Namita Gokhale
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Young Chintamani Dev Gupta, on holiday in a bird camp near Lake Sattal, is transported via a wormhole to the days of the Mahabharata. Trapped in time, he meets Ghatotkacha and his mother, the demoness Hidimba. But the gentle giant, a master of illusion and mind-boggling rakshasa technology, wields his strength just as well as he knows the age-old secrets of the forest and the elemental forces. And in his enlightening company, Chintamani finds himself in the thick ...
The Mahabharata is truly one of the greatest stories ever told. Namita Gokhale’s rendition makes for compelling reading, because it retains t he essential structure of the narrative without diluting its epic proportions. This book is the best gift for children who wish to discover and enjoy the wisdom and mythology of ancient India.
A long, long time ago, in the ancient lands of India, known in those days as Bharatvarsha, a family quarrel grew into a bloody ...
This is an unusual collection of travel pieces by writers ranging from M.J. Akbar and Aman Nath to Devdutt Pattanaik, Jerry Pinto, Rahul Pandita and Advaita Kala.Featured here are essays on the changing face of the popular hill resort-Nainital, living as a Pakistani in the remote city of Copenhagen, a woman traveller being strip-searched at an American airport and traversing the dark interiors of the haunted Bhangarh Fort in Rajasthan, among others. Focusing on ...
The Habit of Love is a collection of stories about the inner lives of women. Some of these women inhabit the ancient past, some the present day but they share the whimsical humour with which they speak of themselves. Journalist Madhu Sinha strikes up a friendship with a young man the same age as her indifferent children; a messenger swan relates the story of the doomed lovers Nala and Damayanti; Vatsala Vidyarthi suspects her one night stand of stealing her ...
India is shining, and Suresh Kaushal, the stout lawyer of sober habits, has propelled himself up the political ladder to become Minister of State for Food Processing, Animal Husbandry, Fisheries and Canneries. His wife Priya can’t believe their luck and, determined to ensure it doesn’t run out, struggles valiantly with ‘social vertigo’, infidelity and menopause. Along the way she also learns vital lessons on survival, as she watches her ...
Sita is one of the defining figures of Indian womanhood, yet there is no single version of her story. Different accounts coexist in myth, literature and folktale. Canonical texts deify Sita while regional variations humanize her. Folk songs and ballads connect her timeless predicament to the daily lives of rural women. Modern-day women continue to see themselves reflected in films, serials and soap operas based on Sita's narrative.Sacrifice, self-denial and ...
With this haunting novel about romantic loss and fatalism, Namita Gokhale confirms her reputation as one of India’s finest writers, and one with the rare gift of seeing and recording the epic in ordinary lives. This is the story of Parvati, young, beautiful and doomed, and Mukul Nainwal, the local boy made good who returns to the Nainital of his youth to search for the only woman he has ever loved. Told in the voices of these two exiles from ...
Shiva: destroyer and protector, supreme ascetic and lord of the universe. He is Ardhnarishwara, half man and half woman. He is Neelakantha, who drank poison to save the three worlds – and yet, when crazed with grief at the death of Sati, set about destroying them. Shiva holds within him the answers to some of the greatest dilemmas that have perplexed mankind. Who is Shiva? Why does he roam the world as a naked ascetic covered with ash? What was the tandava? ...
Scarred by her lover’s suicide and an acid attack that has left her permanently disfigured, Rachita Tiwari has sought refuge in a remote house in the Himalayan foothills. In this rambling house, built by a foolhardy missionary over a hundred years ago, she lives alone—save for the company of the ancient and mysterious manservant, Lohaniju—painting and repainting her nails a bright red, careful not to look into mirrors. As she retreats into herself, battling ...
Before mother left, in a long-ago time, we had been very rich…. My grandmother had been a great singer, a kothewali whose voice was more liquid and beautiful than Lata Mangeshkar’s. Eleven nawabs and two Englishmen were besotted with love of her….’ From these great heights Gudiya’s world plunges into the depths of almost complete penury when she arrives in Delhi with ...
On the ghats of Kashi, a sightless priest directs a young woman to come to terms with an earlier life that binds her in the eternal cycle of death and rebirth. In the life she recalls, she was Shakuntala-spirited, imaginative and adventurous, but destined, like her legendary namesake, to suffer the samskaras of abandonment. The first time Shakuntala runs away from home, she finds refuge in a cave with a woman who introduces her to the mysteries and powers of the ...