‘Shikari’ by Yashwant Chittal is set in the concrete jungles of Mumbai and weaves together the high-stake conspiracies of the corporate world. Through Nagappa’s story Chittal reveals a fiercely competitive arena where Man’s primordial instincts surface, and the line between the hunter and the hunted is often blurred.
Here’s an excerpt from the book.
As the situation he found himself in began to make some sense to Nagappa, he recalled K, the hero of Kafka’s novel The Trial that he had read years ago. Just like it had happened with K, somebody must be spreading false rumours about him. Or why would this bizarre order from the personnel and administration manager come yesterday morning, when he was getting ready to go to work? The thought unnerved him.
You have been suspended with immediate effect due to serious charges against you. You will be informed of the charges at the earliest. You have been ordered not to attend the office till such time
that we inform you about them. The order was very clear. And it had come with a piece of advice: With the view that you are not adversely affected in any way in the event of the charges being proved false, it is in your interest to apply for a month’s leave immediately.
Nagappa had sent in his leave application. But he now faced the predicament of having to hide from others the real reason for his forced leave. He wracked his brains for a plausible explanation he could give, but couldn’t think of any. And then there were these ‘charges’. The more he tried to think what they could possibly be, the more intriguing the whole thing appeared to him.
For a moment, he wondered if it was all a terrible mistake. He couldn’t somehow bring himself to believe this was really happening to him, because he was to leave for America in a couple of months for higher training—something he had dreamt of for years. And now this, when he was eagerly waiting for the day.
A thought occurred to him: Was being selected for the training the very reason for this sudden turn of events? As time passed, he became convinced that was the case. What had started as a vague suspicion began to appear like the truth. This meant Phiroz still harboured that old hatred towards him. This’s surely part of some vicious plot hatched by that Machiavellian manipulator . . . that evil politicking bastard . . . the son of a bitch Number One! Nagappa thought. Things would become clearer if he could somehow find out what the charges framed against him were. Now he could do nothing but wait for further information from the personnel and administration manager.
He found the wait unbearable. He became suddenly and acutely aware that he had nothing to do. He shuddered. The question of what to do with his time had never bothered him before. But now, empty hours stretched before him, directionless. He recalled reading in a book on psychology that one of the greatest problems the human mind finds difficult to grapple with is the structuring of time.
Suppressing the waves of amorphous panic that threatened to engulf him, he tried to define it and give it some shape. But the more he tried, the more it seemed to gain an upper hand. He shook inwardly, uncontrollably. He spent the day analysing each passing mood and thought and recording it. And his chronicling continued:
Comment 1: This is the second day of my forced leave. The thought that came to me as I woke up: If I keep thinking about this problem, I might either end up in a mental asylum or committing suicide. Both are ways of running away from the situation—attempts at alienating myself from the world.
Is the constant act of analysing the meaning of life a sign of a profound inner search or of losing faith in life—in one’s very existence? Isn’t embracing life with enthusiasm and living with a sense of commitment a natural instinct? Isn’t it the very wellspring of life’s process?
Why does this question, that doesn’t seem to bother millions of other living beings, constantly trouble me? Maybe it’s not because of my philosophical bent of mind, which I secretly take pride in, but because I have no zest for life. I think the very wellspring that energizes my being has run dry. Maybe it’s meaningless to search for the meaning of life. How can you search for something that doesn’t exist? This so-called ‘meaning’ is something we’ve invented. And then, how is creativity possible when there is no zest for life? How can the creative impulse spring in this arid desert?
Tag: Penguin India
The Story of Amit Burman, An Excerpt from ‘The Inheritors’
Sonu Bhasin is one of the early and senior women professionals in the industry and has led businesses in senior leadership positions during her corporate career. In her book ‘The Inheritors’ she provides a behind-the-scenes look at what goes behind big family business brands like Dabur, Marico, Dabur, Keventers, Berger Paints, Select Group, Max Group and many others. It also gives an account of the inheritors who play a pivotal role in making or breaking huge business empires.
Here’s an excerpt from the book.
I am confused. Did I not have an appointment with Amit Burman, vice chairman of Dabur India—the 133-year-old company known for iconic products like Hajmola, Dabur Chyawanprash and Dabur Amla Hair Oil? Amit had asked me to come to his office for the meeting. As I walk into the building, I see posters of well-known brands. But to my knowledge, none of these are Dabur’s. I walk up the stairs with posters of Café Delhi Heights, Zambar, Fres Co, Punjab Grill, Street Foods and Baker Street accompanying me. Am I in the wrong office? I begin to wonder. I turn back and ask the guard at the gate, ‘Yeh Amit Burman sa’ab ka office hai? Sa’ab hain kya office mein? (Is this Amit Burman’s office? Is he in the office?)’ The guard merely nods in a bored manner. Shaking my head in confusion I go back up the stairs to the office. The receptionist, with a bright smile, confirms that I am expected and guides me to Amit’s office. Phew! At least I am in the right place.
