How much time do you set aside for yourself, in a day? With our busy schedules, most of us are so busy worrying about events in our fast-paced lives, that we forget to acknowledge the most important thing here: ourselves.
Today, sit back and reflect on your inner-self. How are you, really?
It is with this spirit that we’ve put together quotes from some of our favourite books on self-help and self-love. Take a look!
Summer has finally arrived and so have longer, sunny days, that beckon you to rejuvenate your senses with an all-new reading list to look forward to! Here are some new launches that will help you sail smoothly in this scorching heat.
A glance at some eagerly awaited books, which will be out soon!
Awakening Bharat Mata
The rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was much more than an ordinary electoral phenomenon: it brought to the fore two contrasting views of nationhood: between those who saw modern India in terms of secular republicanism and on the other hand were those who sought to blend technological modernity with the country’s Hindu inheritance.
This collection is an attempt to showcase the phenomenon of Hindu nationalism in terms of how it perceives itself. Many of the concerns that drive the Indian Right are located in the country’s nationalist culture. In trying to locate some of the ideas, attitudes and beliefs that define the Indian Right, Awakening Bharat Mata also seeks to identify the nature of Indian conservatism and identify its similarities and differences with political thought in the West.
A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence
Through the technology embedded in almost every major tech platform and every web-enabled device, algorithms and the artificial intelligence that underlies them make a staggering number of everyday choices for us: from what products we buy to where we decide to eat, from how we consume our news to whom we date and how we find a job. We’ve even delegated life-and-death decisions to algorithms-judgments once made by doctors, pilots, and judges. In A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence, Kartik Hosanagar surveys the brave new world of algorithmic decision making and reveals the potentially dangerous biases to which they can give rise as they increasingly run our lives. He makes the compelling case that we need to arm ourselves with a better, deeper, more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon of algorithmic thinking.
A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence is an entertaining and provocative look at one of the most important developments of our time and is a practical user’s guide to this first wave of practical artificial intelligence.
Delhi Darshan
Giles Tillotson provides a fascinating account of Delhi’s built heritage, from the traces of the earliest settlements at Indraprastha, through the grand legacies of the Delhi Sultans and the great Mughals to the ordered symmetries of Lutyens’ Delhi and the towering skyscrapers of Gurgaon. Filled with quirky details and original insights, as well as a section on important monuments, this is a lively and informed account of the many fascinating twists and turns in the national capital’s built history and an original reflection on the many transformations of its urban landscape.
The King of Kings
A mysterious emissary arrives in the port city of Bhrigukachchh. He has been sent by King Jaysinhdev of Patan with a secret message for Kaak, the valiant chieftain of the city. The king seeks to urgently enlist Kaak’s help in conquering the kingdom of Junagadh. However, Kaak has also received crucial summons from two others: Leeladevi, the firebrand princess whose marriage to Jaysinhdev Kaak himself facilitated; and Ranakdevi, the queen of Junagadh.
Caught in a web of conflicting loyalties, Kaak must navigate a treacherous terrain of political machinations where the slightest misstep could lead to grave consequences-where even he will not emerge unscathed.
K.M. Munshi’s magnificent conclusion to his beloved Trilogy, The King of Kings is a panoramic epic filled with adventure and intrigue, and a timeless classic with a nuanced insight into human nature and the complex links between statecraft and violence.
Cities and Canopies
Native and imported, sacred and ordinary, culinary and floral, favourites of various kings and commoners over the centuries, trees are the most visible signs of nature in cities, fundamentally shaping their identities. Trees are storehouses of the complex origins and histories of city growth, coming as they do from different parts of the world, brought in by various local and colonial rulers. From the tree planted by Sarojini Naidu at Dehradun’s clock tower to those planted by Sher Shah Suri and Jahangir on Grand Trunk Road, trees in India have served, above all, as memory keepers. They are our roots: their trunks our pillars, their bark our texture, and their branches our shade. Trees are nature’s own museums.
Drawing on extensive research, Cities and Canopies is a book about both the specific and the general aspects of these gentle life-giving creatures.
Defining India
From Amartya Sen to Aamir Khan, Raghuram Rajan, Sachin Tendulkar, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Pranab Mukherjee, Arun Jaitley, Nirmala Sitharaman and Sania Mirza among others, in this book eminent journalist Sonia Singh opens a window to the myriad worlds of these stalwarts, who share their idea of India in freewheeling conversations. Chatty, candid and amazingly gripping these 15 interviews uncover the pivotal moments in their lives that have become defining moments in the history of the nation.
The Brotherhood in Saffron
Tracing the growth of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since its formation in the mid-1920s, the authors examine its ideology and training system. As the first significant book on its internal workings, this book is the prequel to RSS: A View to the Inside. It was for the first time in this book that readers received a glimpse into the inner workings of the RSS. Three decades later, the RSS is one of the most significant cultural organizations in India, making this book a powerful and important read.
The Young and the Restless
The 2014 Lok Sabha elections saw the involvement of India’s youth like never before. They were debating inside classrooms, sitting for dharnas on the street, having conversations in offices and on social media. The election in 2014 saw 150 million young voters—and the highest number of first-time voters in India.
