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Tag: nonfiction

March Binges for You!

Posted on by Penguin India

Binge-reading is the way to go for us this March!

From motherhood to building a happier and healthier lifestyle, our bookshelf this March is all about, well, life! These books will be perfect to reconnect us with ourselves, and to discover untold stories of travels and tribes.

Which one of these will you be picking up?

 

Amma Mia by Esha Deol Takhtani

Is my baby not well?

When can I introduce my baby to solid foods?

Becoming a new mother can be an exciting yet overwhelming time. No matter how prepared you are, there will always be many confusing moments, opinions and a whole lot of drama! And just like any other new mom, Esha Deol Takhtani was faced with many such questions soon after the birth of her two daughters – Radhya and Miraya.

 

Dear Me by HT Media

India’s biggest sports stars share their secrets for finding greatness.

Dear Me is a collection of letters from some of the most-celebrated names in sports – Milkha Singh, Vishwanathan Anand, Bhaichung Bhutia and many more – who write to their younger selves and remember the moments that changed their lives. An uplifting reminder that dreams do come true, this book allows you to be inspired by their extraordinary stories.

 

White as Milk and Rice by Nidhi Dugar Kundalia

The Maria girls from Bastar practise sex as an institution before marriage, but with rules-one may not sleep with a partner more than three times; the Hallaki women from the Konkan coast sing throughout the day-in forests, fields, the market and at protests; the Kanjars have plundered, looted and killed generation after generation, and will show you how to roast a lizard when hungry. The original inhabitants of India, these Adivasis still live in forests and hills, with religious beliefs, traditions and rituals so far removed from the rest of the country.

This book weaves together prose, oral narratives and Adivasi history to tell the stories of six remarkable tribes of India.

 

The RSS by Dinesh Narayanan

Since its inception in 1925, the RSS has perplexed observers with its organizational skills, military discipline and single-minded quest for influence in all walks of Indian life. Often seen as insidious and banned thrice, the pace of its growth and ideological dominance of the political landscape in the second decade of the millennium have been remarkable.

Relying on original research, interviews with insiders and analysis of current events, The RSS and the Making of the Deep Nation traces the RSS’s roots and nearly century-long operations in the relentless pursuit for ideological dominance in a nation known for its rich diversity of thought, custom and ritual.

 

Fakir: The Journey Within by Ruzbeh N Bharucha

To be a better spiritual being and to better even that with every step is the goal of every soul so it can then ultimately merge into The One . . .

The book presents us with Baba’s words of wisdom for us to inculcate in our-day-to-day lives. Baba talks about how we should be in life, how our relationships should be, how jealousy and anger are detrimental to the development of good karma and how conducting oneself without cribbing and complaining takes on to the higher plane.

 

A Talib’s Tale by John Butt

John Butt came to Swat in 1970 as a young man in search of an education he couldn’t get from his birthplace in England. He travels around the region, first only with friends from his home country, but as he befriends the locals and starts to learn about their culture and life, he soon finds his heart turning irrevocably Pashtoon.

Containing anecdotes from his life both before and since he shifted to Afghanistan, John Butt tells a wonderful and heartfelt tale of a man who finds a home in the most unexpected place.

 

The Minority Conundrum edited by Tanweer Fazal

What does it mean to be a minority in majoritarian times?

Following from the highly relevant Vision for a Nation last month, The Minority Conundrum gives us the second volume in the series titled Rethinking India – which goes further into exploring what the idea of a ‘nation’ means for India today.

Edited by Tanweer Fazal, this volume identifies vulnerabilities that hinder the quest for the realization of substantive citizenship by minority groups.

 

The Dry Fasting Miracle by Luke Coutinho and Sheikh Abdulaziz Bin Ali Bin Rashed Al Nuaimi

In the olden days, people ate early because there was hardly any light after sunset. Their next meal would only be after sunrise. This practice spread to all religions as a discipline due to its health and spiritual benefits. Today, it is called the dry fasting diet-the most superior form of fasting and cleansing. Replicating it requires abstinence from all food and water for twelve or more hours.

Luke Coutinho and Sheikh Abdulaziz Bin Ali Bin Rashed Al Nuaimi teach us how this diet can stimulate the body, help one find the right balance between the ‘elimination phase’ and the ‘building phase’, aid weight loss and avoid a number of diseases.

 

My Girlhood by Taslima Nasrin and translated by Maharghya Chakraborty

Set in the backdrop of the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, this book recollects Taslima Nasrin’s early years.

From her birth on a holy day to the dawn of womanhood at fourteen to her earliest memories that alternate between scenes of violence, memories of her pious mother, the rise of religious fundamentalism, the trauma of molestation and the beginning of a journey that redefined her world; this latest translation by Maharghya Chakraborty is a tour de force.

You’re Not Listening by Kate Murphy

At work, we’re taught to lead the conversation. On social media, we shape our personal narratives.  At parties, we talk over one another. So do our politicians.

We’re not listening.

And no one is listening to us.

This book will transform your conversations, your relationships and your life.

Two Plays by Chandrasekhar Kambar and translated by Krishna Manavalli

In Chandrasekhar Kambar’s timeless classic The Bringer of Rain: Rishyashringya, a village afflicted with a deadly famine eagerly awaits the arrival of the chieftain’s son, whose homecoming promises the return of rain. As the death toll rises, age-old secrets are unravelled and mythical forces step out of hiding. Will the sky relent?

