India Memoir

Sally, a beautiful young pregnant woman, came to the hospital supposedly for pre-term labor pains but delivered a fully mature, healthy boy. Her face, smiling with relief after the stress of delivery, quickly changed to apprehension. “Doctor, what will you tell my husband and family? Can you please tell them that the baby is premature?” She asked. “How can I?” Dr. Thomas replied helplessly. “The baby is fully grown and mature, as anyone can see.”

Although many have heard his name and, perhaps a few fleeting quotations of his timeless, inspirational philosophy, few have had the opportunity to fully understand the amazing life and times of this impressive spiritual giant from the great, mysterious Indian subcontinent. Swamiji was the very first Indian teacher of the Hindu faith to base his preaching mission in the United States and Europe. Vivekananda was then, and is now, a beacon of light to millions and his touching, inspirational, well thought out books have gently educated and inspired people ever since.

On 24 May 1971, based on a telephone call purportedly from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her secretary P.N. Haksar, the chief cashier at the Parliament Street branch of the State Bank of India handed over Rs 60 lakh to a stranger posing as the PM's courier. The money was supposedly meant for secret operations in East Pakistan. When the chief cashier approached the PMO for a receipt, he was told that neither Haksar nor the PM had given any such instructions. He had been duped.

Thrissur, on the coast of Kerala, is known as India's 'gold town'. It was here that Puthussery Alukka Joseph Varghese moved into jewellery retail from his umbrella business in the late 1950s. One of his ­fifteen children, Joy Alukkas, seemed to have inherited his father's entrepreneurial spirit. In 1986, the quest for his personal El Dorado took Joy to the modern 'city of gold': Dubai.

Shahan Mufti’s family history, which he can trace back 1,400 years to the inner circle of the prophet Muhammad, offers an enlightened perspective on the mystifying history of Pakistan. Mufti uses the stories of his ancestors, many of whom served as judges and jurists in Muslim sharia courts of South Asia for many centuries, to reveal the deepest roots - real and imagined - of Islamic civilization in Pakistan.

A schoolteacher who killed multiple paramours with cyanide; a mother who trained her daughters to kill children; a thug from the 1800s who slaughtered more than 900 people, a manservant who killed girls and devoured their body parts. If you thought serial killers was a Western phenomenon, think again! These bone-chilling stories in The Deadly Dozen will take you into the hearts and heads of India's most devious murderers and schemers, exploring what made them kill and why.

Many associate Mahatma Gandhi with peace, but this should not be confused with passivity. Gandhi was an activist who helped India achieve independence from Britain, advocated for Indian rights in South Africa and at home, and improved the lives of India’s “untouchable” people. He did this all through nonviolent activism and thoughtful reflection on the nature of the injustices he saw around him. This short biography reveals the life experiences that made Gandhi an inspirational peacemaker with an international legacy.

John Auden was a pioneering geologist of the Himalayas. Michael Spender was the first to survey the northern approach to the summit of Mount Everest. While their younger brothers - W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender - achieved literary fame, they vied for a place on an expedition that would finally conquer Everest, a quest that had become a metaphor for Britain’s efforts to maintain power over India. To this rivalry was added another: in the summer of 1938 both men fell in love with a painter named Nancy Sharp. Her choice would determine each man’s wartime loyalties.

The story of Mohandas Gandhi, one of the world's best-loved and most important promoters of freedom and justice, fascinates every generation. Thrown off a South African train for sitting in a "whites only" compartment, Gandhi resolved to oppose injustice wherever he encountered it. His life of resistance led him to a remarkable philosophy of nonviolence that culminated in the freedom struggle in India.

Gandhi. The name conjures the image of a man, unimpressive in appearance, simple in his lifestyle, who spent his life pursuing independence for India. Months after the country achieved that independence from Great Britain, Gandhi’s life ended when an assassin killed him. But Gandhi’s legacy lives on. Gandhi’s rise to political and spiritual leadership is the incredible saga of a man who, in his youth, showed no signs of greatness but who became one of the most influential men of all time.

The photographs of three young men had stood in his grandmother's house for as long as he could remember, beheld but never fully noticed. They had all fought in the Second World War, a fact that surprised him. Indians had never figured in his idea of the war, nor the war in his idea of India. One of them, Bobby, even looked a bit like him, but Raghu Karnad had not noticed until he was the same age as they were in their photo frames. Then he learned about the Parsi boy from the sleepy south Indian coast, so eager to follow his brothers-in-law into the colonial forces and onto the front line.

The murder of a young Tibetan nun at the hands of Chinese border guards at the rooftop of the world offers a unique parable for the tale of modern Tibet. Chinese police are instructed to take any measures necessary to protect the border of Tibet. When a group of climbers witness the murder of a young Tibetan nun who is fleeing to India, two men have a choice: turn a blind eye and preserve their climbing careers or alert the world to the grand scale of human injustice played out daily in Tibet.

The definitive biography of Ravi Shankar, one of the most influential musicians and composers of the 20th century, told with the cooperation of his estate, family, and friends.

Nella remota India, a cavallo fra Ottocento e Novecento, nacque e crebbe Mohandas Gandhi. Per mezzo del suo credo, la Grande Anima, Mahatma appunto, riuscì, in trent'anni, a mobilitare un intero popolo alla disobbedienza civile passiva, alla non-cooperazione pacifica fino alla liberazione dell'India dal controllo straniero nel 1947.

Durante años, el tema de la Compañía Británica de las Indias Orientales ha fascinado a historiadores, así como a economistas, antropólogos, sociólogos y otros tipos de estudiosos. Algunos consideran que la Compañía es un ejemplo perfecto de un imperio que drena los recursos de las personas desfavorecidas y destruye sus culturas enteras en un abrir y cerrar de ojos.

Filósofo, místico y poeta indio, figura multifacética, Sri Aurobindo fue un tenaz activista y luchador por la independencia de la India, donde su mensaje caló muy hondo en toda la nación, al mismo nivel incluso, de Mahatma Gandhi. Su vida es un canto interminable a la resistencia.

In his trademark warm, witty, whimsical style and his marvellously simple prose, Ruskin tells us how to enjoy the advancing years some of us are blessed with, and how to make the most of the amazing gift called life.

An African American woman doctor, fresh from her residency training in 1975, Dr. Cornelia Davis chose a less traveled path, a decision that would have profound global ramifications In a historic endeavor by the World Health Organization (WHO) to eradicate smallpox, a disease that had tormented humanity for millennia, Davis was thrust into the heart of India. There, she confronted deeply ingrained sexism and caste discrimination while relentlessly hunting for the last vestiges of this brutal illness.

From one of India’s finest writers, thinkers and commentators, a memoir of a love affair with cricket. As a fan, player, writer, scholar, controversialist and administrator, Ram Guha has spent a life with cricket. In this book, Guha offers both a brilliantly charming memoir and a charter of the life of cricket in India. He traces the game across every level at which it is played: school, college, club, state and country. He offers vivid portraits of local heroes, provincial icons and international stars.

Kept: An American Househusband in India is a hilarious, heart-warming tale of a company man turned trailing spouse when his wife gets his dream job and drags him halfway around the globe. World travelers and armchair tourists alike will marvel as Greg and Dana dine with royalty, smash an immigrant smuggling ring, flee angry mobs, foil a terrorist plot, and survive a Russian rocket assault. When they adopt an Indian girl, Greg embarks on an altogether new career, and India becomes a part of their lives forever.