Amit laughs out loud when I ask him why no Dabur brands are displayed in the office of the company’s vice chairman. ‘This is my personal business, with my own money, and Dabur has nothing to do with it,’ explains Amit. He is certainly the vice chairman of Dabur India Limited, but that role is a quasi-non-executive one.
‘Dabur is in the hands of professional management, so my role is to guide them to follow the Burman family’s vision for the business,’ says Amit. As a person who finds it difficult to sit at home even on a weekend, Amit certainly needed something to keep himself occupied once he moved into the non-executive role at Dabur. ‘Food has always been a passion with me,’ he says. With time on his hands and unwilling to lead a life only of leisure, he decided to follow his passion and set up a food business in the mid-2000s. Today, his real passion and real business, no pun intended, is Lite Bite Foods, the food company set up by him. His business has the dineout brands that I saw on my way to his office. Punjab Grill, Fres Co, Zambar, Asia Seven and Hahn’s Kitchen have very quickly become the restaurants of choice for the customer segment targeted by Amit. ‘But running a restaurant business is extremely hard work, and people don’t realize it,’ says Amit.
Hard work is something Amit has never shied away from. In fact, it energizes him. He comes from a family that has worked for more than a hundred years to get Dabur placed among the largest fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies in India. ‘I grew up in Delhi. I was used to seeing my dad come back home from work and talk about his day, while we had dinner,’ remembers Amit. The business of Dabur, hence, was very much a part of his growing-up years.
His father, Gyan Chand Burman, was the head of Dabur. G.C. Burman was a pharmacist but he had transformed into an operating businessman when he took charge of the family business. Amit was born in Calcutta, where his family, along with four other Burman families across three generations, lived in their ancestral home. The mansion was called Dabur House and the business at Garia was just a stone’s throw away.
The families had their own living quarters, but they shared a common kitchen and dining area. G.C. Burman used to go to the factory every day. During a labour unrest in the city, he was gherao-ed by his own workers at the factory and the situation turned unpleasant. This prompted Burman’s decision to move to Delhi. He set up a factory in Sahibabad. Over time, G.C. Burman’s brothers relocated to Delhi with their families as well. The new factory, along with the business, thrived and
Dabur became a company headquartered in Delhi. Calcutta’s loss was Delhi’s gain.
Early years in Delhi and the US
Amit studied at St Columba’s School in Delhi while his cousins went to other schools in India and abroad. While he did not go to the factory during his schooldays, he soaked in details about the business at the dining table. These discussions also helped him understand his father’s decision-making processes. For any young boy finishing high school in the mid-eighties, the norm was to become either a doctor or an engineer. Amit’s father also wanted him to study engineering as he believed that it was the future. Amit chose to study industrial engineering in the US. ‘My dad was very happy when he heard about it,’ he says. The days spent at Lehigh University in America gave him an opportunity to understand the theory behind the manufacturing business—his trusted dinner-table companion during his childhood and adolescence.
7 things you didn’t know about Usha Narayanan
After a gamut of jobs, Usha Narayanan pursued a career in writing. The author of 5 successful novels, Narayanan experiments with various genres, ranging from suspense thriller to light-hearted office romance.
Her new novel Prem Purana is a delightful anthology of three stories of love and devotion.
Here are a few things you should know about the author.
How many of these facts did you know about the author?
Four Quotes from M.G. Vassanji’s Novels that will Make you Miss Home
M.G. Vassanji is the author of seven novels, two collections of short stories and two works of non-fiction. He is a widely acclaimed author whose works have won several awards. His novel The Assassin’s Song was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Governor General’s Prize, the Writers Trust Award, and India’s Crossword Prize.
Here are 4 quotes by M.G. Vassanji that will make you feel homesick.
Aren’t these words heartwarming?
5 Things About Dr.Vineet Aggarwal You Might Not Know
Dr.Vineet Aggarwal embarked on a writing spree after his initial stint with the family occupation. The author of three successful books Vishwamitra – The Man Who Dared to Challenge the Gods, The Legend of Parshu – Raam and his recent, Bharat – The Man who Built a Nation’ Aggarwal experiments with the genre of mythological fiction.
Here are a few things you should know about the author
How many of these did you know about?
5 Facts About Pythagoras You Might Not Know
Osho’s Philosophia Perennis Series gives readers a peek into the life of renowned mathematician Pythagoras. The wisdom and intellect of Pythagoras were known to all.