The second play, Mahmoud Gawan is set in the fifteenth-century Bahamani Sultanate. It follows Gawan’s rise to fame during a time of intense civil strife when empires routinely rose and fell.

Alluring and sublime, Two Plays is a must-read for anyone hoping to dip their toes into the rich waters of Kannada folklore and theatre.

***

Steer Clear of Life’s Pitfalls with Master Strategist Chanakya’s Niti

Posted on by Penguin India

In the rather complex history of our vast nation, the name Chanakya symbolizes the worldly aspects of India’s ancient thought and knowledge while being synonymous with legendary wisdom and political skill. Chanakya’s numerous sayings on life deal with subjects ranging from family and social surroundings, friends and enemies, adequacy or absence of wealth, official and personal encounters to benefits of knowledge and the inevitable end of everything. These sayings have been compiled in collections and anthologies with the entire corpus referred to as Chanakya Niti.

The aphorisms, written in straightforward language devoid of the ‘alamkara’ or embellishments which were used in traditional Sanskrit verse, belie the depth of the content which, in a way, is reflective of Chanakya’s position as despite being an indispensable ally to the ruler Chandragupta Maurya, he led a simple life.

A.N.D. Haksar writes ‘ …Chanakya has been described as a poor but learned person of unattractive appearance, but nonetheless skilled, determined and cunning, with a strong, vengeful personality.’

Read on to know what Chanakya Niti teaches us about friends and foes:

Know him to be your friend who stands next to you when you are beset by danger and difficulty

In times of sickness or bad luck,

in famines and enemy attacks,

at the ruler’s door or in the cemetery,

the friend is one who stands by you.

Be wary of the one whose tongue drips honey while his hand wields a dagger

He speaks before you sweetly,

but spoils the work behind your back:

such a friend should be discarded—

 like a poisoned pot with milk on top.

Value all that adds meaning to your life and aids your passage through this world

In foreign lands, one’s friend is learning,

at home it is the wife,

in sickness, the friend is medicine,

 in death it is the virtuous life.

Know those to be your enemies who give in to their weakness and stray from their righteous path

The father in debt is one’s enemy,

and the mother who is adulterous,

a beautiful wife is also a foe,

as is a son without education.

Guard your wealth as floundering fortunes cause friends to turn fickle

Friends leave one who has no money,

also servants, kinsfolk, even one’s wife,

but all come back when he has wealth—

that is man’s real friend on this earth.

Sharpen your intellect so it can become your shield against enemies

What can enemies do to one

who very intelligent may be?

They are like raindrops or the heat,

  on a chariot with a canopy.

Devise your strategy so you can turn a weakness into strength

A sharp foe may be neutralized

with the help of another enemy:

a thorn that gets stuck in the foot

with another thorn can extracted be.

A.N.D. Haksar, a well-known translator of Sanskrit classics, offers a roadmap into Chanakya’s Niti with selected aphorisms which continue to be recalled and quoted in many parts of India.

To learn how to manoeuvre through life, read Chanakya Niti!

Death is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity- make it count!

Posted on by Penguin India

‘Oh, I bless you with a long life, but anyway, you will die one day.’

Yogi, mystic, visionary but above all a great spiritual teacher- Sadhguru bestows both life and wisdom in this one brief, all- encompassing blessing which reminds us that death is the world’s greatest equaliser and mortality is a fact of life. The knowledge of impending death can plunge even the hardiest of souls into a dark pool of fear and misery. Contrarily, in Death- An Inside Story, Sadhguru points out-

‘Calamities, especially like death and illness, are a tremendous opportunity to look beyond the limitations of what you normally understand as life.’

What if death was not the catastrophe it is made out to be but an essential aspect of life, rife with spiritual possibilities for transcendence? For the first time, someone is saying just that!

In this unique treatise-like exposition, Sadhguru expounds on the more profound aspects of death that are rarely spoken about. And in doing that he offers an expansive perspective on death which has the power to change how we understand our existence in this universe. He says-

 

I was born like you, I eat like you,

sleep like you and I will die like you

but the limited has not limited me

Life’s bondages have not bound me

 

Here are 5 ways Sadhguru can help you change your perspective on death-

 

  1. ‘Moving from the physical to the non-physical is the greatest moment in your life. So is it not very important that you make it happen most gracefully and wonderfully?’

The darkness that clouds our thoughts at the idea of death colours our experience of it. Sadhguru nudges us gently to look away from the repetitive activities of life and approach death as a unique experience. It is that very last moment of life when we transcend the limitations of our physical body. It can be done just once and it is the last thing we will do. And so we can choose to do it with grace.

 

  1. ‘If you want to make use of the opportunity that death presents, you cannot approach it with fear. This is not something that you can handle all of a sudden at that moment. So it is important that on many levels we prepare for death beforehand.’

Even though we all fear death, we must prepare ourselves for a certain day when we would experience it. Shunning the thought of death or cowering behind a wall of terror is not the best way to go. Sadhguru reminds us to learn from nature. When wild animals sense their impending demise, they withdraw from food and find a place where they just sit. This preparation is a way to bring dignity to death. If you bring in death gracefully your disembodied phase will not be hellish.