And yet, the average age of our parliamentarians is sixty-three. Our leaders are almost four decades older than the average twenty-five-year-old.
In The Young and the Restless, Gurmehar Kaur, student activist and author of Small Acts of Freedom, follows the journeys of eight youth leaders, their aspirations for the country’s youth, their aspirations for themselves and, most importantly, their aspirations for the nation. She explores whether their politics only mimics that of the older party leaders or if they have the ideas, passion and motivation of the demographic they represent.
The Satapur Moonstone
India, 1922. A curse seems to have fallen upon the royal family of Satapur, a princely kingdom tucked away in the lush Sahyadari mountains, where both the maharaja and his teenage son have met with untimely deaths. The state is now ruled by an agent of the British Raj on behalf of Satapur’s two maharanis, the dowager queen and her daughter-in-law.
When a dispute arises between the royal ladies over the education of the young crown prince, a lawyer’s counsel is required to settle the matter. Since the maharanis live in purdah, the one person who can help is Perveen Mistry, Bombay’s only female lawyer. But Perveen arrives to find that the Satapur Palace is full of cold-blooded power play and ancient vendettas.
Too late she realizes she has walked into a trap. But whose? And how can she protect the royal children from the palace’s deadly curse?
Kidnapped
In 2016, approximately ten people were abducted every hour in India. Of them, six were children. Kidnapping is a crime where it is possibility to save the victim, which makes its treatment and results unique. Documenting ten cases of child abduction from across the country, Arita Sarkar investigates the bone-chilling details of the disappearance of each child. She delves into the trauma that the victims’ families went through, as they waited in the hope that their children would return.
This book brings to life investigations by the police, eyewitness accounts and the perspectives of the accused, recreating each case in painstaking detail. Some of the victims you read about will never come home, but their stories will stay with you.
Queens of Crime: True Stories of Women Criminals From India
Dysfunctional families, sexual abuse, sheer greed and sometimes just a skewed moral compass. These are some of the triggers that drove the women captured in these pages to become lawbreakers.
Queens of Crime demonstrates a haunting criminal power that most people do not associate women with. The acts of depravity described in this book will jolt you to the core, ensuring you have sleepless nights for months.
Based on painstaking research, these are raw, violent and seemingly unbelievable but true rendition of India’s women criminals.
Muhammad Bin Tughlaq
When his father dies, Prince Jauna Khan succeeds to the throne of Delhi as Muhammad bin Tughlaq. His reign will prove to be epic and bloody, but unsurpassed in splendour, innovation and defeat. A formidable strategist and remarkable scholar, the Sultan will go down in history for his brutality as well as his brilliance, unfairly remembered only as a cruel tyrant who might have been raving mad. His high-flown aspirations and grandiose ambitions may have met with crushing failure, but even so, Tughlaq was a great hero of the fourteenth century, albeit a tragic and fatally flawed one. In this fictional retelling, Anuja Chandramouli, one of India’s best mythology writers, reimagines Muhammad bin Tughlaq’s life and times in incredible detail to bring to life the man behind the monarch.
All You Need to Know About Parenting
As parents, we all face fear and doubt about bringing up children. It helps to have a guide who can prepare and take us through every single aspect of the formative years. You can rely on All You Need to Know about Parenting to be your guide, best friend and window into this world, knowing you’re not the only one who’s on this incredibly difficult but also rewarding journey. From the day you step into the hospital and welcome your baby to the time they become toddlers, this book will help you develop your parenting instinct.
With practical, handy tips on topics such as introducing a sleep schedule, travelling with a child, weaning and advice on raising two children together, this book will see you through every sleepless night and temper tantrum.
99 Not Out!
Longevity along with wellness is a process of moving towards a higher equilibrium of physical, mental and emotional well-being to lead a long and fulfilled life, while preventing disease. This book explains the principles that govern each type of well-being: physical, nutritional and emotional-mental, and shares tips on how we can engage each principle to live longer. Finally, and critically, it explains the role stress plays in undermining the wellness equilibrium, and what we can do to heal from stress and prevent its accumulation from hampering our life’s journey.
While ageing and death are inevitable consequences of being alive, there are behavioural practices that can slow down the ageing process while keeping disease at bay. The book acknowledges that to be fully present in our lives and enjoy it without suffering, we need to be proactive and do the groundwork to prevent illnesses before they occur. It shares evidence-based practices-Ayurveda, yoga and Western medicine-that promote longevity, while keeping our bodies healthy and our minds alert.
Chanakya and the Art of War
Each and every one of us wants to become successful. We aim to fight and win in businesses, careers, relationships and, ultimately, in life. However, most of us fail to reach our full potential because of various speed breakers. Chanakya and the Art of War draws upon lessons from the great teacher, philosopher and strategist Chanakya’s masterpiece, Arthashastra, which can help us overcome those speed breakers to become innovative and influential and realize our true potential.
Author of the bestselling Inside Chanakya’s Mind, Radhakrishnan Pillai decodes the war secrets of Chanakya as relevant to our personal and professional lives. Be it an army fighting enemy soldiers across the border, the police encountering internal challenges, a politician who wants to win an election, or the common man fighting for survival, Chanakya has a plan for every situation. In the game of life, Chanakya teaches you the winning strategies by putting into practice the Art of War.
