Download or read book The Loneliness of Hira Barua written by Arupa Patangia Kalita and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2020-07-09 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An extraordinary, ever-relevant collection of stories from one of Assam’s greatest living writers. Hira Barua, an ageing widow living in a conflict-ridden region of Assam with her beloved Tibetan spaniel fears she is beginning to resemble a lonely Englishwoman from her past. A vicious sexual assault by the invading military drives a group of women into a shelter home. On a fateful night, a group of prostitutes make an extraordinary sacrifice for the safety of their companions. In these, and thirteen other piercing, intimate portraits, women navigate family, violence, trauma, ambition and domesticity with caution, grace and quiet resilience. Originally published as Mariam Austin othoba Hira Barua, this remarkable collection by one of Assam’s finest living writers won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2014. In this brilliant English translation, Arupa Patangia Kalita’s powerful voice is brought to fresh and vivid life. Written in a variety of styles, from gritty social realism, folklore to magical realism, The Loneliness of Hira Barua is a modern classic of Indian literature. ‘Patangia’s fiction, over the last two decades, has repeatedly knocked on the doors of [our] conscience’ — Open

Download or read book Written in Tears written by Arupa Patangia Kalita and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2019-01-25 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A half-burnt bus passes through a city charring everything alive and beautiful in its wake. The newly wed Arunima watches helplessly as the aftermath of her insurgent brother-in-law's absence engulfs her husband's large, loving family. Ayengla secretly supplies food to the insurgents until, one day, a horrible act of violence changes her life irrevocably. A bold and sensitive witness to her times, Arupa Patangia Kalita is one of the most powerful voices in contemporary Assamese literature. Written in Tears brings together some of her best novellas and stories set against a surreally beautiful landscape torn and scarred by conflict. This is a mighty chronicle of the disturbing and searing history of aggression and hate that has plagued Assam for decades.

Download or read book The Story of Felanee written by Arupa Patangia Kalita and published by Zubaan. This book was released on 2013-07-22 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Story of Felanee is based on real life events. It is a story of courage, of survival, of ethnic conflict and violence that tears people and communities apart in the most brutal, savage way. Set in Assam, which has seen two major agitations that have crippled the economy, this is a story that will shock the reader by its sheer passion, and its brutal honesty. The callousness and utter disregard for human life, the ugly play for power, for electoral gain, the sham and petty hypocrisies, the bloody horror of ethnic violence all lie exposed in this powerful novel written by one of Assam’s leading fiction writers. The story revolves around the experiences of one woman: Felanee. Her name means ‘thrown away’—so called because as her mother lay dying in the burning riot-torn village, Felanee was thrown into a swamp and left to die. But against all odds, Felanee—and thousands like her—survived. Like the reeds that grow in such profusion along the bank of Assam’s rivers, the rootless inhabitants of the refugee camps and makeshift shanties, whose stories form the core of Felanee, are swept along by the wind and thrown onto new hostile terrain but they cling on with tenacity to take root again and again. Published by Zubaan.

Download or read book Elementary Aspects of the Political written by Prathama Banerjee and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-04 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Elementary Aspects of the Political Prathama Banerjee moves beyond postcolonial and decolonial critiques of European political philosophy to rethink modern conceptions of "the political" from the perspective of the global South. Drawing on Indian and Bengali practices and philosophies from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Banerjee identifies four elements of the political: the self, action, the idea, and the people. She examines selfhood in light of precolonial Indic traditions of renunciation and realpolitik; action in the constitutive tension between traditional conceptions of karma and modern ideas of labor; the idea of equality as it emerges in the dialectic between spirituality and economics; and people in the friction between the structure of the political party and the atmospherics of fiction and theater. Throughout, Banerjee reasserts the historical specificity of political thought and challenges modern assumptions about the universality, primacy, and self-evidence of the political. In formulating a new theory of the political, Banerjee gestures toward a globally salient political philosophy that displaces prevailing Western notions of the political masquerading as universal.