But, did you know that he wasn’t just a mathematician? Pythagoras was an explorer who was a synthesis between the rational West and the mystic East, who taught both religion and science in his mystery school.
Discover more about him here
How many of these facts did you know?
India Turns East, An Excerpt
Frédéric Grare is a senior associate in the Carnegie Endowment’s South Asia Program. His book ‘India Turns East’ tells the story of India’s long and difficult journey to reclaim its status in a rapidly changing Asian environment increasingly shaped by the US–China rivalry and the uncertainties of US commitment to Asia’s security.
Here’s an excerpt from the book.
India’s Look East policy cannot be entirely explained by China’s rise and India’s desire to counter it. Yet ongoing bilateral disputes and mistrust between Beijing and New Delhi, coupled with China’s growing economic, political, and military role in Asia and beyond, have been important motivators behind India’s engagement with the region. India’s rich and evolving ties with countries in Southeast and East Asia have been partly but increasingly molded by China’s rise.
The relationship between India and China is complex. It includes territorial and border disputes and elements of rivalry for political dominance in Asia, but also strong economic incentives for cooperation. Many (if not most) components of the India-China relationship are of a strictly bilateral nature. Yet these bilateral issues also affect India’s larger regional policy. It is therefore necessary to analyze the various determinants of the relationship between Beijing and New Delhi and the ways in which India’s relationship with China has shaped its interactions with the broader regional community. The Look East policy is consequently an attempt not only to balance and deter, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to engage China at the same time. India seeks to create a virtuous cycle, by which engagement with Asia will not only mitigate the consequences of the capacity gap between India and China but will also, over time, provide India with the economic, military, and political resources necessary to alter the Asian power structure in its favour.
This chapter does not intend to recall the combined histories of China and India since time immemorial or even since independence. Nor does it aim at establishing a narrow correlation between India’s diplomacy vis-a-vis China and the development of the Look East policy. Instead, it identifies key characteristics of the evolution of the relationship and analyzes the various dynamics at play between the two countries since the early 1990s in order to better understand both India’s approach to regional relations and the way the India- China relationship might play out in the future, specifically with regard to the Asian power structure. By pointing out some obvious gaps in the rhetoric of some Indian strategic circles and the reality of a policy whose initial objectives were only secondarily linked to China, it also seeks to define the constraints under which India’s diplomacy is operating.
The India-China relationship leading up to and following the LEP For India, conflict with China is not an abstract concept. It is a painful, real memory. In November 1962, disputes over the demarcation of the McMahon Line, the border inherited from the colonial era, escalated into a full-scale war. China defeated India in less than a month and withdrew to the current Line of Actual Control (LAC). This humiliating episode has had a dramatic impact on the bilateral relationship—the trust deficit between the two countries has never disappeared—but also on New Delhi’s larger foreign policy which became almost entirely reactive after this episode.
Following the 1962 debacle, diplomatic relations between India and China were suspended for almost fifteen years. They resumed only in 1976, when both countries exchanged ambassadors. It took three more years for the first official visit since 1960 to take place, when External Affairs Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee went to China to discuss the border issue and China’s support to insurgent groups in Northeast India. China’s attack on Vietnam, following the latter’s invasion of Cambodia, interrupted the visit but did not end the dialogue between the two countries.
In May 1980, soon after her re-election, Indira Gandhi met Chinese premier Hua Guofeng at Tito’s funeral in Yugoslavia. The meeting led to the June 1980 Chinese proposal of a “package deal” institutionalizing the status quo, which India refused. The same year, however, India informed China that it was ready to resume the process of normalization. An annual dialogue at the level of vice-ministers started in June 1981 and continued until 1988 when Rajiv Gandhi visited Beijing, the first visit an Indian prime minister had made to China since 1955. India dropped its earlier demand “of asking for settlement of the border as a precondition for any improvement in relations in other fields.” Two joint working groups were established to deal with trade negotiations and the border issue.
6 Facts About The Mahabharata You Might Not Know About
Mahabharata is one of the major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. It has been retold in various locales, and in many histories. Devdutt Pattanaik in The Boys Who Fought retells the story of Mahabharata, the significant Kurukshetra War, and fates of Pandava and Kaurava princes in a charmingly illustrated form.
Here are a few significant facts on the Mahabharata and its episodes
How many of these facts did you already know?
Discover the world of the gods and goddesses like you have never before
Celebrated author Usha Narayanan’s new book, Prem Purana, is a chronicle of love, longing, and the unexpected trials and tribulations one takes on in the journey of love. The book explores how even the mightiest of Gods and Goddesses have not remained untouched by love — with Ganesha taking on the challenge to please his wives, Ravana sharing an unbreakable bond with Mandodari, and Nala and Damayanti’s love withstanding the test of time.