Love Knows No LoC
Zoya, a twenty-five-year-old Pakistani pop star, meets emerging Indian cricketer Kabeer while he is on tour in the country to play a match to promote Indo-Pak friendship.
One thing leads to another and soon Kabeer and Zoya are inseparable. As their love for each other grows stronger, Zoya leaves Pakistan to be with Kabeer, only to return a few months later following a misunderstanding.
In Pakistan, Zoya is gloomy and sulking, rethinking her connection with Kabeer.
In India, a confused Kabeer is still hopeful of meeting Zoya.
As their relationship is put to the test in the wake of mounting tensions between the two countries, they both stumble across a long-buried truth that will forever change the course of their lives.
For decades, the West has dismissed Maoism as an outdated historical and political phenomenon. But Mao and his ideas remain central to the People’s Republic of China and the legitimacy of its Communist government.
In Maoism: A Global History, Julia Lovell re-evaluates Maoism as both a Chinese and an international force. Starting with the birth of Mao’s revolution in northwest China and concluding with its violent afterlives in South Asia and resurgence in the People’s Republic today.
Here are 8 things you learn from this landmark history of global Maoism:
“Those suspected of deviation from Mao’s line were arrested and ‘screened’…Torture and intimidation became commonplace; satire was outlawed.”
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“There was, quite simply, not much else to do but read and talk: there were no private radios and few film projectors. They were allowed free time on Sundays to wash in the river.”
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“Some of Mao’s closest colleagues listening to his lectures were embarrassed by his bêtises and blatant plagiarism from Chinese translations of Marxist texts. Perhaps as a result of all this, Mao long harboured a sense of inferiority towards intellectuals that no doubt shaped his harshness towards them once in power.”
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“She only learned that she had been summarily divorced and replaced by Jiang Quing two years later when she heard a translation of an article in the Soviet press referring to ‘Mao and his wife’.”
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“Mao’s love for rebellion fed also into his passionate belief in voluntarism: that as long as you believed you could do something,you could accomplish it – regardless of material obstacles.”
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“…he likened Chinese mind control to ‘witchcraft’, with its incantations,trances,poisons and potions,with a strange flair of science about it all, like a devil dancer in a tuxedo,carrying his magic brew in a test tube.’ ”
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“‘Connection with China was so feared that even people who were probably giving the sanest,most lucid intelligence in the US about China were driven out of office,’ ”
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“In a move unprecedented for a Communist state, the archives of Mao-era China had opened up in the first decade of the new millennium. Both Chinese and non-Chinese researchers could access vast quantities of government documents from municipal, provincial and country archives…”
Maoism: A Global History is a landmark book that sheds light on the political legacy of Mao.
Drawing examples from the way we behave in day-to-day situations, an all-new and revised edition of Games Indians Play tries to show how in the long run each one of us-whether businessmen, politicians, bureaucrats, or just plain us-stand to profit more if we were to assume a little self-regulation, give fairness a chance and strive to cooperate and collaborate a little more even if self-interest were to be our main driving force.
In a rare attempt to understand the Indianness of Indians-among the most intelligent people in the world, but also, to a dispassionate eye, perhaps the most baffling- V. Raghunathan uses the props of game theory and behavioural economics to provide an insight into the difficult conundrum of why we are the way we are.
Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter of the book!
NOT WHO BUT WHY
‘Who am I?’ is not a question that occupies me much. I have neither the intellectual curiosity nor the intellectual endowment to ask or answer that question. But, off and on, like when I have just returned from a visit abroad (by ‘abroad’ I mean not only countries like the USA, UK and UAE but also the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia or Botswana, Burkina Faso and Burundi), I find myself asking some less philosophical questions. For example:
Why is my sense of public hygiene so porcine? Why do I throw my garbage around with the gay abandon of an inebriated uncle flinging 500-rupee notes at a Punjabi wedding? Why do I spit with a free will, as if without that one right I would be a citizen of a lesser democracy? Why do I tear off a page from a library book, or write my name on the Taj Mahal? Why do I light a match to a football stadium, a city bus or any other handy public property, or toot my horn in a residential locality at 3 a.m.? Why do I leave a public toilet smelling even though I would like to find it squeaky clean as I enter it? Why don’t I contribute in any way to help maintain a beautiful public park? Why is my concern for quality in whatever I do rather Lilliputian? Why is my ambition or satisfaction threshold at the level of a centipede’s belly button? Why do I run the tap full blast while shaving even when I know of the acute water shortage in the city? Why don’t I stop or slow down my car to allow a senior citizen or a child to cross the road? Why do I routinely jump out of my seat in a mad rush for the overhead baggage even before the aircraft comes to a halt, despite the repeated entreaties of the cabin crew?
