Speaking Tiger
90 books
In the 1970s, Sarah Lloyd, a landscape architect from England, was at a railway station in Calcutta when she met Pritam Singh—nicknamed Jungli by his mother—a Nihang Sikh with a ‘powerful face that instantly compelled’ her. Soon after, Sarah travelled to Amarkot, Jungli’s village near Amritsar, and started living with him and his extended family—his stepfather, Pitaji; his mother, Mataji; Balwant, Jungli’s brother, who ...
At a time when free expression and individual liberty in India appear to be under serious threat, Ravish Kumar is one of our bravest and most mature public voices. Few journalists today have as keen an understanding of Indian society and politics and as strong a commitment to the truth. Fewer still can match him in eloquence and integrity.
In this necessary book, he examines why debate and dialogue have given way to hate and intolerance in India, how elected ...
A novel of forgiveness and reconciliation that shines light on the dark underbelly of South Africa’s fight for freedom and democracy.
Estranged from her mother, who sent her away at the age of six, brilliant architect Afroze Bhana has carved out an impressive life for herself in Cape Town. But when she receives word that her mother is desperately ill, she is compelled to return to her hometown in rural Zululand to find answers about her painful childhood. ...
…It looks like the rhythm of Shivapura life is upset. Even the seasons don’t keep time. The river looks wasted. The waves no longer run with a youthful vigour. The rocks under water are like bones jutting out of an old face.’
In Shivapura, the villagers worship their gods and nature, and cultivate the crops that their forebears have been growing since time immemorial. Sweet water flows in the Chalimele river, the trees bear delicious fruit, and ...
In The Crescent Moon, Rabindranath Tagore brings alive the world of a child—in some poems he describes the simple joys of children at play, while in others, he feels the bonds of affection between mother and child, and in yet others, he expresses wonder at the earthly beauty all around us. Also included here are some of his most thought-provoking stories with themes that are relevant for children. In ‘The Kabuliwalla’ little Minnie becomes ...
Almost forty years after the end of their passionate affair in New Delhi of the late 1970s, Kevin, a vicar devoted to the political struggle for Scottish independence, and Maya, a reputed author of Hindi literary works, re-establish contact—this time over email. As they slowly re-weave the delicate tapestry of their connection with each missive, they share the stories of their histories, interests, desires and despairs with each other. Ultimately, Kevin and ...
Mowgli is found abandoned in the jungle by Father Wolf who takes him to his pack. The baby boy becomes a part of the wolf pack; he grows up and learns to live like any other animal in the jungle, playing with his wolf brothers and sisters and his friends Bagheera and Baloo. But Shere Khan the tiger cannot bear the thought of a human living in the jungle among them and is determined to get the better of Mowgli. Will the ‘man-cub’ accept defeat and go ...
Acknowledging courtesans or tawaifs as central to popular Hindi cinema, Dancing with the Nation is the first book to show how the figure of the courtesan shapes the Indian erotic, political and religious imagination. Historically, courtesans existed outside the conventional patriarchal family and carved a special place for themselves with their independent spirit, witty conversations and transmission of classical music and dance. Later, they entered the nascent ...
A lifetime of reading and writing, observation and contemplation is distilled in this comprehensive volume of the best essays, profiles and sketches by Ruskin Bond, the masterly and compassionate chronicler of the small details and luminous moments that capture the essence of a meaningful life. By turns thoughtful, humorous, keenly observed and wise, these essays span more than sixty years of his writing—from reflections on companionship and solitude, to ...
Pinocchio is a wooden puppet who comes alive and starts talking and running about. When Pinocchio is sent to school, he decides to sell his school books and join a puppet show. From there start his many adventures which take him all over the countryside, making enemies like the Fox and Cat, getting turned into a donkey, being swallowed by a whale and ending up with the Blue Fairy who promises to turn him into a real boy if he stops being naughty.
The story of ...
When Mahatma Gandhi gave the call for the nation to join in the freedom struggle, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit threw herself wholeheartedly into the Movement, along with her father, Motilal Nehru, brother Jawaharlal, and husband, Ranjit Sitaram Pandit. Prison Days is an account of her third and final term in Naini Central Jail in Allahabad. She was arrested on 12 August 1942. World War II was on, the country was under military rule and arrest and imprisonment took place ...
This charming set of illustrated stories takes you on a guided tour through the historic tombs of the Lodhi Garden in New Delhi, the magnificent ruins of the Forum Romanum in Rome, the deliberately designed natural landscape of Central Park in New York, and the topiary oddities of the Hanging Gardens in Mumbai. This unusual itinerary takes the characters on a journey of self-discovery which unfolds through conversations that gradually reveal the drama of their ...