 

  1. ‘If you develop the necessary capability, whichever way death comes, you can maintain your awareness and die well. If you have not lived a life of awareness, the possibility of you suddenly becoming aware in an extreme situation like death does not arise at all.’

In one of the most enlightening discussions on death, Sadhguru makes a startling revelation. He explains that a man who dies in a violent encounter is in no way in any kind of disadvantage compared to one who is dying of disease or old age. Any man who has lived a life of awareness can die well as there will be that moment between injury and death where that awareness brings acceptance. Some people live well only in good situations but those who live well whichever kind of situation comes to them, die well, no matter what kind of death comes to them.

 

  1. ‘The fear of death has come to us because we have gotten deeply identified with this body. Our identification with this body has become so strong because we have not explored other dimensions.’

Sadhguru explains that death is as natural as life is and therefore, a morbid fear of death is unnatural. It demonstrates how we have lost touch with reality. We believe that we came with this body and that thought begins to define us. The flesh we hold so dear is what we gather in the womb after our conception and it is this flesh we shed when the end comes. To be aware of this reality we must remember to differentiate between ‘This is mine.’ and ‘This is me.’

 

  1. ‘The fear of death is about what you think you will lose by death. The fear of death is essentially the fear of loss.’

The fear of losing all that we know and love limits our experiences. People who have expanded their range of thought in the pursuit of awareness are convinced that they came with nothing and therefore, would lose nothing from death, so they welcome it without fear. Sadhguru encourages us to go beyond the limitations of the body with sadhana and to use our life to know that which is beyond the physical.

At a time when the world is torn asunder with disease, violence and hate, Sadhguru exhorts us to remember the fragility of life. He says, ‘Those who are constantly aware of the mortal and fragile nature of Existence do not want to miss even a single moment; they will naturally be aware. They cannot take anything for granted; they will live very purposefully. Only people who believe they are immortal can fight and fight to death.’

 

To confront your fears and rise above them, read Death- An Inside Story!

The Other Side of the Divide- An Excerpt

Posted on by Penguin India

Pegged on journalist Sameer Arshad Khatlani’s visit to Pakistan, The Other Side of the Divide provides insights into the country beyond what we already know about it. These include details on the impact of India’s soft power, thanks to Bollywood, and the remnants of Pakistan’s multireligious past, and how it frittered away advantages of impressive growth in the first three decades of its existence by embracing religious conservatism.

Read an excerpt from the book below:

 

Anarkali Bazaar gets its name from a white semi-octagonal towered tomb believed to be that of slave girl Nadira Begum… popularly known as Anarkali… Legend has it that Mughal emperor Akbar had Anarkali interred alive in upright position in a masonry wall at the turn of the seventeenth century. She earned Akbar’s wrath for daring to fall in love with his heir apparent, Jahangir… The ‘love story’ has little historicity; it appears more to be a figment of somebody’s fertile imagination…

Lahore is replete with symbols and structures reaffirming shared India–Pakistan history and culture. Civil Lines is one such place around a kilometre from Anarkali’s tomb, where anti-colonial hero Bhagat Singh reignited the revolutionary Indian national movement.

Tempers ran high in Lahore in the winter of 1929. National movement leader Lala Lajpat Rai had succumbed to injuries sustained in a police assault at a protest rally. Young blood in revolutionary ranks sought revenge. Bhagat Singh volunteered to kill Lahore police chief JA Scott to avenge Rai’s death around the police chief’s office near the DAV (now Islamia) College. His comrades Rajguru, Jai Gopal and Chandrashekhar followed suit. They were disillusioned with Gandhi’s pacifist policies and wanted to fire militant youth imagination against the British. Bhagat Singh was chosen to pull the trigger. Rajguru was to provide him cover. Chandrashekhar Azad was tasked with ensuring their escape. The revolutionaries rehearsed the killing two days before the chosen date in the busy lanes of Civil Lines. They had prepared a red poster declaring: ‘Scott killed’, in anticipation of a successful mission. Everything except Scott’s identification went as per plan when the revolutionaries emerged out of DAV College hostel and took their positions. Jai Gopal, tasked to identify Scott, had never seen the British officer before. But he hid this fact from others. Bhagat Singh ended up pumping five bullets into the wrong person — twenty-one-year-old probationary police officer JP Saunders. Rajguru had seconds earlier waylaid and shot Saunders in his neck. He killed an Indian policeman who was in their hot pursuit. The revolutionaries ran into the DAV college campus, where they scaled a wall to enter its hostel compound. They fled to their hideout and eventually to Lahore, where they were brought back for their trial and were executed…

The scene of Saunders’ murder is now a busy street surrounded by the traffic police office, Islamia College, Metrobus route, Government College hostel, Lahore district courts and the Central Model School. Very few people remember its association with Bhagat Singh, who was an alumnus of DAV (Islamia) College, which was shifted to Ambala after the Partition. The college, which Hindu revivalist Arya Samaj managed before the Partition, is better known today as the alma mater of cricket legend Wasim Akram. It changed hands and was rechristened after the Partition. Three samadhis of Ranjit Singh’s relatives are located on the campus.