Why do I routinely disregard an airline’s announcement to board in orderly groups in accordance with seat numbers? Why does it not hurt my national pride that in international terminals abroad extra staff is appointed at gates from which flights to India are to depart? Why don’t I vote? Why don’t I stand up or retaliate against social ills? Why is it that every time the government announces a well-intended measure like a higher rate of interest for senior citizens I am not averse to borrowing my ageing parents’ names, or the old family maid’s for that matter, to save my money? Why is it that, every time the government announces no tax deduction at source for small depositors, I split my bank deposit into fifteen different accounts, with the active connivance of the bank manager? Why do I jump red lights with the alacrity of a jackrabbit leaping ahead of a buckshot? Why do I block the left lane, when my intention is to turn right? Or vice versa? Why do I overtake from the left? Why do I drive at night in the city with the high beam on? Why do I jump queues with the zest of an Olympic heptathlon gold hopeful?
Get your copy of Games Indians Play today!
Yogi, mystic, and visionary, Sadhguru is a spiritual master with a difference. His book Flowers on the Path offers insights that spark you with their incisive clarity, delight you with humour, or even render you in profound stillness within. Whether the subject covers social issues and worldly affairs, individual challenges, or dimensions of the beyond, Sadhguru’s ability to delve to the root and look at life in its totality is evident.
Here we give you some interesting facts about Sadhguru:
Get your copy of Flowers On The Path today!
With the General Elections going on in full swing, it’s needless to say that there’s no better time than now, to get updated with the current political environment, in order to vote consciously!
Here’s a list of books that will help you understand the A to Z of governance!
The Lost Decade (2008-18)
Before the global financial meltdown of 2008, India’s economy was thriving and its GDP growth was cruising at an impressive 8.8 per cent. The economic boom impacted a large section of Indians, even if unequally. With sustained high growth over an extended period, India could have achieved what economists call a ‘take-off’ (rapid and self-sustained GDP growth). The global financial meltdown disrupted this momentum in 2008.
In the decade that followed, each time the country’s economy came close to returning to that growth trajectory, political events knocked it off course.
In 2019, India’s GDP is growing at the rate of 7 per cent, making it the fastest-growing major economy in the world, but little on the ground suggests that Indians are actually better off. Economic discontent and insecurity are on the rise, farmers are restive and land-owning classes are demanding quotas in government jobs. The middle class is palpably disaffected, the informal economy is struggling and big businesses are no longer expanding aggressively.
India is not the star it was in 2008 and in effect, the ‘India growth story’ has devolved into ‘growth without a story’. The Lost Decade tells the story of the slide and examines the political context in which the Indian economy failed to recover lost momentum.
Didi: The Untold Mamata Banerjee
Mamata Banerjee, with her unique style of politics, was able to defeat the formidable three-decade-old Left Front Government in 2011. Exploring her struggles and achievements, Didi opens a window to the life and times of one of the most dynamic politicians of our country.
‘The general elections of 2019 can see [Mamata Banerjee] play kingmaker . . . She is the only regional leader who can claim to have that kind of clout. Jayalalithaa is no more and Nitish Kumar has changed over to the NDA. The year 2018 also witnessed the demise of another pedagogue of Dravidian politics, K. Karunanidhi. With the Congress showing signs of resurgence, and regional parties agreeing to forge a Federal Front, Mamata is more than aware that if she gets her electoral mathematics right, she could play a decisive role in the next Lok Sabha polls-maybe even stand a chance at prime ministership.’
Behenji
“This revised edition of Behenji, first published in 2008, examines Mayawati’s record as chief minister since 2007. It pinpoints the reasons behind the BSP’s poor performance in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, her return to the Dalit agenda prior to the 2012 assembly elections, as well as its surprising results. Also scrutinized are Mayawati’s performance as a Dalit leader and administrator, besides the rampant corruption and failure of her social engineering project during these years. Though no longer likely to become prime minister, the author sees Mayawati playing a pivotal role in UP, and, indeed, Indian politics post the 2014 elections.”
Rahul
“Perceptions of Rahul Gandhi have ranged from the great Indian hope to that of an over- promoted dynastic scion. Everyone has an opinion, but the man himself remains opaque, his public persona confined to positions on political events, policies or programmes. Who is Rahul Gandhi—the real man—beneath the hype and the hatchet jobs? What are the ideas and influences that propel him? Who are his advisers? And how will he tackle his new responsibilities as his mother, Sonia Gandhi, makes way for him? Two young journalists, Jatin Gandhi and Veenu Sandhu, trace the evolution of the Rahul brand and explore the fascinating relationship between modernity and dynasty in this incisive political biography. ”
The Great Disappointment
As the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government completes its current term ahead of the General Elections 2019, it is time to evaluate its performance, specifically in terms of its management of the economy. This book is a critical assessment of five years of the brand of economics Prime Minister Narendra Modi has championed, often referred to as ‘Modinomics’.
Brought into power with the biggest political mandate in almost three decades, did the NDA government succeed in gainfully transforming India’s economic trajectory or did it squander a once-in-a-generation opportunity? The book conjectures it is the latter, and analyses why the Modi government’s stewardship of the economy is a ‘great disappointment’.
