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Beat Exam Blues with the Modi Mantra!

Posted on by Penguin India

Exam Warriors by Narendra Modi is an inspiring book for the youth. Written in a fun and interactive style, with illustrations, activities and yoga exercises, this book will be a friend not only in acing exams but also in facing life.
Non-preachy, practical and thought-provoking, Exam Warriors is a handy guide for students in India and across the world.

On ways to beat exam stress, Mr. Modi writes, “You may not give your best when you’re under stress because your knowledge takes a back seat and pressure drives you. Do you want to be controlled by unnecessary pressure or would you rather control the pressure?”

Read on for 7 Modi mantras to triumph over exam stress-

Mantra 1: Prepare, appear and do not fear failure.

‘Exams are just one of the many important events in life, not the only one. Can one exam be the sole factor in determining one’s excellence and true potential? Certainly not.’

 Mantra 2: Always remember: relax to recall.

 ‘Prepare for exams with a smile, carry the same smile all the way into the exam hall, and out of it. Even if you do not feel like it, SMILE.’

Mantra 3: Pay no attention to tension.

  ‘It is natural to be mildly concerned before exams. However, worrying all the time will not help. Being in perpetual tension cannot be in fashion. Trying to appear serious may win you sympathy but not success.’

Mantra 4: Live Here and Now

‘The most important time is NOW, so make the most of it. It is not that the past or the future is unimportant. Learn from the past and plan for the future, but work in the present.’

Mantra 5: Use technology to become smart and to unwind smartly.

‘Many people will tell you to completely stop watching television, or be off the Internet during exams. I would never suggest such a drastic measure. These aspects of technology bring a refreshing element to your otherwise fixed routine of books.’

Mantra 6: Trust yourself!

‘During exam time, the possibility of rumours and misinformation reaching you can be high. Do not fall prey to them. Rumours are negative, almost never true and will not affect you if you are well prepared.’

Mantra 7- Yoga strengthens the brain and the nervous system.

‘Better concentration brings about greater efficiency in learning, which in turn enhances recall power. The overall impact is that memory, concentration and confidence are boosted.’

 

Putting things in perspective Shri Narendra Modi writes, ‘The aim of learning is to gain knowledge. When knowledge is pursued, marks will automatically follow (as a by-product). Focusing simply on marks not only builds undue pressure but also limits what you absorb.’

As Prime Minister, Modi has presided over transformative economic and social sector reforms, which have given a strong boost to India’s development journey.
The education sector has been particularly close to Modi’s heart. He is an inspirational leader for the youth.

Read the Exam Warriors to fight the fear of exams with Modi’s mantras!

The Maoists and Nepal: Excerpt from ‘The Nepal Nexus’

Posted on by Penguin India

The Maoist revolt, despite its ultimate failure, played a decisive role in the socio-political transformation of Nepal. In The Nepal Nexus, author Sudheer Sharma attempts to present a nuanced understanding of the poverty, oppression and unemployment that drove the revolt.

He further assesses the relationship between the Maoists, the monarchy (Durbar), and the Indian establishment (Delhi) to understand the trajectory of the revolt.

Here is an excerpt that introduces the strand of the book:

The previous decade (1996–2006) had witnessed major upheavals in the Nepali body politic. The subsequent decade was usurped by the uncertainties of protracted political transition. This book covers both periods. It is focused on the origin and expansion of Maoist revolt, but is not a history that covers all the aspects of the Maoist movement. It merely places them at the centre and analyses their chaotic relations with the monarchy (termed ‘Durbar’ in this book) and the Indian establishment (called ‘Delhi’). In other words, this book is an account of a three-way interplay between Delhi, the Durbar and the Maoists which has had a profound impact on the present.

In the two and a half centuries since the establishment of the modern Nepali state, the ten-year people’s war posed its greatest internal challenge. Thousands of people took part in that armed movement risking their lives in pursuit of the dream of communist revolution. It was during this people’s war that the country could take great strides towards a progressive social agenda, such as the republic, a Constituent Assembly, social awareness of inequality, and inclusion. The Maoist revolt played a decisive role in the socio-political transformation of this feudal unitary Hindu state.

