Download or read book Ravan and Eddie written by Kiran Nagarkar and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2012-12-11 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ravan and Eddie are the unlikeliest of companions. For one thing, Ravan is Hindu, while Eddie is Catholic. For another, when Ravan was a baby and fell from a balcony, that fall had a dramatic, and very literal, impact on Eddie’s family. But Ravan and Eddie both live in Central Works Department Chawl No. 17—and if you grow up in the crowded Mumbai chawls, you get to participate in your neighbors' lives, whether you like it or not. As we watch the two unlikely heroes of Kiran Nagarkar's acclaimed novel rocket out of the starting blocks of their lives, leaving earth-mothers and absentee fathers, cataclysms and rock ’n’ roll in their wake, we're compelled to sit up and take notice. Recently selected by The Guardian as one of the ten best novels about Mumbai, Ravan and Eddie is a comic masterpiece about two larger- and truer-than-life characters and their bawdy, Rabelaisian adventures in postcolonial India. It is also a timeless journey of self-discovery, a quest for the meaning of guilt and responsibility, sin and sex, crime and punishment.
Download or read book Bombay Novels written by Mamta Mantri and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mumbai? Bombay? How do we explain this city and ourselves within it? How do the city and the city dweller together allow for representations of urban life to arise in literature and the fine arts? This book is an understanding of Mumbai, both as an architectural and literary space, through the lens of spatial criticism and the technique of flânerie. As an icon of experiences, Mumbai is felt through the simultaneous acts of walking, observing, remembering and articulating. In analyzing four novels, namely Baumgartner’s Bombay, Ravan and Eddie, Shantaram and Baluta, the book claims that the characters and their authors offer an alternative vision of the city, as they also construct a transient place for themselves. This act of flânerie is an act of transgression as it turns the outside into the inside, changing public space into private space. As the characters serve to disrupt meaning, uncover hidden histories and expose power relations involved in the representation of place, they actualize many possibilities and meanings. Using the novel as a literary device, the authors have told stories, not only of the protagonist-flâneur, but also of people around them; sometimes in detail, sometimes in passing. In contesting, claiming and owning the lives, the stories, and the city, the humane aspect is never forgotten.
Download or read book Ravan Eddie written by Kiran Nagarkar and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Seven Sixes are Forty Three written by Kiran Nagarkar and published by Katha. This book was released on 2004 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It s a complex universe that Kiran Nagarkar leads us into. Seven Sixes are Forty Three explores the dimensions of relationships in terms of an empty physicality and loneliness as an inherent element in modern lives. Translated by Subha Slee, the novel s quest for compatibility is inspiring.
Download or read book Cuckold written by Kiran Nagarkar and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The time is early 16th century. The Rajput kingdom of Mewar is at the height of its power. It is locked in war with the Sultanates of Delhi, Gujarat and Malwa. But there is another deadly battle being waged within Mewar itself. who will inherit the throne after the death of the Maharana? The course of history, not just of Mewar but of the whole of India, is about to be changed forever.At the centre of Cuckold is the narrator, heir apparent of Mewar, who questions the codes, conventions and underlying assumptions of the feudal world of which he is a part, a world in which political and personal conduct are dictated by values of courage, valour and courtesy; and death is preferable to dishonour.A quintessentially Indian story, Cuckold has an immediacy and appeal that are truely universal.
Download or read book Rest in Peace written by Kiran Nagarkar and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2015-07-01 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third and last part of the Ravan and Eddie trilogy Belt up and hold on tight. Ravan and Eddie are back in another zany ride that takes them from anonymity to fame. Yes, R&E or E&R, as they are known in Bollywood, have made it to the top as music directors. But they have neither lost sight of the big dream, nor forgotten their past struggles. Ravan and Eddie are determined to become superstars even if they have to produce the damn film themselves. From the glitz and glamour of Bollywood to the badlands of Chambal, from the high-rises of tony Pali Hill to Indian literature's most famous chawl address, CWD Chawl No. 17, from air-kissing high society to gun-wielding mafia bosses, Ravan and Eddie muddle along from one catastrophe to another, without ever losing their trademark sangfroid. Poverty and life have taught them to reinvent themselves every time there's a crisis. Keeping them company through it all are old friends like Granna, Parvatibai, Violet, Pieta, Belle and Asmaan, and new ones like Mrs Venkatraman, the dacoit Maan Singh, and Jagannath, the son of Three Point One. As bawdy and entertaining as Ravan and Eddie, as exuberant and over-the-top as The Extras, yet possessing a hard, cold edge, Rest in Peace is a fitting finale to the trilogy featuring Indian fiction's most epic characters.