A road named after Hindu reformist Deva Samaj movement between Anarkali’s tomb and the DAV College is another remnant of Lahore’s past. Pandit Shiv Narayan Agnihotri founded it in Lahore in 1887. Deva Samaj began as theistic before re-emerging as an atheistic society. Deva Samaj emphasized ‘ethical conduct and confession of sins’ but denied the existence of gods. Agnihotri, too, is a forgotten man around the road named after his movement. Queries about the origin of the road’s name drew blank stares.

Deva Samaj Road begins close to the Civil Secretariat Metrobus station on the edge of civil court complex before merging into Abdali Road near Vishnu Street. Then Opposition leader Imran Khan, who had been campaigning against alleged election fraud had just held a huge anti-government rally in the area when I was there. Khan’s banners were hanging near Nasir Bagh as I passed by on my way to the Mall Road where the best of Lahore’s colonial heritage is located. The tree-shaded avenue is lined with chic shops, restaurants, hotels and mansions. Hindu and Sikhs owned most of the properties before the Partition also on the Mall Road, built in 1851 to connect Anarkali with Lahore Cantonment. A handful of Muslims owned businesses on the Mall Road before 1947. Today, a sprinkling of Hindus is left in Lahore; most of them are Valmiki.

An orange flag fluttering atop a temple stands out as a sign of Hindu presence at the corner of Bheem Street just across the Metrobus line off the Mall Road. Located in Lahore’s biggest tyre markets amid small shops and dhabas, it is one of Lahore’s two functioning temples. A bell hangs besides an Om symbol at the temple’s main door, where a board declares in Urdu: ‘Insaf ka mandir hai yeh, bhagwan ka ghar hai [This is temple of justice and the lord’s house].’… Valmiki temple is more than a place of worship, it is sort of a community centre, where Valmiki converts to Christianity are among regular visitors.

The day 24 December 2013, when I was roaming around in the area, was one of celebration for the Lahori Hindus; they had finally been handed possession of 14,200 square feet of land for a crematorium at Babu Sabu Chowk. The transfer followed an August 2013 Supreme Court order for the allotment. Lahore’s Hindus had moved the top court seeking the immediate transfer of the land for last rites. The handover had been hanging fire since the government was forced to allocate the land in 2006 following a sixty-two-year-old Hindu woman’s burial at a Muslim graveyard…

The Krishna temple on Ravi Road, over 3 km north of Valmiki temple, is the other functional Hindu place of worship in Lahore. The temples feature regularly on Pakistani TV channels… They invariably have sound bites of saffron-kurta-pyjama-clad priest Bhagat Lal, a balding man in his sixties. Lal has been the mainstay of Hindu religiosity in Lahore for decades.

The Krishna temple was the scene of an arsonist attack hours after foot soldiers of India’s current ruling party demolished the Babri Masjid hundreds of kilometres away in 1992. The lives of Lahori Hindus were suddenly turned upside down for no fault of theirs just when they had begun picking up the pieces decades after the Partition upheavals. The temple, however, was up and running within six months thanks to Lal’s resilience. He reopened the temple and restarted pujas twice daily with the help of government compensation. The fraught India–Pakistan ties took an unexpected turn for the better a decade later… A group of Indian pilgrims to Katas Raj temples in northern Pakistan reinstalled Krishna, Radha and Hanuman idols at the temple for the first time since the Partition in February 2007…

The reinstallation overlapped with the brief India–Pakistan détente from 2003 to 2008. The restoration of Katas Raj temples remains an important legacy of the thaw. The choice of Hindu nationalist and former Indian deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani for inaugurating the restoration project in 2005 showed Pakistan’s willingness to move beyond his legacy. Advani led the campaign for the construction of a temple dedicated to Lord Ram in place of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in the 1990s. The campaign led to the demolition of the ancient mosque in 1992 and provoked anti-Muslim violence across India…

In his book India after Gandhi, Ramachandra Guha writes: ‘Hindu mobs attacked Muslim localities, and — in a manner reminiscent of the grisly Partition massacres — stopped trains to pull out and kill those who were recognizably Muslim.’ The demolition also triggered violence against Hindus in Bangladesh and Pakistan in a throwback to the late 1940s bloodbath that ripped the subcontinent and made the Partition inevitable. Shrines like Katas Raj temples fell into disrepair as the bloodbath forced the virtual flight of Hindus from West Punjab in 1947. The first religious service at the temples since the Partition in 2006 turned the page a year after Advani’s visit to Pakistan for the inauguration of its conservation project… But the typical one-step-forward-two-steps-back routine in India–Pakistan ties followed.

Mata Hinglaj temple is perhaps Pakistan’s most important Hindu shrine dedicated to the Kshatriya caste’s deity in the remote mountains of Baluchistan. It is one of the fifty-one Shakti Peeths associated with ‘indescribable spiritual power’ believed to have been created at places where body parts of Shiva’s consort, Sati, had fallen. They are said to have been created after Shiva took her corpse around following her self-immolation in Daksh’s court. Hinglaj has an important place in Hinduism since Sati’s head is said to have fallen there. It is among the most important syncretic shrines dotting the subcontinent. Muslims revere the shrine too; they call it Nani Pir.