Lady Henrietta Clive, a feisty, independent-minded traveller, married to Lord Edward Clive, son of Clive of India and Governor of Madras from 1798 to 1803, lived in Madras and travelled through southern India with her daughters and retinue in the aftermath of the war against Tipu Sultan. In this volume, Nancy Shields skilfully interweaves extracts from Henrietta’s journals with passages from the diary of Charly, Henrietta’s precocious twelve-year-old ...
One of the world’s great travel writers, Dervla Murphy, and her young daughter, Rachel—with little money, no taste for luxury and few concrete plans—meander their way slowly south from Bombay to the southernmost point of India, Cape Comorin, in 1973. Interested in everything they see, but only truly enchanted by people, they stay in fishermen’s huts and no-star hotels, travelling in packed-out buses, on foot and by boat. But instead of ...
One winter in the mid-1970s, Dervla Murphy, her six-year-old daughter Rachel and Hallam, a hardy mule, walked into Baltistan close to Pakistan-held Kashmir—the frozen heart of the Western Himalayas. For three months they travelled along the perilous Indus Gorge and into nearby valleys, making a mockery of fear, trekking through the forbidding Karakoram mountains and lodging with the Balts, who farm one of the remotest regions on earth. Despite the hardship, ...
Governments across the world openly acknowledge the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as one of the greatest terrorist threats in history, greater even than Al Qaeda, which first set light to a global jihad. Never before has there been such a wealth of information, propaganda and counter-propaganda available on the subject, especially on the Internet. And yet, in all the noise, there’s confusion. This book draws on thorough research and rare interviews ...
In this book, Kaumudi explores her roots in the Konkanastha and Saraswat clans, recalling her immersion in their classic Marathi cuisines. Her peripatetic childhood, spent in places as diverse as Poona, Canada, Nagaland, Hyderabad and Wales, let her taste and savour the many flavours that came her way. As an adult, her choice of journalism as a profession took her to the Bombay of the heady 1980s and ’90s, where she met the challenges of adulthood and ...
There is nothing to keep me here, Only these mountains of silence And the gentle reserve of shepherds and woodmen Who know me as one who Walks among trees.’
One of India’s finest and most popular writers, Ruskin Bond is loved as much for the lyricism of his verses as for his classic stories. Tender and unsparing, understated but powerful, his poems reveal a deep connection with nature and appreciation for a surprising range of human emotions. This ...
Here is a book worth celebrating: Manohar Shetty’s Full Disclosure: New and Collected Poems (1981-2017), which gathers more than thirty years of work from a major voice in world Anglophone poetry. More accurately, this book presents a range of voices-in some of the multi-sectioned poems, a choir-as Shetty writes through a variety of personae and perspectives, delivering emotionally resonant deep imagery and intellectual precision, profound compassion and ...
Over 400 years ago, William Shakespeare wrote many memorable and beautiful plays and sonnets. These works have inspired generations of readers and writers, and continue to be read and performed even today. They have been recreated quite often but rarely for children. Keeping this in mind, in 1907, beloved children’s author E. Nesbit, rewrote twenty of Shakespeare’s most popular plays in simple, lively prose—from the comedies like Much Ado About ...
A storm batters a hillside farmstead through the night, and the family living in it debates its decision to give up the comforts of Darjeeling town for the pride of owning land. Ancient law allows Harshajit to cut down Rudraman, who has staked claim to his wife Thuli, but when Harshajit catches up with the couple after days of relentless chase, he witnesses a fearsome encounter that compels him to consecrate their marriage with his own hands. When a man on his ...
Dev—charismatic and powerful, a guru with thousands of followers around the world, and a string of ashrams fuelled by a flourishing business in drugs and gun-running. Ashrams that bring him the power and wealth he craves and fulfil his desire for women. But of all the women he knows—and at times, loves—there are three who play a pivotal role in his life: his wife, Gita, whose death is shrouded in mystery, and Cynthia and Madge, who unwittingly ...
A cursed Sahib finds ghostly cats about his path and around his bed. Two young soldiers are plagued by a banjo-playing spirit. An elderly lady shoos away importunate children, but when they turn away from her, she falls to her knees and prays for mercy. And an otherwise gentle horse causes accidents everywhere she goes—accompanied by the hoofbeats of another invisible steed.
These and sixteen other tales, replete with ghostly children, haunted ships, ...