Download or read book Amrita Sher Gil written by Anita Vachharajani and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2020-05-07 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An artist? A dreamer? A rebel? Who exactly was Amrita Sher-Gil? She was a little bit of all these things, really. Amrita grew up with a great sense of mischief and adventure in two very different worlds, in a village near Budapest, Hungary, and among the cool, green hills of colonial Simla. She defied headmistresses, teachers, art critics and royalty to make her own determined way in the world of grown-ups and art.Join her on a journey through her life, a journey that takes her family through World Wars and political turmoil as they travel in pursuit of love, a home and a modern, artistic education for Amrita!
Download or read book The Five People You Meet In Heaven written by Mitch Albom and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2009-06-11 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE INSPIRATIONAL CLASSIC FROM THE MASTER STORYTELLER WHOSE BOOKS HAVE TOUCHED THE HEARTS OF OVER 40 MILLION READERS 'Mitch Albom sees the magical in the ordinary' Cecilia Ahern _________ To his mind, Eddie has lived an uninspiring life. Now an old man, his job is to fix rides at a seaside amusement park. On his eighty-third birthday, Eddie's time on earth comes to an end. When a cart falls from the fairground, he rushes to save a little girl's life and tragically dies in the attempt. When Eddie awakens, he learns that the afterlife is not a destination, but a place where your existence is explained to you by five people - some of whom you knew, others who were ostensibly strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, five individuals revisit their connections to Eddie on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his 'meaningless' life and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: 'Why was I here?' __________ WHAT READERS SAY ABOUT THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN 'Breathtakingly beautiful. A story that will stay with you forever' 'A beautiful and flawlessly choreographed book . . . No other book may ever compare' 'One of my favourite books . . . Wonderful, inspirational, and heart-warming! To me, it is a MUST READ! 'The book is beyond words . . . Well written, engaging, poignant' 'This really is a wonderful book. You should read it'
Download or read book Milk Teeth written by Amrita Mahale and published by Context. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Bombay Meri Jaan written by Jerry Pinto and published by Penguin Books India. This book was released on 2003 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When King Charles Ii Of England Married Princess Catherine De Braganza Of Portugal In 1661, He Received As Part Of His Dowry The Isles Of Bom Bahia, The Good Bay. Reclaimed From The Sea, These Would Become The Modern City Of Bombay. A Marriage Of Affluence And Abject Poverty, Where A Grey Concrete Jungle Is The Backdrop To A Heady Potpourri Of Ethnic, Linguistic And Religious Subcultures, Bombay, Renamed Mumbai After The Goddess Mumbadevi, Defies Definition. Bombay, Meri Jaan, Comprising Poems And Prose Pieces By Some Of The Biggest Names In Literature, In Addition To Cartoons, Photographs, A Song And A Bombay Duck Recipe, Tries To Capture The Spirit Of This Great Metropolis. Salman Rushdie, Pico Iyer, Dilip Chitre, Saadat Hasan Manto, V.S. Naipaul, Khushwant Singh And Busybee, Among Others, Write About Aspects Of The City: The High-Rise Apartments And The Slums; Camaraderie And Isolation In The Crowded Chawls; Bhelpuri On The Beach And Cricket In The Gully; The Women'S Compartment Of A Local Train; Encounter Cops Who Battle The Underworld; The Jazz Culture Of The Sixties; The Monsoon Floods; The Shiv Sena; The Cinema Halls; The Sea. Vibrant, Engaging And Provocative, This Is An Anthology As Rich And Varied As The City It Celebrates.