Half-Lion
“When P.V. Narasimha Rao became the unlikely prime minister of India in 1991, he inherited a nation adrift, violent insurgencies, and economic crisis. Despite being unloved by his people, mistrusted by his party, and ruling under the shadow of 10 Janpath, Rao transformed the economy and ushered India into the global arena. With exclusive access to Rao’s never-before-seen personal papers and diaries, this definitive biography provides new revelations on the Indian economy, nuclear programme, foreign policy and the Babri Masjid. Tracing his early life from a small town in Telangana through his years in power, and finally, his humiliation in retirement, it never loses sight of the inner man, his difficult childhood, his corruption and love affairs, and his lingering loneliness. Meticulously researched and brutally honest, this landmark political biography is a must-read for anyone interested in knowing about the man responsible for transforming India. ”
Rajneeti: A Biography of Rajnath Singh
Rajneeti mein “”neeti”” hai, to “”aneeti”” kyon?’ – Rajnath Singh
Rajnath Singh rose from a Swayamsevak in the RSS to the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, and also served as a Cabinet Minister in the Vajpayee Government. Jailed during the Emergency, Singh was the president of the BJP’s youth wing, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. A two-term President, Singh saw the elevation of Narendra Modi as the party’s PM candidate and delivered BJP’s biggest elections victory in 2014. Since then, as India’s Home Minister, he has ushered in a new phase in the country’s security where both internal and external threats have been minimised. Under Singh, the Red Menace from Naxalites and Maoists has been nearly wiped out, and the state of Jammu and Kashmir saw the first local body elections in over a decade. Read on to know more about one of the tallest politicians in present-day India. In a career spanning nearly fifty years, Rajnath Singh has not only witnessed but also played a significant role in shaping the history of this country. Drawing from a vast amount of research and in-depth interviews, Gautam Chintamani’s engaging narrative reveals for the first-time a politician who never shied away from doing the right thing.
Democracy on the Road
On the eve of a landmark general election, Ruchir Sharma offers an unrivalled portrait of how India and its democracy work, drawn from his two decades on the road chasing election campaigns across every major state, travelling the equivalent of a lap around the earth. Democracy on the Road takes readers on a rollicking ride with Ruchir and his merry band of fellow writers as they talk to farmers, shopkeepers and CEOs from Rajasthan to Tamil Nadu, and interview leaders from Narendra Modi to Rahul Gandhi.
No book has traced the arc of modern India by taking readers so close to the action. Offering an intimate view inside the lives and minds of India’s political giants and its people, Sharma explains how the complex forces of family, caste and community, economics and development, money and corruption, Bollywood and Godmen, have conspired to elect and topple Indian leaders since Indira Gandhi. The ultimately encouraging message of Ruchir’s travels is that, while democracy is retreating in many parts of the world, it is thriving in India.
The Verdict
What are the key factors that win or lose elections in India? What does, or does not, make India’s democracy tick? Is this the end of anti-incumbency? Are opinion polls and exit polls reliable? How pervasive is the ‘fear factor’? Does the Indian woman’s vote matter? Does the selection of candidates impact results? Are elections becoming more democratic or less so? Can electronic voting machines (EVMs) be fiddled with? Can Indian elections be called ‘a jugaad system’?
Published on the eve of India’s next general elections, The Verdict uses rigorous psephology, original research and as-yet-undisclosed facts to talk about the entire span of India’s electoral history from the first elections in 1952. Crucially, for 2019, it provides pointers to look out for, to see if the incumbent government will win or lose.
Written by Prannoy Roy, renowned for his knack of demystifying electoral politics, and Dorab R. Sopariwala, this book is compulsory reading for anyone interested in politics and elections in India.
How to Win an Indian Election
What role do political consultants play in election campaigns? How are political parties using technological tools such as data analytics, surveys and alternative media to construct effective, micro-targeted campaigns? How does the use of money impact election results? What aids in the en masse dissemination of divisive propaganda and fake news? What does it take to win an election in India today? What is the future of politics in the country?
Written by a former election campaign consultant for a major political party, How to Win an Indian Election takes readers into the forbidden world of election war-rooms and gives them a glimpse of how strategy is formulated, what works with voters on the ground and what doesn’t. Based on research, interviews and the author’s own experiences, this book is invaluable for its insight into the inner workings of politics, political parties and what really makes for a winning election campaign.
A conversation between the Indian and Pakistani authors of The Begum, Deepa Agarwal and Tahmina Aziz Ayub
Deepa:
Dear Tahmina, writing this book has been an amazing process of discovery for me and I’m sure for you too. I had heard a lot about Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan while growing up in the small town of Almora in Kumaon. Her name was mentioned in awestruck tones—the fact that this local girl, Irene Pant, had married Liaquat Ali Khan, the first prime minister of Pakistan and after his death, served as ambassador to different countries and been the governor of a province was the stuff of legends. My father was close to her younger brother Norman Pant so there was a connection with her family, which created a personal interest in me. However, since she never visited her home town after marrying Liaquat Ali Khan in 1933 and left for Pakistan in 1947 my image of her was hazy and distant. When the idea of her biography came up, I felt it would be a fascinating to find out how she had travelled so far from her birthplace. The events of her life convinced me that she was a woman whose story needed to be told. What was the source of your interest in Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan, Tahmina, this woman who played an significant role in sub-continental history, but is unknown in India and almost forgotten in Pakistan today?