Certainly, that revolt was born in the hills of Nepal, and not in Delhi or the Durbar. But to fulfil their own interests the latter two played indirect roles in its expansion. Initially, the Durbar took a soft approach towards Maoists in the belief that it would lead to the failure of the parliamentary system restored in the early 1990s and pave the way for the return of an assertive monarchy. Therefore, the Durbar did not allow the army, which had remained under its control, to venture out of their barracks for the first six years of the insurgency. The lack of support from the army meant that the police was forced to confront the guerrillas alone and, in the end, was decisively defeated by the latter.

How did the conflict between the government and the Durbar flare up when the latter did not allow the army to be deployed against the Maoists? How did the rebels take advantage of such fissures within the state? How did they establish relations with the Durbar? How and why did the king’s brother have a secret dialogue with the Maoists? How did the palace massacre push Nepal’s politics towards a new phase? This book attempts to examine these questions.

Get an inside look into a highly turbulent time in the geopolitics of Nepal.

Know the Authors: Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah

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Professional economists and former civil servants, Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah have spent twenty years of their lives thinking about and attempting to work on these questions:

Why did the reforms introduced from 1977 onwards deliver success during 1991–2011, but falter thereafter?

Where did Indians falter?

How can this course be changed?

How can Indians get rich before they grow old?

And one question above all else: What do Indians need to do to make their tryst with destiny?

The result of their attempt is In Service of the Republic, a meticulously researched work that stands at the intersection of economics, political philosophy and public administration.

Read on to get to know these economists and authors better!

Vijay Kelkar

Dr. Vijay Kelkar is one of India’s most eminent economists and technocrats, and a renowned public policy thought-leader.

He served the Government of India in senior positions: as petroleum secretary, finance secretary and chairman of the Thirteenth Finance Commission of India. He also served as director of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and as executive director of the International Monetary Fund.

In 2011, the President of India conferred the Padma Vibhushan upon him, the second-highest civilian award for distinguished and exceptional service to the Nation.

Dr. Kelkar is also Chairperson for a committee constituted by the Government of India on Revisiting and Revitalizing the PPP model of Infrastructure Development; and Chairman for a committee constituted by the Government of India to prepare a roadmap for enhancing the domestic production of oil and gas, with sustainable reduction in import dependency by 2030. (Source: NIPFP)

He holds a BS from the University of Pune, MS from the University of Minnesota and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught at the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad; Center for Economic Development and Administration, Kathmandu; South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University; and University of California, Berkeley. (Source: IIHS)

Ajay Shah

Ajay Shah has worked at the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, the Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research and the Ministry of Finance. He is currently, a professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP).

His research interests include policy issues on Indian economic growth, open economy macroeconomics, public finance, financial economics and pensions. In the past decade, he was extensively involved in the policy process in the reforms of the equity market and the New Pension System. (Source: NIPFP)

He has a BTech in Aeronautical Engineering from IIT, Bombay, and a PhD in economics from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

Ajay thinks that his brain has two parts that he nurtures. The part that lives in Mathematics and Computer Science makes him a child of the world of science and reason. The other wing lives in the world of politics and thinks of the state, public policy, and ways to fix the world. (Source: YourStory)

Put together, these two have spent sixty years in the field and hope that this book will trigger many crucial and relevant conversations.

‘Step Out of the Car!’: Excerpt from Talking to Strangers

Posted on by Penguin India

Talking to Strangers is a veritable psychological and intellectual adventure, told through a mix of history and anecdotes, where author Malcolm Gladwell asks pertinent questions about how we make sense of interact with people we don’t know.

Here’s a peek into one of the stories from the book.

“Step out of the car!”

Bland: I’m in my car, why do I have to put out my cigarette?

Encinia: Well, you can step on out now.

Bland:  I don’t have to step out of my car.

Encinia: Step out of the car.

Bland: Why am I…

Encinia: Step out of the car!

Bland: No, you don’t have the right. No, you don’t have the right.

Encinia: Step out of the car.

Bland: You do not have the right. You do not have the right to do this.

Encinia: I do have the right, now step out or I will remove you.

Bland: I refuse to talk to you other than to identify myself. [crosstalk] I am getting removed for a failure to signal?

Encinia: Step out or I will remove you. I’m giving you a lawful order. Get out of the car now or I’m going to remove you.

Bland: And I’m calling my lawyer.

Bland and Encinia continue on for an uncomfortably long time. Emotions escalate.

Encinia: I’m going to yank you out of here. [Reaches inside car.]