Pilgrimage to Hinglaj from India abruptly ended after the Partition, accounts of which date back to the fourth century. The thaw in India–Pakistan ties facilitated a rare visit of a group of Indian pilgrims in February 2006…

Pakistani Hindus want more Hindu pilgrimage sites in their country to flourish like those of the Sikhs. They hope the two countries will encourage Hindu religious tourism. It would create more stakes in peace and benefit local Hindus… Many Indian pilgrims to Katas and Nankana Sahib visit Anarkali and are often surprised to see the Hindu presence in Lahore, where restoration of abandoned Jain temples could attract rich Jain pilgrims. Digambar Mandir, located a kilometre south of the Valmiki temple, is one of at least six abandoned Jain temples in Lahore. They stand as a reminder of Jain pre-eminence across the subcontinent before the emergence of Buddhism and Hinduism. Swetambar and Digambar Jain temples are located next to each other in Lahore’s Mohallah Bhabrian. As many Jain temples are situated on tony Ferozpur Road. Footprints said to be that of Jainism founder Rishabha’s in stone at Lahore’s Guru Mangat Jain temple are believed to be the region’s oldest religious relics. A site of great religious tourism potential remains untapped and hostage to India–Pakistan tensions and a lack of vision…

The Other Side of The Divide attempts to present a contemporary portrait of Pakistan-where prohibition remains only on paper and one of the biggest taxpayers is a Parsee-owned brewery-as a complicated and conflicted country suspended between tradition and modernity.

 

Books to read this World Wildlife Day

Posted on by Penguin India

The Indian subcontinent along with the rest of the world, faces the urgent threat of a dwindling wildlife population.This World Wildlife Day learn about the world’s wild animals with these fascinating books.

Age is no bar, there’s a book for every reader on this list:

The Vanishing

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’.
The Vanishing takes an unflinching look at the unacknowledged crisis that India’s wildlife faces, bringing to fore the ecocide that the country’s growth story is leaving in its wake—laying to waste its forests, endangering its wildlife, even tigers whose increasing numbers shield the real story of how development projects are tearing their habitat to shreds.

Animal Intimacies

What do we really know of the intimate-and intense-moments of care, kinship, violence, politics, indifference and desire that occur between human and non-human animals?

Built on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the mountain villages of India’s Central Himalayas, Radhika Govindrajan’s book explores the number of ways that human and animal interact to cultivate relationships as interconnected, related beings.

 The Girl and the Tiger

Isha is a girl who loves animals but struggles in the confines of school. When she is sent away to live with her grandparents on the Indian countryside, she discovers a sacred grove where a young Bengal tiger has taken refuge.

Isha’s crusade to save the tiger becomes the catalyst of an arduous journey of awakening and survival across the changing landscape of modernizing India. Her encounters with tribal people, elephants, and her search for the wild jungle are the source of her revelations about the human relationship to the natural world.

The Snow Leopard

An unforgettable spiritual journey through the Himalayas by renowned writer Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014), the National Book Award-winning author of the new novel In Paradise

In 1973, Peter Matthiessen and field biologist George Schaller traveled high into the remote mountains of Nepal to study the Himalayan blue sheep and possibly glimpse the rare and beautiful snow leopard. Matthiessen, a student of Zen Buddhism, was also on a spiritual quest to find the Lama of Shey at the ancient shrine on Crystal Mountain. As the climb proceeds, Matthiessen charts his inner path as well as his outer one, with a deepening Buddhist understanding of reality, suffering, impermanence, and beauty. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by acclaimed travel writer and novelist Pico Iyer.

Indica

Did you know that the exquisite caves of Ellora were hewn from rock formed in the greatest lava floods the world has known—eruptions so enormous that they may well have obliterated dinosaurs? Or that Bengaluru owes its unique climate to a tectonic event that took place 88 million years ago? Many such amazing facts and discoveries—are a part of Indica: A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent.

Researching across wide-ranging scientific disciplines and travelling with scientists all over the country, biochemist Pranay Lal has woven together the first compelling narrative of India’s deep natural history, filled with fierce reptiles, fantastic dinosaurs, gargantuan mammals and amazing plants.

For the Young Ones:
One Lonely Tiger

The rapidly shrinking forest has a lonesome, friendless tiger who is left with only his own shadow for company. Whom should he play with now that all his fellow tigers have disappeared?

In the tug-of-war over living space between people and the wild, where will the animals go if more forests are cut?

One Lonely Tiger illustrates this urgent threat of extinction and loss of habitat among valuable species, and asks the pressing question: are our trees, wild animals, birds and insects safe amidst us?

The National Park Explorers: Chaos at Keoladeo

Experience all that the jungle has to offer with the first in The National Park Explorers series!

Sameera, Alex and Tarun are headed to Bharatpur with Uncle Avi. They’ve heard that the Siberian cranes have returned to Keoladeo National Park after more than twenty years.But things just don’t seem right at the park. The three young explorers find themselves in the midst of things wondrous and wild as they spot birds and animals, bump into wildlife biologist Rauf Ali and sleuth around to solve mysteries along the way.

Chaos at Keoladeo is an entertaining adventure, travelogue, encyclopedia and birding guide all rolled into one.

The Globetrotters

Hudhud is horrible to everyone. He polishes off his classmates’ lunches, plays cruel pranks on his teachers and troubles innocent creatures. Until his strange new history teacher decides to set him straight.