Tahmina:
Deepa dear, first of all I must share with you my delight at the choice of the words for describing this joint blog of ours, “Rediscovering Shared History”. Yes, and this is precisely the reason for my spontaneous response in accepting this writing cum research project when it was offered to me by Namita Gokhale in August 2016 during our meeting in Thimpu at the Mountain Echoes, Bhutan’s Lit Fest.
We here in Pakistan had heard about the achievements of this great lady in so many fields and yet we knew so little about her roots and her early life in India. So for the first time this biography would manage to bring to light so many of those facets of her life which helped to shape her personality and prepare her for the tests of time she was to face in her later years.
The other aspect that made me wake up to the need for this biography was the fact, as you rightly pointed out, that many people of the present generation had mostly forgotten about the unusual and amazing story of this great lady and more so the trials and tribulations she had to face and soon after their arrival here, especially when she was to lose her husband to an assassin’s bullet.
Deepa:
The freedom movement was a long drawn out struggle, which ended in the Partition of India and Pakistan. While researching the life of Begum Ra’ana I uncovered many facts that I had only been superficially acquainted with. For example, the history of the Muslim League and Liaquat Ali Khan and Ra’ana’s contribution to its revival and growth and their relationship with Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Also, the undercurrents among the political parties that led to the formation of separate countries and the role World War II played in bringing freedom from colonial rule. Your research must have led you through the growing pains of a new nation and the movement for women’s emancipation to which Ra’ana made a huge contribution. You also discovered the extraordinary personality of a woman who was determined to soldier on against all odds. What have you taken away from the experience of writing this book?
Tahmina:
Yes, my primary take away from this experience of charting her life’s journey that it was no easy task that she fulfilled all that she had decided to undertake. It was obvious that she was no ordinary woman but one who had always a goal ahead that she was to focus on which took her far beyond the confines of her own personal existence. She left no stone unturned and allowed nothing to stand in her way in order to fulfil the mission she had started, along with her husband right from the early years of her marriage to him. She was indeed a unique personality and stands tall even today among the pantheon of leaders of Pakistan’s history.
Deepa:
For me one of the most fascinating experiences in writing this book was that it led me through the journey of the development of education for women in India. Ra’ana’s life is an outstanding example of how education transformed the career course of one particular woman. She was the product of missionary institutions like Wellesley School in Nainital, Lal Bagh and Isabella Thoburn College in Lucknow. Her closest lifelong friend and companion, the British lady Kay Miles, was the principal of Karamat Husain College set up for the education of Muslim girls in the same city. Irene/Ra’ana later taught in Gokhale Memorial School in Kolkata and Indraprastha College, the first women’s college in Delhi. Sifting through my sources, it was a revelation to learn how difficult it was for the pioneers in this field to find qualified women for teaching jobs, as Leonora G’meiner, the Australian principal of Indraprastha College bemoans in her correspondence. Then the hostility from the patriarchal system which early educators had to counter—from Isabella Thoburn’s need to hire guards against irate opponents when Lal Bagh School began, to Ra’ana’s own experiences of harassment during the course of her MA in Economics at Lucknow University. Do you think these early battles honed Ra’ana’s fighting mettle and prepared her for the greater challenges that she had to face in Pakistan?
Tahmina:
The first part of her story which you so painstakingly researched and penned Deepa tells us about her steely determination to secure a firm educational base for herself and later a career too as lecturer in her chosen subject of Economics. In this respect she was far ahead of her times as this was a subject that did not interest females in general at the time. Interestingly many years later my own M Phil thesis would be on the subject of Women’s Labour in Agriculture as was hers in her M.A. thesis. Her firm belief in the role of formal education in the substantive lives of women led her to adopting this as her primary mission for helping women adopt a meaningful role in the fledgling state of Pakistan. She was an instrumental figure in setting up many centers of learning both formal and non- formal all over the country for the benefit of women, in the very early years of the development of new state of Pakistan.
Begum Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan was the wife of Pakistan’s first prime minister. Three religions-Hinduism, Christianity and Islam-had an immense impact on her life, and she participated actively in all the major movements of her time-the freedom struggle, the Pakistani movement and the fight for women’s empowerment. She occasionally met with opposition, but she never gave up. It is this spirit that The Begum captures.
This Mother’s Day, Penguin brings you a list of books to read and navigate through the different stages of motherhood.
As Michelle Obama says, “My most important title is still ‘mom-in-chief.'”
Take a look at this essential list specially curated for all the moms-in-chief!
All You Need To Know About Parenting
As parents, we all face fear and doubt about bringing up children. It helps to have a guide who can prepare and take us through every single aspect of the formative years. You can rely on All You Need to Know about Parenting to be your guide, best friend and window into this world, knowing you’re not the only one who’s on this incredibly difficult but also rewarding journey. From the day you step into the hospital and welcome your baby to the time they become toddlers, this book will help you develop your parenting instinct.
Own the Bump
Motherhood is a life-changing event in a woman’s life. Keeping in mind the fast-paced lives of nuclear families and sometimes unhealthy lifestyles, Bollywood’s most celebrated yoga expert, Payal Gidwani Tiwari, brings to fore the importance of preparing the body and soul for such a change. From pre-pregnancy to post-natal, Gidwani utilizes her age-old knowledge of yoga and provides essential advice to take care of oneself before, during and after the birth. Her workout sessions are especially designed for modern parents.