Bland: OK, you’re going to yank me out of my car? OK, all right..

Encinia: [calling in backup] 2547.

Bland: Let’s do this.

Encinia: Yeah, we’re going to. [Grabs for Bland]

Bland: Don’t touch me!

Encinia: Get out of the car!

Bland: Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me! I’m not under arrest – you don’t have the right to take me out of the car.

Encinia: You are under arrest!

Bland: I’m under arrest? For what? For what? For what?

Encinia: [To dispatch] 2547 County FM 1098. [inaudible] Send me another unit. [To Bland] Get out of the car! Get out of the car now!

Bland: Why am I being apprehended? You’re trying to give me a ticket for failure…

Encinia: I said get out of the car!

Bland: Why am I being apprehended? You just opened my –

Encinia: I’m giving you a lawful order. I’m going to drag you out of here.

Bland: So you are threatening to drag me out of my own car?

Encinia: Get out of the car!

Bland: And then you’re going to [crosstalk] me?

Encinia: I will light you up! Get out! Now! [Draws stun gun and points it at Bland.]

Bland: Wow. Wow. [Bland exits car.]

Encinia: Get out. Now. Get out of the car!

Bland: For a failure to signal? You’re doing all of this for a failure to signal?

Bland was arrested and jailed. Three days later, she committed suicide in her cell.

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know is a sinister but enlightening narrative of the mind and fundamental questions about the dark side of human nature.

Who was Shehnaz?

Posted on by Penguin India

Shehnaz was a beautiful, erudite woman from the royal family of Bhopal. She was almost cast to play Anarkali in K. Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam!

Her daughter Sophia Naz tells her story as she heard it from her. As a child, the author accompanied her mother every year to Mumbai, where she would try to find some trace of her children in vain. When Shehnaz passed away, it was with her older daughter’s name on her lips.

With a life full of royalty, glamour, heartbreak and survival – we take a deeper look at Shehnaz’s story in a glimpse from the book:

At a very tender age, Fatima stood in front of a stunned gathering and proclaimed that from then on she would be known by the name of Shehnaz-Pride of Kings. As she started to grow older, her penchant for pranks and pocketing delicious treats had not disappeared completely, however, they had been largely supplanted by a burning curiosity about beyond the boundaries of Nawab Manzil and Bara Mahal.

A few months into her lessons, Maulvi Asghar realized that Shehnaz had an aptitude for Urdu poetry well beyond her years. He began by teaching her poetry written for children by the likes of Ismail Merathi, then quickly progressed to the famous riddle verses of Amir Khusro and the mystical couplets of Kabir followed by the classical poets Ghalib, Mir Taqi Mir, Daagh Dehlavi, Sauda, Jurat, Insha and Zauq. Finally, in a nod to an unusual phenomenon that was unique to the literary culture of Bhopal, he taught Shehnaz verses written by Shehzad Masih, the Bourbon who wrote under the nom de plume Fitrat, as well as the poet of Portuguese origin known as Hakim Ilyas Da Silva.

Despite being thrust into an environment that was a stark contrast to the indolent and bucolic neighbourhood of Shahjahanabad in Bhopal where she had grown up, Shehnaz excelled in her studies at the convent, so much so that despite joining the school late and being quite a bit older than her fellow pupils, she quickly earned her promotions and within two years was promoted to a class appropriate for her age.

From the very first moment that they were torn away from their mother, Shehnaz’s children were led to believe that she had abandoned them. In addition to the torture of separation that she was forced to undergo, her children were brainwashed to repudiate their mother completely.

Shehnaz’s heart had been broken in her youth. In the last two decades of her life, this heartbreak took on a literal meaning as she began to suffer a series of heart attacks that grew ever more serious in nature.

On 5 October 2012, before she could complete her eighty-first year, Shehnaz suffered a massive heart attack from which she never recovered. None of her children were with her at the time of her death.

Sophia Naz’s Shehnaz is a story of a life that is worth knowing and understanding. Meet Shehnaz now.

5 Heartwarming Instances from Artist Namboodiri’s Life

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Black, white, lines, colours: Namboodiri has mastery over all of them. He can create sculptures in stone, wood and cement. He is the proprietor of multifaceted accomplishments. This work proves to us that he has the power to transform words that —devoid of pomp or adornment—into beautiful writing.

This piece lists 5 heartwarming instances from the artist’s life.