The lesson? A curse! Now Hudhud must roam the vast earth . . . with-and as-the greatest migratory animals. His goal? To find the answer to all wrongs. And so begins Hudhud’s remarkable journey: as a blue whale calf separated from his mother in the deep; as a trusting caterpillar who befriends a hunting spider; as a competitive caribou on a perilous trek; as an Arctic tern too scared to fly . . . But fly across the world he must, if he hopes to ever return home.

Discover India: Wildlife of India

Mishki and Pushka are can’t wait to get going. Daadu Dolma is taking them on a safari to see some of India’s famed wildlife.They’re about to see rare animals, meet endangered species, watch some amazing reptiles and spot colourful birds!

So get set to join your favourite happy campers and their good old friend, Daadu Dolma and learn all about India’s incredible wildlife.

The Jungle Radio

When curious little Gul hears some strange sounds coming from her radio, she follows the musical clues into . . . an Indian jungle! On her walk, she finds feathered friends who TWEET, TAPP and TALK. There are some who howl and hoot, and others who play the flute. With a KEE here and a KAW there, Gul discovers songs everywhere!

The Jungle Radio is a little story about the language of birds-their songs and sounds-with a loud and clear call to listen to the world around us.

The Lone Empress- An Excerpt

Posted on by Penguin India

Today, Jayalalithaa, a woman who successfully challenged the mainstream values of Tamil Nadu politics, was born. Jayalalithaa’s journey from a glamour queen to a towering political leader is one of the most extraordinary stories of contemporary India.

The Lone Empress candidly chronicles Jayalalithaa’s tumultuous political life, examining her battle with intra-party rivalry to become the first elected woman chief minister of India; the long-lasting hostility with her rivals; her pursuit of support from the Centre for political survival; and her discomfort with criticism and dissent.

Here’s an excerpt from the book:

The AIADMK was now a divided house. The anti-Jayalalithaa wave inside the party gathered momentum and some leaders made her a target of attack in public meetings. The pro-Jayalalithaa group in the party retaliated with equal vehemence, while MGR tried to ignore what was going on. Perhaps he knew what was in store when he suddenly fell ill on 5 October 1984 and was rushed to Apollo Hospital. He had suffered a stroke and lost his speech. His kidneys had stopped functioning. He was also suffering from diabetes. This had been discovered only a few months earlier, when he complained of giddiness at a function in Thanjavur. MGR was always very secretive about his health problems, not wishing the public to know of them. He must have hidden his problems even from Jayalalithaa who, therefore, was shocked when she learnt that he was in the intensive care unit (ICU), fighting for his life.

Fearing the political fallout if the public and the Opposition came to know, the top brass decided that visitors, especially Jayalalithaa, should not be allowed. Of course, there was no question of allowing press reporters, with their cameras, anywhere in the vicinity. RMV was worried that if MGR’s face, which looked ghastly now, was photographed and shown to people, they would think it was lifeless.

Within no time, all hell would break loose. He most certainly did not want Jayalalithaa to step into the hospital. She was good at theatrics and could go out and declare that MGR was in no position to hold office any more or, for that matter, even likely to live. Pro- Jayalalithaa party members noticed that MGR’s relatives were allowed to see him. Vaali from the film world could see him. RMV could see him. But Jayalalithaa, who had been propaganda secretary of the party until the previous month, could not.

Solai says, ‘When MGR was admitted into Apollo, these men decided to finish her off. They even planned to have her beaten up. Dr Pratap Reddy, chairman, Apollo Hospital, came to know of this and asked her not to visit MGR in the hospital. Anything could happen when she was in the lift. Later, Thirunavukkarasu would go in a pilot car and K.K.S.S.R. Ramachandran would follow her in another’, as a precaution. Thirunavukkarasu, an AIADMK member and her ardent supporter, later turned against her and would join the Congress, while K.K.S.S.R. Ramachandran became an opponent and joined the DMK.

With the chief minister suddenly taking ill, the state assembly was adjourned sine die. V.R. Nedunchezhian was made acting chief minister. The entire cabinet was camping at the hospital, expecting the worst. Following the doctors’ diagnosis, it was decided that a neurologist, a cardiologist and an urologist be brought from the US. Dr Hande, who was then health minister, went by chartered plane to fetch the doctors after they reached Delhi. They were surprised to find the patient still alive. In spite of the panel of experts attending to him, MGR’s condition became critical on 18 October. Soon he was shifted to the Brooklyn Hospital, New York, for treatment. When Jayalalithaa came to know of this she was devastated.

With MGR away in the US, things became difficult for her. She was being deliberately alienated from the party by the seniors. It is said that Jayalalithaa approached Indira Gandhi for support, which could only have been a moral support. Jayalalithaa was aware that the prime minister was well disposed towards her as was evident from her association with Indira Gandhi in Delhi. Jayalalithaa must have been confident that Indira Gandhi would step in as her mentor. The Congress and the AIADMK were alliance partners and Jayalalithaa probably thought that if something happened to MGR, she could muster support from Indira Gandhi to strengthen her position. Jayalalithaa was still a greenhorn in politics and one does not know exactly what was on her mind. She briefed Mrs Gandhi on how she was being sidelined by senior party men, who were being vindictive out of selfish reasons. Indira Gandhi, though sympathetic, apparently advised Jayalalithaa to be patient.

The Lone Empress  is available now!

A Story Worth (Re)Telling

Posted on by Penguin India

The Ramcharitmanas is one of the most popular and celebrated devotional texts in India. It’s cultural and traditional significance stands even today.