Download or read book Jasoda written by Kiran Nagarkar and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2017-11-25 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Jasoda is as compelling and powerful as Nagarkar's other novels but uniquely itself in the gut-wrenching story it tells of the sordid uses of power, the suffering it causes, and the human spirit that rises above it.' -- Nayantara Sahgal 'Nagarkar's storytelling genius takes us into the abyss of poverty and patriarchy -- source of both inspiration and shame. Jasoda's brutal but transformative journey is the foil to counterfeit historical grandeur. With empathy turned to prose of pure steel, Nagarkar paints a modern Indian heroine.' -- Mitali Saran 'A novel that stops your breath and doesn't let go until you get to the end. Jasoda: mother, murderer or saint? You'll want to put her down. But she won't let you.' -- Manjula Padmanabhan 'No one can spin a yarn with such rollicking exuberance as Kiran Nagarkar, and no one exposes contemporary India's dark underbelly, in all its casual brutality, like him. Jasoda is a tour-de-force of razor-sharp observation and profound compassion, brilliantly realized.' --Ritu Menon Paar -- 'mirage' country, where it is often impossible to draw the line between reality and illusion -- has been suffering from a decade-long drought. Jasoda is one of the last to leave this 'arse-end of the world' with her children and mother-in-law. Since her husband claims he has important work to do for the local prince, Jasoda must make the journey to the city by the sea on her own. Meanwhile, after years of anonymity, Paar seems poised to take off. Will Jasoda return home with her children? Or stay in the city that's become home for her children? It's taken for granted that epic journeys and epics were possible only during the time of the Mahabharata, the Odyssey, or the Iliad. Even more to the point, the heroes of the epics had to, perforce, be men. The eponymous Jasoda of the novel is about to prove how wrong the assumptions are. Kiran Nagarkar's trenchant narrative traces the journey of a woman of steely resolve and gumption, making her way through an India that is patriarchal, feudal, seldom in the news, and weighed down by dehumanizing poverty.
Download or read book The Extras written by Kiran Nagarkar and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2013-12-01 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ravan and Eddie are back! And they're bigger, better and guaranteed to have you laughing out loud. Having grown up in the city of movie stars who drip glamour, the two mortal enemies, Ravan and Eddie dream of strutting down the road to super-stardom. But can Ravan, a lowly taxi driver, and Eddie, a bouncer-cum-bartender at an illegal bar, rise from their dusty CWD chawl to the glittering heights of international fame? To complicate matters further, their love lives hang by a thread. Eddie, secure in having got Belle, the Anglo-Indian girl of his dreams, must now figure out how to overcome prejudice from both their families and his own apathy, in order to keep her. And Eddie's sister Pieta, the object of Ravan's adoration, is completely oblivious to his existence - until he saves her life. Complete with a cast of soul-searching drunks, a nemesis called Three Point One, and nymph-like damsels in distress, The Extras is much more than a book about Bollywood or Bombay. It is the engrossing tale of a near-epic struggle against obscurity and towards self-realization; and is outrageously exuberant in the telling, and touching in its depiction of the large and small tragedies that shape our lives.
Download or read book In the Eye of the Wild written by Nastassja Martin and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After enduring a vicious bear attack in the Russian Far East's Kamchatka Peninsula, a French anthropologist undergoes a physical and spiritual transformation that forces her to confront the tenuous distinction between animal and human. In the Eye of the Wild begins with an account of the French anthropologist Nastassja Martin’s near fatal run-in with a Kamchatka bear in the mountains of Siberia. Martin’s professional interest is animism; she addresses philosophical questions about the relation of humankind to nature, and in her work she seeks to partake as fully as she can in the lives of the indigenous peoples she studies. Her violent encounter with the bear, however, brings her face-to-face with something entirely beyond her ken—the untamed, the nonhuman, the animal, the wild. In the course of that encounter something in the balance of her world shifts. A change takes place that she must somehow reckon with. Left severely mutilated, dazed with pain, Martin undergoes multiple operations in a provincial Russian hospital, while also being grilled by the secret police. Back in France, she finds herself back on the operating table, a source of new trauma. She realizes that the only thing for her to do is to return to Kamchatka. She must discover what it means to have become, as the Even people call it, medka, a person who is half human, half bear. In the Eye of the Wild is a fascinating, mind-altering book about terror, pain, endurance, and self-transformation, comparable in its intensity of perception and originality of style to J. A. Baker’s classic The Peregrine. Here Nastassja Martin takes us to the farthest limits of human being.