Here are a few times the Gods surprised us with their deeds in love.
Myriad of stories
Fable of the mouse
The wonders of charming Gajamukha
Lord Ganesha’s vast appetite
Bad angel vs good angel
The game of Chaturanga
The story behind the fall
Hamsa, the cupid
Aren’t these facts fascinating?
Story of a He-Ghoul, An Excerpt from ‘Boo’
‘Boo’ by Shinie Antony is a well-crafted collection of horror stories written by some of the renowned names of the literary circuit.
This Halloween, here’s an excerpt from ‘He-Ghoul’ a spooky story by K.R. Meera, to send a chill down your spine.
She put on the lingerie she had chosen, many years ago, for that last rendezvous. The steps leading down to the cellar were next to the staircase, which climbed up from the drawing room with its tall marble pillars and arches, wound in a semicircle around the entire dining room and ended near the kitchen. After dinner, when she stood gazing at the antelope heads on the drawing room walls, the caretaker’s wife came up to her to mark her forehead with kumkum from the Mariamman temple and tie a piece of blessed string around her wrist. That made her flinch. Her lover had also anointed her forehead with kumkum before their first lovemaking. Once the caretaker and his wife went out to the watcher’s shed, she was all alone. She untied the string from her wrist, wiped off the kumkum. Then she strained to imagine into presence her lover’s lost soul. Sex and fear were the same to her. She could not feel either until they were roused to fullness in and through her imagination.
But the ghoul revealed himself only after she had fallen asleep. A dog howled and woke her up. A thousand dogs howled after that, one by one. It was pitch-dark all around. A scream flew up from below the stairs. Then, a scary silence crept everywhere. She got up and opened the door to the balcony. The French windows stood completely open, and also the door to the corridor. Someone was running, panting.
Then, at the very end of the corridor, he appeared. She started, and snapped, ‘Who’s that?’
He vanished. She went back into her room and shut the door, suspecting a thief, and picked up her mobile phone, scanning it for signs of a signal. Her mind focused on what to do if the thief broke in; her heart thundered. It had pounded thus only at their last rendezvous, she remembered. Don’t thunder like this at the presence of a mere thief, she scolded her heart. The wind blew harshly. As if infuriated by her indifference, it pulled down the objects on her table, pulled free her tied-up tresses, tugged up her nightdress, and made her gasp for breath as it forced dust into her eyes and nose. Instantly, she realized that it was her lover-turned-ghoul that she had run into. Opening the door, she stepped into the balcony and, from there, turned into the corridor. Suddenly, the lights blacked out. Darkness invaded every corner. She kept moving forward. She imagined her lover-ghoul sucking her lifeblood, killing her. That would be such a romantic way to die. She too would embrace death in the very same bungalow where he was killed. Her blood would spread over the scars of his dried-up blood on the floor. Maybe no one will believe this; maybe he didn’t deserve it at all—but what a tale of love, so intense!
That house of glass windows and crystal cupboards was built way back, when kings still ruled. Just a few months ago, the relative of a friend had bought it for a song. The rooms were filled with the musty odour of termites. She had noticed a large candle and a matchbox on the dining table at dinner. So she went towards the dining table in the dark, found the matchbox, and lit a matchstick. For the first time in her life, she saw a He-Ghoul. A man of glass, a hollow man. Of no flesh, no marrow, no hair on its head, no fangs, no blood dripping tongue. A body fissured and fragmented. A neck that looked as if it would snap at any moment. Whitish and motionless eyeballs deep in their sockets. Anyone else would have screamed in fright seeing him. She felt no fear. What was terrifying was the sheer hardness of the He-Ghoul’s face, it’s very hollowness and its naked inferiority, impossible to hide even after death. Even when he’s a ghoul, a man is a man; he shows off more than what he’s got.
He was playing He-Man before her now, stretching his body tall, beyond the bungalow’s upper storey. He raised his brittle arms of glass above the darkened ceiling. As vain as ever, he held his crumbling neck erect. ‘Admit it! I am the stronger one even now!’—that was a silent plea, but it resounded everywhere. In a final gesture of frustration, he pulled off a ceiling fan and flung it down. It nearly hit her, but he knocked it aside and went all billowy, as though he had done her a great favour. For this favour, should you not forget the crimes I committed when I was alive? he asked her soundlessly. Should you not be grateful? That amused her. She had loved him so when he was alive; she had been ready to die for him, deluded that he deserved the highest sacrifice. Now she imagined courting death for this lover long dead. What a poetic death that would be. Embracing the end in the very same cellar in which he died just before he was to step onto a high pedestal in politics! She would seize him from the blazing depths of hell. Even if that were impossible, even if that would make her scorn herself, what a love story it would be, one that could mesmerize the masses!