Download or read book Beneath the Simolu Tree written by Sarmistha Pritam and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-01-16 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a village in rural Assam, quiet, unassuming Paridhi grows up witnessing domestic violence at close quarters. The conservative society she inhabits, shapes and befuddles her. Her rebellion is silent—she submerges herself in a world of colour. Pebbles turn into objects of art in her hands. She writes and reads extensively to escape her cloistered life. But to what end? Is it really ever possible to escape one’s confines? The house she’s lived in ever since her childhood, now infested with termites, is her responsibility now. With an ageing mother, an ailing uncle and an absentee brother, Paridhi feels like she has no one to depend on. Except perhaps Bondeep. But with passing time, there are growing concerns—will Bondeep’s family ever be able to accept her? She could always confide in the vivacious Juroni, her best friend, neighbour and confidant. But Juroni has secrets of her own, which she keeps close to her heart until the inevitable, devastating end. Peopled with characters great and small, Beneath the Simolu Tree follows Paridhi as she navigates life, confronts injustices and comes out stronger but not embittered. Stories and realities are brought into sharp conflict in this tale of human yearning, as Pritam explores the depths of her innermost desires. At the heart of this novel lies the one question we spend our entire lives searching an answer for—what is it to love and be loved?

Download or read book So Near Yet So Far written by Manujendra Kundu and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-12 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first-ever, full-length study of Badal Sircar's Third Theatre. Sircar was a very prominent playwright of modern Bengali Theatre. It challenges some of the well-established notions of the Third Theatre. It brings to the fore the lost voices of some members of the Third Theatre. It has some rare photographs of Shatabdi, Sircar's Theatre group.

Download or read book Grandma and the Great Gourd written by and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-03-05 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On her way to visit her daughter on the other side of the jungle, Grandma encounters a hungry fox, bear, and tiger, and although she convinces them to wait for her return trip, she still must find a way to outwit them all.

Download or read book Popular Literature and Pre modern Societies in South Asia written by Surinder Singh and published by Pearson Education India. This book was released on 2008 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Papers presented at a seminar held at Chandigarh during 1-2 February 2005.

Download or read book Handbook of Twentieth Century Literatures of India written by Nalini Natarajan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1996-09-09 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: India has a rich literary assemblage produced by its many different regional traditions, religious faiths, ethnic subcultures and linguistic groups. The published literature of the 20th century is a particularly interesting subject and is the focus of this book, as it represents the provocative conjuncture of the transitions of Indian modernity. This reference book surveys the major regional literatures of contemporary India in the context of the country's diversity and heterogeneity. Chapters are devoted to particular regions, and the arrangement of the work invites comparisons of literary traditions. Chapters provide extensive bibliographies of primary works, thus documenting the creative achievement of numerous contemporary Indian authors. Some chapters cite secondary works as well, and the volume concludes with a list of general works providing further information. An introductory essay overviews theoretical concerns, ideological and aesthetic considerations, developments in various genres, and the history of publishing in regional literatures. The introduction provides a context for approaching the chapters that follow, each of which is devoted to the literature of a particular region. Each chapter begins with a concise introductory section. The body of each chapter is structured according to social and historical events, literary forms, or broad descriptive or analytic trends, depending on the particular subject matter. Each chapter then closes with an extensive bibliography of primary works, thus documenting the rich literary tradition of the region. Some chapters also cite secondary sources as an aid to the reader. The final chapters of the book address special topics, such as sub-cultural literatures, or the interplay between literature and film. A list of additional sources of general information concludes the volume.

Download or read book Mgombato written by Joseph Mwalonya and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book No Presents Please written by Jayant Kaikini and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2020-07-28 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For readers of Jhumpa Lahiri and Rohinton Mistry, as well as Lorrie Moore and George Saunders, here are stories on the pathos and comedy of small–town migrants struggling to build a life in the big city, with the dream world of Bollywood never far away. Jayant Kaikini’s gaze takes in the people in the corners of Mumbai—a bus driver who, denied vacation time, steals the bus to travel home; a slum dweller who catches cats and sells them for pharmaceutical testing; a father at his wit’s end who takes his mischievous son to a reform institution. In this metropolis, those who seek find epiphanies in dark movie theaters, the jostle of local trains, and even in roadside keychains and lost thermos flasks. Here, in the shade of an unfinished overpass, a factory–worker and her boyfriend browse wedding invitations bearing wealthy couples’ affectations—”no presents please”—and look once more at what they own. Translated from the Kannada by Tejaswini Niranjana, these resonant stories, recently awarded the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, take us to photo framers, flower markets, and Irani cafes, revealing a city trading in fantasies while its strivers, eating once a day and sleeping ten to a room, hold secret ambitions close.

Download or read book Bankimchandra Chatterjee Essays in Perspective written by Bhabatosh Chatterji and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 760 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Present Collection Of Essays Covers Several Aspects Of BankimchandraýS Personality And Genius, Seen From Contrary Angles To Which Eminent Critics And Scholars, Indian And Western Have Contributed. Apart From Valuable Studies Of The Many Aspects Of BankimchandraýS Art And Thought, The Volume Also Contains, In The Appendices, A Full And Comprehensive Chronicle Of His Life, Year To Year, A Bibliography Of His Publications In English, Bengali And Other Indian Languages, An English Renderings Of The Prologue And The First Chapter Of Anandamath By Sri Aurobindo, And Excerpts From The Authors Ideas And Speculations.