“Attu was an extremely intelligent man…..However, he was always interested in helping people. It was he who took me to Veembur to study Sanskrit.”

~

“In the days when I used to visit Varikkasserry, I used to make figures out of clay—but not to show them to anyone, I never did. One day, Poonthottam Namboodiri, the artist, found out about them and congratulated me: ‘Your efforts aren’t bad at all!’”

~

“Whenever he visited Varikkasserry, he would speak to me about what he was doing and I would listen attentively. A year went by in this way. One day, Kavu Namboodiri said to me: ‘Come with me to Madras, you can stay with me.’….. The next I knew, I had a letter from him. ‘You have to come here, Karuvadu.’ It was a turning point in my life.”

~

“I used to call K.C.S. ‘Master’. I began to meet him quite often….One day, Master said to me: ‘Vassevan, attend the painting class as well.’ And so a rare opportunity came my way: to be able to paint with the fi nal-year students in the advanced course in painting.”

~

“Time went by and one day, I heard a piece of news that saddened me deeply. That Master had a cancer of the stomach. …When we arrived at the hospital, Master, his wife and his son were just coming out after he had been examined.‘So, Vassevan?’ he asked….I had nothing to say. My face fell, I knew I was going to break down. I had to accept the situation. Master patted my shoulder and said, ‘It doesn’t matter. It had to happen sometime, Vassevan.’ I cannot think of anyone who faced death so fearlessly.”

In Sketches, Namboodiri has sketched certain people and events that linger in his memory. They are not in chronological order. Nor is this an autobiography that follows a given arrangement. These are glimpses that touched an artist’s heart and because of this, its composition is unique.

What the British Taught Us About ‘Charity’- An Excerpt from ‘Bombay Before Mumbai’

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‘City of Gold’, ‘Urbs Prima in Indis’, ‘Maximum City’: no Indian metropolis has captivated the public imagination quite like Mumbai. Bombay Before Mumbai, featuring new essays by its finest historians, presents a rich sample of Bombay’s palimpsestic pasts.

 

Here’s an excerpt from Preeti Chopra’s essay from the book:

 

The British colonial regime brought to Bombay the English term and ideal of ‘charity’, complete with religious, institutional and social connotations. Following the literary scholar and novelist Raymond Williams’s untangling of the word, ‘a charity as an institution’ was established in the seventeenth century, replacing the older meaning of the notion as ‘Christian love between man and God, and between men and their neighbours’. From the eighteenth century onwards, the institutionalization of charity resulted in a sense of revulsion to the term itself that came from ‘feelings of wounded self-respect and dignity, which belong, historically, to the interaction of charity and class-feelings, on both sides of the act’. This later led to the ‘specialization of charity to the deserving poor’ (a reward for approved social conduct) and to upholding the bourgeois political economy so that charity did not interfere with the need to toil for wage-labour.

 

British notions of charity and philanthropy intersected with, and influenced, Indian forms of gift giving. Douglas Haynes has underscored ‘the importance of gift giving in Indian ethical traditions’. Native businessmen in western India actively participated in this arena, which included the construction of wells, rest houses, support of festivals and Sanskrit learning or other arenas that were valued by their community. These were religious acts in the service of deities, through which the devotees hoped to earn merit. But gifting activities were also tied to the world of business. Writing of the merchants of Surat, Haynes emphasises the importance of a abru u (reputation), which required careful nurturing and maintenance, adherence to community norms and support of community religious and social life. A Abru u also denoted ‘economic “credit”’. It was essential for businessmen to establish a reputation of reliability in order to participate in vast commercial networks that were based on trust rather than enforceable legal contracts and modern financial institutions. Gifting was also used to exert political influence over rulers who came from outside the city and distinguished themselves from the culture and norms of the merchants. Here, the gifts made by merchants accorded to the norms of the rulers. According to Haynes, under British rule in the nineteenth century, this form of gift shifted ‘from tribute to philanthropy’, as merchants started to contribute towards secular institutions such as schools, colleges, or hospitals. Gifting for secular philanthropic works of ‘humanitarian service’, Haynes argues, diffused ‘an entirely novel ethic from Victorian England among the commercial communities of India’. Thus, even as merchants continued to uphold their reputations by gifting practices that maintained community religious norms and social life, they adjusted other practices to the norms of the ruling group. Building on and moving beyond Haynes, I underscore in this chapter how native elites also donated to charities that supported the European poor and, occasionally, Christian religious institutions primarily geared towards Europeans.

