Viking Publications
81 books
India's foremost environmentalist Sunita Narain gives a personal account of her battles as part of the country's green movement. While outlining the enormous environmental challenges that India faces today, Narain talks about how corporate lobbies and political interests often scuttle their effective resolution. She recounts some widely reported controversies triggered by research undertaken by her along with her team at the Centre for Science and Environment, ...
Bimal Jalan’s formidable analysis of the last four decades of India’s economic journey illuminates the nation’s transition from a strictly regulated, slow-growth state enterprise to one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Dr Jalan has had a ringside view of financial governance during his long and distinguished career, which included stints as Union Finance Secretary and Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Drawing on this vast ...
Every year, our planet loses over 150 species of plants and animals, and India is very much in the midst of this mass ‘sixth extinction’. We are losing species in our backyard-where are the once ubiquitous sparrows, or the fireflies that lit up our nights? And in the forests, iconic species like the great Indian bustards are down to a hundred, while flamingoes are poised to be wiped off the map of India.
The Vanishing takes an unflinching look at the ...
Of all Vishnu's avatars, Krishna is regarded as the purna avatar, the complete incarnation, for he encapsulates in himself the entire gamut of emotions and attributes that constitute the ideal human personality. He is the most accessible of gods, and bridges the gap between the mortal and the immortal.
In this book, Pavan Varma, the best selling author of Krishna: The Playful Divine, succeeds brilliantly in communicating the exuberance, the charm and the ...
Raja Rammohun Roy (1774-1833) was a great champion of liberty and civil rights in colonial India. He was also a true cosmopolitan who envisioned a world without borders. A tireless crusader for religious and social reform, Rammohun attempted a progressive reinterpretation of Hinduism and tried to improve the lot of socially marginalized groups such as women.
Yet, in spite of his lofty public presence, Rammohun was a hugely controversial figure. He shocked the ...
National-level volleyball player Arunima Sinha was shoved off a moving train by thieves. The accident cost the twenty-four-year-old her left leg and sporting career, but it never deterred her. Two years later she retrained as a mountaineer and became the first female amputee to scale Mount Everest. This is her unforgettable story.
He was the Western convert who would plunge deep inside Al-Qaeda. He named his first son Osama after 9/11 and became a Jihadist. But then - after a sudden loss of faith - Morten Storm made a life-changing decision. He became a double agent and joined the CIA, MI6 and MI5. Filled with hair-raising close calls and duplicity, Storm's story builds to the climactic finale when he must betray his friend and mentor Al-Awlaki - Al-Qaeda's biggest threat to the West. ...
Two lovers are destined to meet in the city of Srinagar. Roohi is a beautiful, spirited girl who is haunted by dreams of a mysterious man she believes is her true love. Faiz is a young papier-mache artist on the cusp of painting his masterpiece, the Falaknuma. When fate conspires to bring them together one windswept evening, both fall irrevocably in love.
But it is the 1990s. Kashmir is simmering with political strife and rebellion, and it is only a matter of ...
It is 1973 and Uma, a Bengali from Calcutta, has moved to Dhaka with her husband, Iqbal. In Dhaka she finds Iqbal a changed man and their mixed marriage too controversial. Uma has never felt so alone in her life, until she finds herself in love.
Shyam Selvadurai pieces together the best of Sri Lankan poetry and fiction in this anthology. From the Sinhala and Tamil writers of the 1950s to diasporic writers of today, from stories of love and longing to those of brutality and death, this masterfully constructed anthology will give you a rich sense of Sri Lankas history, its people and the stories they have to tell.
Many readers have grown up with Ruskin Bond’s stories. Now in an utterly delightful anthology, he introduces you to the stories he grew up with. Part memoir, part anthology, Love among the Bookshelves is a glimpse into Ruskin’s life through the books he has loved and an introduction to some forgotten classics.
In Central Time, Ranjit Hoskote becomes the storyteller of a turbulent epoch. We meet Ovid and Ghalib, poets in exile or eclipse, in these poems, which are by turns elliptical, conversational and narrative. We meet painters who betray their art, and sculptors who are betrayed by theirs. Fascinated by the enigmas of time, memory and evanescence that art invokes, Hoskote addresses a range of artists including Bihzad, Magritte, Masaki Fujihata and Ranbir Kaleka. At ...
The book presents a fast-paced account that takes a few high points in Indian history and explores India’s past with those aspects in mind. It shows that the country’s history was shaped by its geographical position: its rivers, cities and mountains. Taking into consideration the country’s archaeological findings, old records and manuscripts, it examines questions like why India is called ‘Bharat’, how the British built the railways ...
Rajinikanth is, guile simply, the biggest superstar cinema-crazy India has ever seen His stylized dialogues and screen mannerisms are legion, and his guy next door-cum-superhero image has found a hysterically appreciative following among millions of moviegoers.
Naman Ramachandran's marvellous biography recounts Rajinis career in meticulous detail tracing his incredible cinematic journey from his very first film Apoorva RagangaI in 1975 to memorable forays into ...
His Nayakan is among Times 100 Best Movies Ever; and Roja launched A.R. Rahman. This book, unique for Indian cinema, illuminates the genius of the man behind these and eighteen other masterly films. For the first time ever, Mani Ratnam opens up here, to Baradwaj Rangan, about his art, as well as his life before films.
In these freewheeling conversations, candid, witty, pensive, and sometimes combative, many aspects of his films are explored. Mani elaborates in a ...
In this illuminating memoir Javid Chowdhury shares his varied experiences over four decades in the IAS: the years in training, when he imbibed the service’s ethos and values; his initiation into the rural universe as the District Development Officer and the District Magistrate; and further on, to his handling of the infamous Bank Securities and Jain Hawala scams as Director of Enforcement and Union Revenue Secretary.
With a light pen, Chowdhury describes ...
A solitary economist drives from France to Sweden to try and redeem a tragedy; a boy fervently hopes his father will not miss his appearance in a school play; a painter on the way to Europe is about to board the wrong flight; a village boy leaves school for the bright lights of Bangalore; a man tries to stop time.
Wry, tender, borderline surreal, Difficult Pleasures is a collection of stories about the need to escape and the longing to belong. Accomplished, ...
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 ...
Ruskin Bond once famously remarked that while he does not believe in ghosts, he sees them all the time—in the woods, in a bar, in a crowd outside a cinema. Not surprising, then, that in his stories, ghosts, jinns, witches—and the occasional monster—are as real as the people he writes about. He makes the supernatural appear entirely natural, and therefore harder to ignore. This collection brings together all ...
The evening prayer of the Sikhs, recited around sunset, Rehras is a quest for the infinite reality that is God. It is believed that Rehras, in some form or the other, has been recited since the time of Guru Nanak (1469-1539), the founder of Sikhism. Compositions of the other Gurus were added in later years, and the final arrangement of the order in which the hymns are recited was formulated by the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee in the 1930s. Its ...
As a watchdog of public interest and the voice of the small man, it is the duty of the media to uphold democracy by exposing what those in authority may prefer to gloss over or hide. But in this age of instant communication and twenty-four-hour television, the focus is on breaking the story as it happens, with little attempt to interpret and analyse. In this context, when everything appears ‘big’ and yet superficial, has the ...
For the last twenty years India and Pakistan have been locked in fierce combat to gain control of the barren heights of the Siachen glacier, located in the western Himalayas. The protracted conflict has exacted a heavy toll; many brave men have been felled and, on a rough estimate, between two and three crores of rupees are being spent daily to sustain the strife. Siachen: Conflict without End is the first definitive account of the costly war that has bled both ...