Birthing Naturally
Birthing Naturally is a comprehensive book on pregnancy wellness that aims to increase the chances of expecting mothers in giving a successful and less-stressful natural birth. This book will help you as a friend and as an antenatal caregiver so you can enjoy your pregnancy, and provide valuable tips for your postnatal period to complete your experience of motherhood.
Drama Teen:A Cool-Headed Guide for Parents and Teenagers
In Drama Teen, Lina Ashar explores concepts from both sides of the fence. Helicopter parenting, parent–teen conflicts and ways to resolve them, and the habits that lead to a successful life are among the topics discussed here. She also explores ways to minimize the pain and trauma the ‘drama-teen’ phase can cause both to the teens and their parents. Packed with practical advice, tips, what-not-to-dos and activities, Ashar expertly guides you to keep your cool through those complicated years. ”
Picky Eaters: and Other Meal-Time Battles
Does your child revolt at the mere thought of eating greens? Are you running out of nutritious lunch-box ideas?
In Picky Eaters, celebrity chef and culinary expert Rakhee Vaswani guides parents and kids on how they can make everyday food fun, exciting and yummy. From delicious, healthy recipes to party-planning and cooking together, this book will tell you how to get your child to eat right. So banish all those mind-boggling questions about what to feed your children—and start cooking!
This Mother’s Day, Penguin presents a list of books to gift and help mothers escape their daily grind. After all, moms need a break too!
Take a look!
Sitayana
Countless retellings, translations, and reworkings of the Ramayana’s captivating story exist-but none are as vivid, ingenious and powerful as Amit Majmudar’s Sitayana. Majmudar tells the story of one of the world’s most popular epics through multiple perspectives, presented in rapid sequence-from Hanuman and Ravana, down to even the squirrel helping Rama’s army build the bridge.
I Owe You One
Fixie Farr can’t help herself. Straightening a crooked object, removing a barely-there stain, helping out a friend . . . she just has to put things right. So when a handsome stranger in a coffee shop asks her to watch his laptop for a moment, Fixie not only agrees, she ends up saving it from certain disaster. To thank her, the computer’s owner, Sebastian, scribbles her an IOU – but of course Fixie never intends to call in the favour. Soon the pair are caught up in a series of IOUs – from small favours to life-changing debts – and Fixie is torn between the past she’s used to and the future she deserves.
Kaifiyat: Verses on Love and Women
Kaifi Azmi’s literary legacy remains a bright star in the firmament of Urdu poetry. His poetic temperament-ranging from timeless lyrics in films like Kagaz Ke Phool to soaring revolutionary verses that denounced tyranny-seamlessly combined the radical and the progressive with the lyrical and the romantic. This beautifully curated volume brings together poems and lyrics that reflect Kaifi’s views on women and romance.
The Mister
The thrilling new romance from E L James, author of the bestselling Fifty Shades trilogy..
London, 2019. Life has been easy for Maxim Trevelyan. But all that changes when tragedy strikes and Maxim inherits his family’s noble title, wealth, and estates, and all the responsibility that entails. But his biggest challenge is fighting his desire for an unexpected, enigmatic young woman who’s recently arrived in England, possessing little more than a dangerous and troublesome past. The Mister is a roller-coaster ride of danger and desire that leaves the reader breathless to the very last page.
The Travel Gods Must be Crazy: Wacky Encounters in exotic lands
Dreaming of glorious sunrises and architectural marvels in exotic places, Sudha often landed up in situations that were uproariously bizarre or downright dangerous. Tongue firmly in cheek, she recounts her journeys through the raw wildernesses of Borneo and the African savannah, into the deserts of Iran and Uzbekistan, and up the Annapurna and the Pamirs, revealing the quirky side of solo travel to side-splitting effect. Punctuating her droll stories with breathtaking descriptions and stunning photographs, Sudha invites readers on an unexpected and altogether memorable tour around the world!
Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells
Returning to his long-time home in Japan after a sudden death, Pico Iyer picks up the steadying patterns of his everyday rites: going to the post office, watching the maples begin to blaze, engaging in furious games of ping-pong every evening. As he does so, he starts to unfold a meditation on changelessness that anyone can relate to: parents age, children scatter, and he and his wife turn to whatever can sustain them as everything falls away.
The Begum: A Portrait of Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan’s Pioneering First Lady
Begum Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan was the wife of Pakistan’s first prime minister. Always intelligent, outgoing and independent, she was teaching economics in a Delhi college when she met the dashing Nawazada Liaquat Ali Khan, a rising politician in the Muslim League and an ardent champion of the cause for Pakistan. In August 1947 they left for Pakistan. Ra’ana threw herself into the work of nation building, but in 1951 Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated, and the reasons for his murder are still shrouded in mystery.
Ra’ana continued to be active in public life-and her contribution to women’s empowerment in Pakistan is felt to this day. She occasionally met with opposition, but she never gave up. It is this spirit that The Begum captures.
