Suralakshmi Villa

Suralakshmi Villa PDF Author: Aruna Chakravarti
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 1529049229
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Suralakshmi Choudhury, a gynaecologist based in Delhi, falls in love at the age of thirty-one, marries and has a son. Suddenly, five years after his birth, she abandons everything including the house gifted to her by her father and her flourishing medical career, to travel to an obscure village in Bengal and open a free clinic for women and children. She leaves her son behind but takes along a poor Muslim girl, she has adopted. What makes her take this strange decision? Suralakshmi’s actions confound her relatives and it is from their accounts of the incidents, letters, memoirs, and flashbacks – from a more distant past – that the story comes together and the layers and nuances in the enigmatic character of Suralakshmi are brought to light. In Suralakshmi Villa, Aruna Chakravarti blends the narrative of the novel with history, legend, music, religion, folklore, rituals and culinary practices of both Hindus and Muslims, and creates a fascinating tapestry which reveals the syncretic nature of Bengal and her people.

Suralakshmi Villa

Suralakshmi Villa PDF Author: Aruna Chakravarti
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 1529049229
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Suralakshmi Choudhury, a gynaecologist based in Delhi, falls in love at the age of thirty-one, marries and has a son. Suddenly, five years after his birth, she abandons everything including the house gifted to her by her father and her flourishing medical career, to travel to an obscure village in Bengal and open a free clinic for women and children. She leaves her son behind but takes along a poor Muslim girl, she has adopted. What makes her take this strange decision? Suralakshmi’s actions confound her relatives and it is from their accounts of the incidents, letters, memoirs, and flashbacks – from a more distant past – that the story comes together and the layers and nuances in the enigmatic character of Suralakshmi are brought to light. In Suralakshmi Villa, Aruna Chakravarti blends the narrative of the novel with history, legend, music, religion, folklore, rituals and culinary practices of both Hindus and Muslims, and creates a fascinating tapestry which reveals the syncretic nature of Bengal and her people.

Dear Mrs Naidu

Dear Mrs Naidu PDF Author: Mathangi Subramanian
Publisher: Young Zubaan, an imprint of Zubaan
ISBN: 9384757179
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Twelve-year-old Sarojini’s best friend, Amir, might not be her best friend any more. Ever since Amir moved out of the basti and started going to a posh private school, it seems like he and Sarojini have nothing in common. Then Sarojini finds out about the Right to Education, a law that might help her get a free seat at Amir’s school – or, better yet, convince him to come back to a new and improved version of the government school they went to together. As she struggles to keep her best friend, Sarojini gets help from some unexpected characters, including Deepti, a feisty classmate who lives at a construction site; Vimala Madam, a human rights lawyer who might also be an evil genius; and Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, a long-dead freedom fighter who becomes Sarojini’s secret pen pal. Told through letters to Mrs. Naidu, this is the story of how Sarojini learns to fight – for her friendship, her family, and her future. Published by Zubaan.

Jorasanko

Jorasanko PDF Author: Aruna Chakravarti
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 9350299836
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
A sensitive portrayal ofthe hopes and fears,triumphs and defeatsexperienced by thewomen of the Tagorehousehold. in a sprawling novel that spans a unique phase in the history of Bengal and India, Aruna Chakravarti provides a fascinating Iaccount of how the Tagore women influenced and were in turn influenced by their illustrious male counterparts, the times they lived in and the family they belonged to. Jorasanko mirrors the hopes and fears, triumphs and defeats that the women of the Tagore household experienced in their intricate interpersonal relationships, as well as the adjustments they were continually called upon to make as daughters and daughters-in-law of one of the most eminent families of the land. 'In her meticulously researched novel, Aruna Chakravarti has successfully re-created for the reader the world inside the Tagore home, at once glittering and fascinating, but also dark and challenging. The women of the Tagore family who are at the heart of this novel are complex beings who will raise many questions in the modern reader regarding the role of women in today's society' - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, author of Palace of Illusions and One Amazing Thing.

The Inheritors

The Inheritors PDF Author: Aruna Chakravarti
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 9352141598
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
From the ritual-bound household of an orthodox scholar in a small village in Bengal in 1897 to Germany and Mumbai at the turn of the new millennium, The Inheritors follows the shifting life patterns of a family through a melange of narratives, memories and characters. The unrelenting puritanism of Nyayaratna Bishnupada Deb sharma drives his daughter Radharani to insanity and throws into sharp relief his grandson Shibkali’s feeble attempt to break free. Giribala voices her resentment against her circumstances through a lifetime of silence, her destiny finding an echo in her daughter. Alo, tragic victim of her husband’s sexual perversions. And Pramatha’s depraved radicalism is set against Shashishekhar’s progressive outlook which symbolizes the most significant departure from the stifling constraints of his community. Even as it inherits the deadwood of the past, each generation strives to liberate itself, setting the stage for the eternal conflict between tradition and change, between a legacy and its inheritors. Aruna Chakravarti draws upon history and myth, religion and folklore, rituals and culinary practices to create a vivid portrait of a community of Vaidic Kulin Brahmins. The narrative, oscillating back and forth in time, weaves a vibrant tapestry of life – differing ideologies and sensibilities, suicides and desertions, marriages and infidelities, bigotry and liberalism – independence and a society caught on the cusp of conservatism and modernity.