Download or read book God s Little Soldier written by Kiran Nagarkar and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-09-15 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God's Little Soldier From the backstreets of Bombay to the hallowed halls ofCambridge, from the mountains of Afghanistan to a monastery inCalifornia, the story of Zia Khan is an extraordinary rollercoasterride; a compelling cliffhanger of a spiritual quest, about a goodman gone bad and the brutalization of his soul. Growing up in a well-to-do, cultured Muslim family in Bombay,Zia, a gifted young mathematician, is torn between theunquestioning certainties of his aunt's faith and the tolerant,easy-going views of his parents. At Cambridge University, his beliefs crystallize into a ferventorthodoxy, which ultimately leads him to a terrorist training campin Afghanistan. The burden of endemic violence and killings,however, takes its toll on Zia. Tormented by his need forforgiveness, he is then drawn reluctantly to Christ. But peacecontinues to elude him, and Zia is once again driven to seek outcauses to defend and fight for, whatever be the sacrificesinvolved. Posited against Zia is his brother, Amanat, a writer whose lifeis severely constrained by sickness, even as his mind is liberatedby doubt. Theirs is a relationship that is as much a blood bond asit is an opaque wall of incomprehension. Weaving together thenarratives of the extremist and the liberal, God's Little Soldierunderscores the incoherent ambiguities of good and evil, and thetragic conflicts that have riven people and nations.
Download or read book The Use of Man written by Aleksandar Tisma and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2014-11-11 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Use of Man starts with an unexpected discovery. World War II is ending. Sredoje Lazukić has been fighting all through it. Now, as one of the victorious Partisans, he has come home to Novi Sad. He visits the house he grew up in. Strangers nervously show him around. He looks up the mother of Milinko, his best friend. Milinko’s girlfriend, Vera, was the daughter of a Jew, a bookish businessman. Her house stands empty and open. Venturing in, Sredoje is surprised to find the diary of the German tutor that Milinko, Vera, and he all shared, Fräulein, who died on the operating table just before the war. Here, however, in a cheap notebook in Vera’s old room, is a record of Fräulein’s lonely days, with the sentimental caption Poésie. . . . The diary survived. Sredoje survived. Vera and Milinko have survived too. But what survives? A few years back Sredoje, Vera, and Milinko were teenagers, struggling to make sense of life. Life, they now know, can be more bitter than death. A work of stark poetry and illimitable sadness, The Use of Man is one of the great books of the 20th century.
Download or read book The Contemporary Novel and the City written by S. Khanna and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-04 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the deeply divided terrain of the twentieth century city and its formative impact on narrative fiction. It focuses on two major 'world authors' at the two ends of the twentieth century who write, systematically, about the colonial and postcolonial cities they were born in: James Joyce and Dublin, and Salman Rushdie and Bombay.
Download or read book Predicaments of Knowledge written by Suren Pillay and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2024-09-01 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Predicaments of Knowledge explores the difficult questions South African universities face after apartheid: Is there a difference between Africanising a university and decolonising a university? What about differences between deracialising and decolonising the curricula taught at universities across disciplines? Through a range of reflections on race, language, colonial, postcolonial and decolonial knowledge projects from Africa and Latin America, this book explores the pitfalls and possibilities that face a post-apartheid generation inventing the future of knowledge. The distinctions between Africanisation, decolonisation and deracialisation are often conflated in the political demands put to universities. Suren Pillay emphasises all three as important but distinct imperatives. If an intervention is undertaken with the aim of decolonising the university while actually addressing deracialisation, it can undermine the effort to decolonise. Similarly, if an initiative to Africanise the university does not address decolonisation, both processes can be undermined. Drawing on more than two and a half decades of the author’s participation in these debates, these essays aim to intervene in and elucidate questions and predicaments, rather than offering blue prints; they are dialogical in spirit even when polemical in tone. In conversation with existing continental African and Latin American experiences, they offer incisive reflections on current South African debates.