Download or read book An Educated Woman In Prostitution written by Manada Devi and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-01-25 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘But now, having travelled to the frontier of the world of sins, I no longer hesitated in trampling over the remnants of the goodness in my heart.’ Manada, Maani didi, Feroza Bibi, Miss Mukherjee – the jostling identities of our beguiling and charming protagonist as she glides through a life that can be seen as exploitative yet, also, curiously, empowering and honest. Manada’s fascinating life story takes her from her wealthy cossetted upbringing to a life of debauchery and prostitution after she elopes with her married lover when in her mid-teens. She is capable, attractive and doesn’t ask for pity as she struggles with illness, poverty and abandonment, but ensures that she emerges relatively unscathed and carves a niche for herself in her profession. Manada matures and settles into a life of prostitution, entertains barristers, doctors and other men of high society. She describes her colourful life with relish but is often introspective as she places her own position as a sex worker in the context of the times, calling out young sanctimonious patriotic men who maintain a high standing in society yet secretly fancy prostitutes. Rather tantalisingly she takes no names, only occasionally hinting at their identities, to avoid scandals and protect the double lives of men who are well-known in Calcutta in the 1920s. Weaving together multiple strands, looking beyond ideas of morality and accusations, we are presented a life of immense beauty and endurance, which is both grand in its scope and deeply intimate in its portrait.

Download or read book Great Masters of Indian Cinema written by D. P. Mishra and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the life sketches and contributions of Dadasaheb Phalke Awardees.

Download or read book Motherwit written by Urmila Pawar and published by Zubaan. This book was released on 2013-07-22 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Dalit, a Buddhist and a feminist: Urmila Pawar’s self-definition as all three identities informs her stories about women who are brave in the face of caste oppression, strong in the face of family pressures, defiant when at the receiving end of insult, and determined when guarding their interests and those of their sisters. Using the classic short story form with its surprise endings to great effect, Pawar brings to life strong and clever women who drive the reader to laughter, anger, tears or despair. Her harsh, sometimes vulgar and hard-hitting language subverts another stereotype — that of the soft-spoken woman writer. Pawar’s protagonists may not always be Dalit, and the mood not always one of anger, but caste is never far from the context and informs the subtext of each story. As critic Eleanor Zelliot notes, there is ‘tucked in every story, a note about a Buddhist vihara or Dr Ambedkar.... All her stories come from the Dalit world, revealing the great variety of Dalit life now.’ Published by Zubaan.

Download or read book Laburnum for My Head written by Temsula Ao and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2009-10-30 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every May something extraordinary happens in the new cemetery of the sleepy little town – a laburnum tree, with buttery yellow blossoms, flowers over the spot where Lentina is buried. A brave hunter, Imchanok, totters when the ghost of his prey haunts him, till he offers it is a tuft of his hair as a prayer for forgiveness. Pokenmong, the servant boy, by dint of his wit, sells an airfield to unsuspecting villagers. A letter found on a dead insurgent blurs the boundaries between him and an innocent villager, both struggling to make ends meet. A woman’s terrible secret comes full circle, changing her daughter’s and granddaughter’s lives as well as her own. An illiterate village woman’s simple question rattles an army officer and forces him to set her husband free. A young girl loses her lover in his fight for the motherland, leaving her a frightful legacy. And a caterpillar finds wings. From the mythical to the modern, Laburnum for My Head is a collection of short stories that embrace a gamut of emotions. Heart-rending, witty and riddled with irony, the stories depict a deep understanding of the human condition.

Download or read book Bhaunri written by Anukrti Upadhyay and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2019-05-25 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can too much love be a dangerous thing?Bhaunri is married, as is the custom in her tribe of nomadic blacksmiths, when she is still a child. When she is finally sent away to her husband's home as a young woman, she finds herself drawn deeply and powerfully towards the gruff and handsome Bheema. Bheema, however, is far from the ideal husband, and when he strays one time too many, Bhaunri's love for him begins to fester and grow into something dark and fearsome. This is a story of obsessive love and the destructive power of desire. Half real and half fable, and redolent with the songs and myths, the beauty and mystery of Rajasthan, Anukrti Upadhyays Bhaunri announces the arrival of a powerful new literary talent.