A Bengali Lady in England by Krishnabhabini Das (1885)

A Bengali Lady in England by Krishnabhabini Das (1885) PDF Author: Somdatta Mandal
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443882399
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
This is a translation from Bengali to English of the first ever woman’s travel narrative written in the late nineteenth century when India was still under British imperial rule with Bengal as its capital. Krishnabhabini Das (1864–1919) was a middle-class Bengali lady who accompanied her husband on his second visit to England in 1882, where they lived for eight years. Krishnabhabini wrote her narrative in Bengali and the account was published in Calcutta in 1885 as England-e Bongomohila [A Bengali Lady in England]. This anonymous publication had the author’s name written simply as “A Bengali Lady”. It is not a travel narrative per se as Das was also trying to educate fellow Indians about different aspects of British life, such as the English race and their nature, the English lady, English marriage and domestic life, religion and celebration, British labour, and trade. Though Hindu women did not observe the purdah as Muslim women did, they had, until then, remained largely invisible, confined within their homes and away from the public gaze. Their rightful place was within the domestic sphere and it was quite uncommon for a middle-class Indian woman to expose herself to the outside world or participate in activities and debates in the public domain. This self-ordained mission of educating people back home with the ground realities in England is what makes Krishnabhabini’s narrative unique. The narrative offers a brilliant picture of the colonial interface between England and India and shows how women travellers from India to Europe worked to shape feminized personae characterized by conventionality, conservatism and domesticity, even as they imitated a male-dominated tradition of travel and travel writing.

My Son's Father

My Son's Father PDF Author: Dom Moraes
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780140128864
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description


Daughters of Jorasanko

Daughters of Jorasanko PDF Author: Aruna Chakravarti
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 935264087X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
The Tagore household is falling apart. Rabindranath cannot shake off the disquiet in his heart. His daughters and daughter-in-law struggle hard to cope with incompatible marriages, ill health and the stigma of childlessness. The extended family of Jorasanko is steeped in debt. Even as Rabindranath copes with his problems, news reaches him that he has been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Will this be a turning point for the man, his family and their much-celebrated home? Daughters of Jorasanko, the sequel to the bestselling Jorasanko, explores the histories of the Tagore women, even as it describes the twilight years in the life of one of the greatest luminaries of our time and the end of an epoch in the history of Bengal.

The Legend of Kuldhara

The Legend of Kuldhara PDF Author: Malathi Ramachandran
Publisher: Niyogi Books
ISBN: 9386906007
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Kuldhara, a village in the Rajasthan desert, perched at the edge of time. Abandoned, cursed, nearly two hundred years ago, to remain a heap of rubble and stone. It lies dreaming of its vibrant past when the streets echoed with laughter and the fields swayed green and gold. What happened one night that drove its inhabitants from their homes, never to return? Did they flee to preserve their honour, when the covetous gaze of a local lord fell on Pari, the headman’s daughter? Where did they go? How did they survive?

The Hidden One - The Untold Story of Aurengzeb's Daughter

The Hidden One - The Untold Story of Aurengzeb's Daughter PDF Author: Ruchir Gupta
Publisher: One Point Six Technology Pvt Ltd
ISBN: 935201894X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
1658: Prince Aurengzeb of India has imprisoned his own father, murdered his brothers, seized the throne of Delhi and declared himself Emperor. He immediately begins a reign of tyranny, invading neighbours, banning music and the arts, destroying temples and churches, and unleashing terror on a vast kingdom comprising a fifth of the world's humanity. During this time his own beloved daughter, Zebunissa, forms a secret poetic society called the Makhfi (Hidden One) in Persian. Through this society she practices the arts secretly and plans rebellions to overthrow her demonic father and restore justice in the kingdom. Bestowed the title of Princess of India and then Empress of India, she dupes her father and his vicious nobles in a courageous and dangerous attempt to save her people from the Emperor’s tyranny. Part fiction and part history, The Hidden One brings a tear to the eye while thrilling the heart as we witness 17th century India through the eyes of an unsuspected character – a Muslim princess. It narrates the powerful story of Zebunissa, and the Makhfi – the secret society that has been lost over time but deserves its rightful place in history for its role during one of India’s darkest eras. Available historical data has been analyzed to bring to light this obscure group about which very little has thus far been written or known. An unforgettable cast of characters and progression of fateful events.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala PDF Author: Aruna Chakravarti
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description