Composed by the poet-saint Tulsidas in the sixteenth-century during a period of religious reforms, this text was instrumental in making the story of Ram, his feats against Ravan, and the values he stood for accessible to the common people as opposed to just the priestly class.

Rohini Chowdhury’s latest translation of the magnum opus makes it even more accessible to a new and wide readership. The story and its teachings are as relevant as ever in the world today.

Read on to find an excerpt from Rohini Chowdhury’s introduction, in which she conveys the enduring significance of this text and why she decided to translate it:

 

My own engagement with Tulsidas began one crisp autumn night fifty years ago in a small town by the banks of the Ganga, when I saw my first performance of the Ram Lila. The sky was sprinkled with stars but I had eyes only for the drama unfolding upon the crude wooden stage before me, where the story had reached a critical point: Hanuman’s tail was to be set on fire. The sets were crude, the costumes garish, the acting unsophisticated— but the story transcended all such concerns, such was its magic and power. I did not know it then, but that was also my first intimate encounter with the Ramcharitmanas, upon which the Ram Lila is based. Growing up, Tulsi’s poem was always around me—chanted in the homes of friends or neighbours, sung on the radio, or the theme of plays and dance dramas. So when the opportunity came to translate it into English for Penguin India, I accepted it with alacrity—and the last five years that I have spent walking behind Tulsi, one of the greatest literary minds of all time, have been a pleasure and a privilege. My translation does not do justice to Tulsi’s extraordinary poetic genius. His use of wordplay, his rhymes and alliteration, and the sheer musicality of his poem I have found impossible to capture in English. I have therefore contented myself with being as clear and accurate as possible in my translation, and to convey, to the best of my ability, the scale and grandeur of his great poem.

The Ramayana tradition

For at least the last two and a half thousand years, poets, writers, folk performers, and religious and social reformers have drawn upon the story of Ram as a source of inspiration. It has been told again and again in countless forms and dozens of languages, making it one of the most popular and enduring stories in the world. More than any other hero, Ram has been upheld as dharma personified, the epitome of righteousness, and his actions as the guide for right conduct. In recent times, the story has provided inspiration for films, novels, and in the late 1980s, a weekly television series watched by more than eighty million viewers.

The oldest and most influential surviving literary telling of the story of Ram is the Sanskrit epic called the Ramayana. Composed sometime during the first millennium bce, and consisting of some 50,000 lines in verse set in seven kands or books, it is attributed to the poet Valmiki, and is widely  regarded as the ‘original’. The influence of Valmiki’s Ramayana has been so profound that the title of his epic has come to denote the entire tradition, from oral and folk performances to literary texts and translations. Within this rich and varied tradition also lie the Ramayana songs from Telangana, the folk performances of the Ram Lila in northern India, the eleventh-century Tamil Iramavataram (‘The Incarnation of Ram’) by Kamban, and Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas.

Published across three volumes, this translation brings alive the story of Lord Ram like never before!

Death: The Most Fundamental Question – An Excerpt From ‘Death’

Posted on by Penguin India

Death is a taboo in most societies in the world. But what if we have got this completely wrong? What if death was not the catastrophe it is made out to be but an essential aspect of life, rife with spiritual possibilities for transcendence? For the first time, someone is saying just that.

In this unique treatise-like exposition, Sadhguru dwells extensively upon his inner experience as he expounds on the more profound aspects of death that are rarely spoken about. From a practical standpoint, he elaborates on what preparations one can make for one’s death, how best we can assist someone who is dying and how we can continue to support their journey even after death.

Whether a believer or not, a devotee or an agnostic, an accomplished seeker or a simpleton, this is truly a book for all those who shall die!

Here’s an excerpt from the book:

Death is a very fundamental question. Actually, death is closer to us than the statistics we read about it. Each moment, death is happening in us at the organ and cellular levels. This is how, with just one look at your insides, your doctor knows how old you are. In fact, death began in us even before we were born. Only if you are ignorant and unaware does it seem like death will come to you someday later. If you are aware, you will see both life and death are happening every moment. If you as much as breathe a little more consciously, you will notice that with every inhalation there is life, with every exhalation there is death. Upon birth, the first thing that a child does is to inhale, to take in a gasp of air. And the last thing that you will do in your life is an exhalation. You exhale now, and if you do not take the next inhalation, you will be dead. If you do not get this, just do an exhalation, hold your nose and do not do the next inhalation. Within a few moments, every cell in your body will start screaming for life. Life and death are happening all the time. They exist together, inseparably, in the same breath. This relationship goes even beyond the breath. Breath is only a supporting actor; the real process is of the life energy, or prana, that controls physical existence. With certain mastery over prana, one can exist beyond breath for substantial amounts of time. Breath is a bit more immediate in its requirement, but in the same category as food and water.

Death is such a fundamental aspect, because if one small thing happens, you can be gone tomorrow morning. Why tomorrow morning—one small thing now and you could be off the next moment. If you were like any other creature, maybe you would be unable to think about all this, but once one is endowed with human intelligence, how can you just ignore such a significant aspect of your life? How can you avoid it and live on as if you are going to be here forever? How is it that after living here for millions of years of life, human beings still don’t know a damn thing about death? Well, they know nothing about life either. We know all the trappings about life, but what do you know about life as such?