 

In the nineteenth century, colonial legal interventions transformed native practices of charitable gifting by making them transparent and bringing them under government control. As Ritu Birla shows, the Charitable Endowments Act of 1890 and the Charitable and Religious Trusts Act of 1920 introduced the criteria of ‘general public utility’ for determining charitable purpose. Yet, religious institutions were excluded from the category of charitable trusts until the Act of 1920 ‘established that religious trusts deemed of public import would also be eligible for classification as charitable trusts, and thus be classified as tax exempt’. An example of a religious trust of public import were dharamshalas, or travellers’ rest houses, which offered free room and board Primarily used by merchants, they were open to religious mendicants and those of ‘pure caste status’. Yet, in most cases, entry was denied to those of lower castes and untouchables.

 

From the 1890s onwards, as courts increasingly began to consider cases involving the ‘public nature of indigenous endowments … the question of public benefit came to rest less on equal access to all potential beneficiaries and became instead one of serving more than just the family or trustees.’ In the 1890s, the British saw dharamshalas as ‘valid religious but not public charitable trusts’. By 1908, however, they clearly considered them as institutions of public benefit. The 1920 statute allowed the Government of India to give local government and courts greater regulatory controls over public religious and charitable trusts, at the same time as it forced trusts to publicise their finances and accounts.

 

Thus, to summarise, in colonial India, charity retained a religious basis, serving specific communities, and excluding others. It remained distinguished from philanthropy, which had secular humanitarian goals, and served the public at large. While the institutionalisation of charity in Britain encouraged popular feelings of social revulsion and channeled aid towards the deserving poor, nothing suggests that all Indian communities felt the same way, at least in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Bombay Before Mumbai is a fitting tribute to Masselos’ enduring contribution to South Asian urban history.The book is available now!

 

All the Tumble and Bumble in Trotter-land!

Posted on by Penguin India

In the eighteenth century, Justin Aloysius Trotter, or the Great Trotter, tumbles earthward to his death while surveying his vast lands and admiring his wealth from a hot air balloon. Two centuries later, the Seventh Trotter, Eugene Aloysius, narrates the epic story of a family at the fraying ends of its past glory.

The Trotter-Nama, Allan Sealy’s comedy of manners about Britain and India’s motley offspring is presented on an extravagant canvas where the chronicle of the Trotter family is generously scattered with unabashedly entertaining moments.

Here are 6 delightful instances from this mesmerizing narrative-

  1. The buoyant Salamandre carrying the ageing Trotter is buffeted by the strong winds of his hubris. As he proudly surveys his demesne and indulges in a feverish ecstasy of imagined power, Mr. Great Trotter loses his balance and is launched into an anti-climactic tumble. On his way down, Trotter yearns for roasted meat and dessert-

‘Justin was hungry. Might the Salamandre have sent down the tandoori partridge? He looked about him: it had not. The bird was wasted, his lunch floating away. But it was not a tandoori partridge he craved, nor was it the curried doves. It was nothing savoury; rather, a taste he had almost forgotten thanks to a hasty vow….’

  1. From the gossamer hammock of riches and power, the Great Trotter billows down into the dense, corrugated waste of his neighbourhood. The final resting place of the doyen, the gutter, is described by the frenzied narrator in a hyperbolic verbal diarrhoea –

  

‘…of cretins, the discharge of pimps, the lavings of lepers, the spewings of drunkards, …the moultings of reptiles, the crackling of corpses—

 

Narrator, do you hear me? Your eyes are rolling!

 

— the bedding of incontinents, the bile of oil painters, the gall of historians, the swaddling of infants,…the betel-juice of bicyclists, the chewing-gum of motorcyclists….’

  1. Expertly crafting a fresh batch of jalebis- a wildly popular sweetmeat- Mansoor Halvai expresses comical disbelief at a refusal of his precious offering. His exaltation of the silver leaf covered, syrup coated crisp coils of deliciousness is as amusing as his absurd attempts at enticing Yakub – 

 

‘He handed the jalebis to Yakub on a leaf, and laughed out loud as he did. ‘Sorry, Yakub! I misheard you. For a moment I thought you said no!’ His eyes bulged. ‘You did? Yakub, bhai, what are you saying! Surely you mean yes, yes? No? Yakub, reconsider, I beg you—the offer is free, no strings attached. Shun this foolery. Look, here’s gold beneath the silver—see the precious liquid running in these veins? You’re not well, that’s it; the sun’s gone to your head.’