Cities and Canopies: Trees in Indian Cities
Trees are storehouses of the complex origins and histories of city growth, coming as they do from different parts of the world, brought in by various local and colonial rulers. From the tree planted by Sarojini Naidu at Dehradun’s clock tower to those planted by Sher Shah Suri and Jahangir on Grand Trunk Road, trees in India have served, above all, as memory keepers. They are our roots: their trunks our pillars, their bark our texture, and their branches our shade. Trees are nature’s own museums.
Drawing on extensive research, Cities and Canopies is a book about both the specific and the general aspects of these gentle life-giving creatures.
The Satapur Moonstone
India, 1922. A curse seems to have fallen upon the royal family of Satapur, where both the maharaja and his teenage son have met with untimely deaths. The state is now ruled by an agent of the British Raj on behalf of Satapur’s two maharanis, the dowager queen and her daughter-in-law.
When a dispute arises between the royal ladies , a lawyer’s counsel is required to settle the matter. Since the maharanis live in purdah, the one person who can help is Perveen Mistry, Bombay’s only female lawyer. But Perveen arrives to find that the Satapur Palace is full of cold-blooded power play and ancient vendettas.
Too late she realizes she has walked into a trap. But whose?
Queens of Crime: True Stories of Women Criminals from India
Dysfunctional families, sexual abuse, sheer greed and sometimes just a skewed moral compass. These are some of the triggers that drove the women captured in these pages to become lawbreakers.
Queens of Crime demonstrates a haunting criminal power that most people do not associate women with. The acts of depravity described in this book will jolt you to the core, ensuring you have sleepless nights for months.
Based on painstaking research, these are raw, violent and seemingly unbelievable but true rendition of India’s women criminals.
The Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan
Acclaimed historian Ruby Lal uncovers the rich life and world of Nur Jahan, rescuing this dazzling figure from patriarchal and orientalist cliches of romance and intrigue, while giving a new insight into the lives of the women and the girls during the Mughal Empire, even where scholars claim there are no sources. Nur’s confident assertion of authority and talent is revelatory. In Empress, she finally receives her due in a deeply researched and evocative biography that awakens us to a fascinating history
For decades, the West has dismissed Maoism as an outdated historical and political phenomenon. In Maoism: A Global History, Julia Lovell re-evaluates Maoism as both a Chinese and an international force, linking its evolution in China with its global legacy.
Read on to find out 9 ways in which China and Maoism have influenced the world:
Mao inadvertently hastened the end of the Cold War
“Mao’s schemes for world revolution – built upon(often puzzlingly) ferocious rivalry with the Soviet Union- would hasten the end of the Cold War.”
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China sowed the seeds for insurrection in Asia and Africa
“In presenting Mao – in glossy magazines,technicolour posters and documentaries- as the genius of world revolution, it would sow the seeds of insurrection across Africa, Asia and Latin America, and sink billions of dollars of Chinese aid into these regions.”
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China shaped the course of the Vietnam War
“Without the Sino-Soviet Split and the competitive Chinese and Soviet aid packages, the intensification of the Vietnam War also becomes hard to imagine. This duel turned the Vietnam War into the hottest conflict of the global Cold War.”
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China’s foreign policy experiments resulted in the 1965 Indonesian mass killings
“Indonesia was the test case in China’s post-Soviet foreign policy: a key strategic target for exploring the wisdom and superiority of the Maoist model. Leading Indonesian Communists were intoxicated by the militant rhetoric of Mao’s revolution in the early 1960s.It encouraged and inspired them to confront the Indonesian military; this decision in turn gave the army a pretext to trigger the horrors of 1965.”
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China provided a lot of aid to Africa (at times putting their needs over their own citizens!)
“…Mao-era China spent a greater proportion of income on foreign aid-including in Africa- than did either the US (around 1.5 per cent of the federal budget in 1977) or the USSR (0.9 per cent of the GNP in 1976)”
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Their outreach to Africa resulted in conspicuous failures
“The outcome of these experiments-famine in Tanzania; one party thuggery and economic calamity in Zimbabwe- contrasts the charismatic appeal of Mao’s ideas and models of rebellion and self-reliance, with their manifest failure to create stable, responsive institutions for governance.”
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The Maoist insurgency in India was supported by China
“The Maoist insurgency in central eastern India today would not have been possible without…the eagerness of the Chinese Communist Party to support rhetorically (and in limited ways materially) an Indian revolution inspired by Maoist revolutionary strategies.”
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China was a catalyst for change in many countries including the West
“The Cultural Revolution’s rhetoric of anti-authoritarian rebellion inspired revolts outside China that took aim at a broad range of political, cultural and social custom: at domestic and foreign policy; colonial rule; electoral representation; relations between the sexes; education, film and literature.”
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China is gearing up to take the place of USA (thanks to Donald Trump)
“In the context of a global great power vacuum created by the inward turn of the United States under Donald Trump, China under Xi has an unprecedented opportunity and ambition to shape the contemporary world.Early evidence suggests that the CCP is deploying strategies…to increase its influence abroad, especially in Australia and New Zealand.”
Maoism: A Global History explores how the power and appeal of Maoism have extended far beyond China.