Fundamentally, this situation has come about because you have lost perspective as to who you are in this Universe. If this solar system, in which we are, evaporates tomorrow morning, no one will even notice it in this Cosmos. It is that small, just a speck. In this speck of a solar system, Planet Earth is a micro speck. In that micro speck, the city you live in is a super-micro speck. In that, you are a big man. This is a serious problem. When you have completely lost perspective as to who you are, how do you think you will grasp anything about the nature of life or death?

Want to read more? Death is available now!

A Coherent View of the Macrocosm of Pakistan

Posted on by Penguin India

In the seventy or so years since Independence, much less has been written about the Princely States which acceded to Pakistan than those that remained in India. The name of the once great State of Bahawalpur is no longer remembered among its well-mapped peers over the border in Rajasthan.

Bahawalpur is a series of conversations between the author, Anabel Loyd and Salahuddin Abbasi, amir of Bahawalpur and the son of the erstwhile Nawab of Bahawalpur. The latter reminisces about his family and sheds light on Bahawalpur’s princes through old records, letters etc.

The book begins with a quote from Shakespeare’s infamous play, The Tempest, ‘What’s past is prologue’. This means that the past is a preface to the future – we cannot forget the lessons of history. As Salahuddin Abbasi takes you back, you can’t help but draw parallels between the long forgotten princely state of Bahawalpur of the past and the Pakistan of the present.

Jinnah’s aspirations for nationality and not communality- buried 

Jinnah’s vision of a country had been buried, over time- not only under the flow of patronage and corruption but also under the illusion and imperative, the ‘mirage’, of the Islamic state.  

The sheer one-upmanship of the everyday, increasingly archaic, public practice of religion in Pakistan hinders the running of a contemporary progressive state and argues an almost impossible case for reinstatement of Jinnah’s aspirations for nationality rather than communality. 

While the state promises Jannat to the poor, the young do dream of a better existence

Pakistan is more than ever girt with the restraints of caste, creed and class, but young people continue to dream of something better and of levelling the ground. Those living in extreme poverty may be easily seduced or coerced by the promises of extreme Islam: a glorious life to come after death providing some sort of solace or reward for the lack of any uplift through education or public services during the only earthly existence available to them.

The partition may have given us hindsight…

Pakistan looks backwards for religious authenticity, to a dream of national identity and unity never fulfilled after Partition which tore the country from its past.


But Pakistan no longer looks back far enough to its extraordinary history as part of a greater whole. That pas was cast into the deep chasm of Partition.

…But what about foresight?

Nowadays the country often appears neither to look back nor forwards beyond the trappings of new infrastructure in transport systems, shopping malls and increased urbanization. Such changes leave the poor exactly where they have always been, with nothing, and, regardless of the blandishments of government, does little to encourage outsiders to come in.

The wealthy get enmeshed in the threads of corruption and nepotism while trying to rise above it

Education abroad seems to have become a standard for those who have inherited status or have gained vast new wealth. Not all are lured for long by migration for the sake of further fortune. Those who return are entrepreneurial, creative and determined to find ways to circumvent or rise above endemic corruption in order to move forward. However, they may already be enmeshed in the threads of nepotism and corruption by virtue of the endless unbreakable network of familial connections at the top of Pakistani politics and society.

Anyone with a penchant for history and politics would definitely consider Bahawalpur an insightful read. Read it and tell us what you think?

How can Nepal Become an ‘Asian Tiger’?

Posted on by Penguin India

By 2040, it is projected that China will be the largest economy in the world, followed by India. The two put together will have nearly a third of the world’s population and GDP. Now, there exists an opportunity for Nepal to unleash its potential and return to the time when it had the advantage of being in between two prospering neighbours. In ‘Unleashing the Vajra’, author Sujeev Shukya tries to understand the past in order to learn how to get the future right—Nepal now has just two decades to relive its glorious past.

The listicle below brings to the forefront a few quick facts to show that Nepal has the potential to regain its past glory and make a mark.

Strategic Location 

By 2050, it is estimated that, the Shanghai–Mumbai axis will continue to dominate the agenda of future markets, economic development and global economic thought leadership. Nepal falls right in the middle of all this.

Population Boon 

Nepal is geographically small, but Nepalis tend to forget that they are also the forty-eighth most populated country in the world with a population that is nearly one and a half times that of Australia, and only a few millions less than that of Canada.

Tourism

An annual tourist volume of more than 30 million Chinese travelling to the Tibet Autonomous Region every year can also be a potential lucrative market for Nepal.

Vision 

Nepal needs to look at how it will deliver the same vision of prosperity to its people by 2050 with equal emphasis on capital, asset utilization, parameters of human development, and of course, happiness.

Economy and Growth

For Nepal to graduate to a middle-income country by 2030, when the country’s population will be around 36 million, it needs to be a $100 billion economy with a per capita income of $2500. This would require an investment of about $7–8 billion each year.

New Model 

Nepal is the prospective bridge between India and China, two countries that will be controlling 35 percent of global GDP in 2050. This is the time for Nepal to emerge with a new economic growth model rather than being a yam between two boulders.

Sujeev Shakya argues that it is imperative to understand history and learn from it to shape events for a better future. Unleashing the Vajra outlines the factors that will determine Nepal’s destiny in the years to come.

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