouring several Mumbai libraries, he found the missing pages. It is a thrilling tale that begins on a blistering April afternoon in Poona with the click of a camera shutter. An aerial photograph is taken...