  1. The crippled artist Marazzi pricks the grandiose bubble that the Great Trotter floats on by painting Sans Souci is all its flawed and skewed incompleteness. The ruins of the ambitious project are no deterrent to either Monsieur Trotter’s flamboyance or Marazzi’s reproof-

 

‘Do you know,’ he offered, his good humour returning, ‘I mean to call my seat Sans Souci.’

Marazzi’s eyes disappeared in a smile. ‘Monsieur Trotter is doubtless aware that every house built in Europe since the peace is called Sans Souci. There are six in my district alone.’

  1. E Trotter hoodwinks airlines to manipulate their determination to appease their customer and gets himself a fun, relaxing experience out of all the chaos he single-handedly generates-

‘The last call for Mr E. Trotter. You sit out ten minutes. Will Mr E. Trotter please report immediately to Gate 6. Stay put for another ten. Mr E. Trotter, you are wanted immediately at Gate 6. Then you count, slowly, to a hundred, and rush out. And after a little storm and stress they slap a First Class boarding pass into your hands because the stand-by crowd have filled up Economy. Then a whole bus, all to yourself, racing past the hangars…..’

 

  1. Sunya, a poulterer, indulges in rhapsodic rapture at his choice of profession and places the fruit of his labour, the humble egg, in a halo of purity bolstered on the authority of scriptures and old codes-

‘No, an egg is a noble thing. Consider its shape: there is the sunya, the zero from which all things spring, to which all things tend. Consider its colour: there is the whiteness of the sun, of cows, of milk, of pure ghi, of goddesses, of all good things. An egg is blameless. An egg is smooth, hairless and un-begotten. It is firm, it is fragile, it is flawless, it is just fine.’        

       

Allan Sealy, winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and the Padma Shri, proves once again his ability to elevate the mundane, add sparkle to the dreary and to create unforgettable characters out of his wickedly masterful humour.

For more of his magic, read The Trotter-Nama!

Spooky Books to Read this Halloween!

Posted on by Penguin India

Halloween is here and we know how you can make it even more spooky!

Check out these books which will make you want to sleep with the lights on:

The Puffin Book of Spooky Ghost Stories

In this spine-chilling collection you will encounter a creepy spirit that occupies a deserted bungalow, the reincarnation of a goddess who wants the sacrifice of blood, an ominous swing that makes one fly far away into a dark, deathly world, and the sheer wrath of the dead.

Written by the best contemporary authors including Ruskin Bond, Jerry Pinto among others, The Puffin Book of Spooky Ghost Stories will have horror-story addicts craving for more.

Whispers in the Dark: A Book of Spooks

For all those who have trembled through Ruskin Bond’s tales of horror and mystery, here’s another collection of strange and dark stories from the master storyteller. Within these pages you will befriend Jimmy the jinn who has trouble keeping his hands to himself, be witness to the mischief of the Pisaach and Churel who live in the peepul tree, and find yourself in the company of a bloodthirsty vampire cat, among other tales and curiosities that are guaranteed to send a delicious shiver down your spine! Written in Bond’s inimitable style and riveting to the core, this beautifully illustrated book is a must-have for anyone with a taste for the macabre.

The Curious Case of the Sweet and Spicy Sweetshop 

Making and selling sweets day after day is the life of Vishnudas Mithaiwala, the owner of The Sweet and Spicy Sweetshop. However, when Laddoo appears at his doorstep one night, claiming to be his estranged sister Revati’s son, Vishnu’s life is thrown into confusion.
And Laddoo, worried about his parents, who have suddenly disappeared, is thrown another curveball-he senses a ghostly presence in the house! When a plot to steal the Mithaiwala family’s valuable recipe book is hatched, Laddoo tries to use this new psychic ability to save the day.

The Wind on Haunted Hill

 

The wild wind pushes open windows, chokes chimneys and blows away clothes as it huffs and puffs over the village by Haunted Hill, where Usha, Suresh and Binya live. It’s even more mighty the day Usha is on her way back from the bazaar.
In search of shelter, Usha rushes into the ruins on Haunted Hill, grim and creepy against the dark sky. Inside, the tin roof groans, strange shadows are thrown against the walls and little Usha shivers with fear. For she isn’t alone.

House of Screams 

When Muneera finds out she’s inherited her uncle’s old house on Myrtle Lane, she decides to move in with her husband, Zain, and their three-year-old son, Adnan. The promise of saving money and living in one of Bangalore’s nicest areas has them packing up their old lives at their tiny apartment and shifting to this sprawling bungalow.
But they soon realize there’s more to the house than its old-world charm.

Boo 

 

A collection of short stories, Boo by Shinie Antony will give life to your fears. Penned by Shashi Deshpande, Kanishk Tharoor, K.R. Meera, Jerry Pinto, Usha K.R., Jahnavi Barua, Manabendra Bandyopadhyay, Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, Jaishree Misra, Kiran Manral, Madhavi S. Mahadevan, Durjoy Datta and Shinie Antony, the tales in Boo will send chills down your spine.

Haunted

 

Haunted chronicles the real-life adventures of paranormal investigator Jay Alani in ten of the spookiest locations in India. Co-authored by Neil D’Silva, these exploits provide a ringside view of these hair-raising paranormal journeys for everyone who has an interest in exploring the dark side of the normal.

 

Which book will you be reading this Halloween?

Where It All Began: In Conversation with Shuja Nawaz

Posted on by Penguin India

Has politics always been an area of interest for you? Do you remember any particular time in your childhood when this interest started growing?

Indeed. I developed an interest in world affairs and politics at an early age. My father used to read the newspapers and discuss issues even when I was very young. After he passed away when I was ten years old, my elder brother, then a young army officer, shared his books with me and allowed me to purchase on his account at the London Book Company in Rawalpindi. We are an old military family. So history, military affairs, and of course, politics were always on my list of books. Though, and thank God for that, a heavy dose of poetry and fiction also helped feed the soul. Working in Pakistan Television on news and current affairs programs helped me see history being made, up close and in person.

What is your writing process like? One often hears of writers getting into a zone when writing about a certain topic, is that how you write, or is it in bits and pieces?

My wife will tell you that I can be very disciplined when it comes to writing. I work in one spot in a room that has a lot of table space for a mess of books and files in open topped boxes, arranged by chapter per my outline. Being a habitual early riser, I use the first few hours of the day, when the mind is rested and recharged, to do a lot of my work. It also makes the day longer and productive for me. A break for exercise and breakfast helps fuel the process. The six-day writing week is divided into planning, reading, note taking and then the actual writing. I work directly on my computer and sometimes forget to take breaks for mid-day meals. At one point, rather embarrassingly, I stood up a former US ambassador to Pakistan whom I had invited to my club for lunch for an interview because I started writing in the morning and did not break till 4 PM. My phone was switched off. And the door to my writing room closed.

Fortunately, he was very gracious in accepting my abject apology and we rescheduled the interview for later. It pays to have understanding friends and colleagues!

Which bit about bringing a book to its fruition is the most exciting for you?

At heart I remain a journalist. So the reporting is the most exhilarating part. I learn to pick up direct and indirect information. If the material is not in the main text, it sometimes makes for interesting footnotes!

You learn to listen and pick up leads in that process. Polite but firm questions are needed. Persistence pays off.  And using an indirect approach sometimes helps when you hit a dead end or face stonewalling. Always triangulate the information. Since some folks will shave or bend the truth, as they see it. Like a good lawyer, it helps to research the topic as much as possible so you have the answers to many questions that you ask. It helps keep things honest. In The Battle for Pakistan, I was very lucky in that everyone I approached for an interview was known to me because of my work on policy issues since 2008 in the United States and Pakistan. There was a level of established trust. Most people agreed to interviews on the record. Where the few interviewees went off-the-record, I resorted to triangulation to verify information.

As cliché as it might sound, what inspires you to write?

The desire to seek truth or the nearest approximation to it, so we can collectively learn from our past and avoid mistakes in the future. I remain committed to Waging Peace and see conflict as an aberration. Some of my friends disagree with this approach. Some even call it naive.  But I am stubborn in this missionary quest though the final product must be offered with a dose of humility and modesty.  Readers must make the final judgment.

 

Shuja Nawaz’s latest book, The Battle for Pakistan, untangles the complex US-Pakistan relationship in the past decade, with an aim to identify a path forward.

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