SEAHORSE

                                                          
                                             By: Janice Pariat

Nehemiah is a student of English Literature at Delhi University when he first meets art historian, Doctor Nicholas Petrou who, as mentor, steers him into a world of pleasure and artistic discovery—transforming his life entirely.

Years later, during a seemingly innocuous spell in London as a Writer in Residence, the unexpected happens—lives, like passing ships, are re-illuminated. Nehemiah is plunged into a search for the people from his past: Nicholas, his step sister Myra, and even himself, the young, drifting boy changed irrevocably by his encounter with them.

Seahorse is a contemporary retelling of the story of the sea god Poseidon and his young male lover Pelops. The young men in these narratives must journey beyond themselves to wrestle free from the protective yet stifling gods of their pasts.

Seahorse traces how loss and healing, undoing and recreation, may eventually shape us into creatures of grace.

About the author:

Janice is the author of Boats on Land: A Collection of Short Stories (Random House India, 2012). She was awarded the Yuva Puraskar (Young Writer Award) from the Sahitya Akademi (Indian National Academy of Letters) and the Crossword Book Award for fiction.

She studied English Literature at St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Her work – including art reviews, cultural features, book reviews, fiction and poetry – has featured in a wide number of national magazines & newspapers. She was editor of Pyrta, an online literary journal of poetry, prose, photo essays and sketches.

Janice is currently the Charles Wallace Writer in Residence at the University of Kent, Canterbury. She lives between the UK and India.

Victoria: A Life

     

    The first comprehensively researched biography of Queen Victoria ever, by one of Britain's best biographers. This magnificent biography sheds new light on Victoria not just as a queen, but as a woman.

When Queen Victoria died in 1901, she had ruled for nearly sixty-four years. She was mother of nine and grandmother of forty-two, and the matriarch of Royal Europe, through the marriages of her children. To many, Queen Victoria is a ruler shrouded in myth and mystique - an aging, stiff widow, paraded as the figurehead to an all-male imperial enterprise. But in truth, Britain's longest reigning monarch was one of the most passionate, expressive, humorous and unconventional women who ever lived, and the story of her life continues to fascinate.

A. N. Wilson's exhaustively researched and definitive biography includes a wealth of new material from previously unseen sources, to show us Queen Victoria as she's never been seen before. It explores the curious set of circumstances that led to Victoria's coronation, her strange and isolated childhood, her passionate marriage, Prince Albert's pivotal influence, her widowhood and subsequent intimate friendship with John Brown, set against the backdrop of this momentous epoch in Britain - and Europe's - history. Victoria is a towering achievement; a masterpiece of biography by a writer at the height of his powers.This will be the definitive biography of Queen Victoria. Her reign of 63 years and 7 months is longer that that of any other British monarch and the longest of any female monarch in history. It was a period of deep and lasting change to the industry, politics and culture of Great Britain and remains a period of lasting fascination.

A. N. Wilson grew up in Staffordshire and was educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is a prolific and award-winning biographer and celebrated novelist. He lives in North London.

Shadows in the Sun

Shadows in the Sun: Healing from Depression and Finding the Light within.

By: Gayathri Ramprasad.

Keynote

An inspiring and uplifting memoir that pulls back the veil of stigma surrounding depression.

Description

As a young girl in Bangalore, Gayathri was surrounded by the fragrance of jasmine and flickering oil lamps, her family protected by gods and goddesses. But as she grew older, demons came forth from dark corners of her idyllic kingdom—with the scariest creatures lurking within her tortured mind.

Shadows in the Sun traces Gayathri’s courageous battle with debilitating depression that consumed her from adolescence through marriage and a move to the United States. Her inspiring memoir provides a first-of-its-kind cross-cultural view of mental illness—how it is regarded in India and in America, and how she drew on both her rich Hindu heritage and Western medicine to find healing.

About the Author:

Gayathri Ramprasad is the founder and president of ASHA International, a nonprofit organization promoting personal, organizational, and community wellness. She received her first undergraduate degree in science from Bangalore University in India, a second undergraduate degree in management and business information systems, and a master’s in business administration from George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. She is a member of the Global Speakers Federation and the winner of the prestigious Eli Lilly Welcome Back Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Voice Award for Consumer Leadership sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

For more information about Gayathri Ramprasad and her mission to promote mental health awareness, and bring hope and healing to people’s lives, please visit www.gayathriramprasad.com and www.myasha.org, or email her at gayathri@ myasha.org.

Final Test: Exit Sachin Tendulkar

By: Dilip D’souza

Description

The most famous cricketer in the world is my neighbour. And he has just retired from the game.

He told us he would do so a couple of months ago, and that galvanized India’s cricket administration into hurriedly organizing a two-Test series against the West Indies.

The great man’s last two matches.

Not for Sachin an away series to round off a career. How then would his adoring millions of fans say goodbye? Not for him either a strong team that would truly test his skills. Perhaps we have to maximize his chances of going out in style, perhaps of him scoring his 101st international century. So we got the West Indies, a shadow of the great West Indian teams of the past, and minus a few of their best players anyway. Lambs to the slaughter, really. But incidental. For this was the Sachin show, evident from long before the first ball was bowled. The press was filled with the Sachin legacy, articles by friends and acquaintances, interviews with fellow cricketers, on and on.

And at the stadium itself, the crowd, the signs, the announcements, the functions and the electronic displays only underlined the point. EPW magazine asked me to write an essay about the match for them, but from the stands. From that moment, I began thinking there was actually a book here.

The story of this last Test told as a closely-observed game of cricket, but really as a vehicle to examine a whole gamut of related themes: the game of cricket, Sachin’s 24-year career and the way the game has changed in that time, the parallels to a changing India in that time, the clout today of the BCCI, the rise of the IPL and T20 cricket, the easy equation of cricket to nationalism, the placing of Sachin on a pedestal…

About the author

Dilip D’Souza (born 1960) is a Mumbai-based writer and journalist. He writes about social and political causes. His columns have appeared in The Sunday Observer, Rediff.com, Outlook, Mid-Day, Hindustan Times, indiatogether.org, The Caravan and other publications.

A column written by him about how two young engineers from Kerala who built a dam in rural Maharashtra and supplied electricity is believed to have inspired a key segment of the 2004 movie Swades directed by Ashutosh Gowariker.

Blood,Sugar and Spice:Living With Diabetes

By: Charmaine D’Souza

Keynote

A comprehensive guide to preventing, controlling, and curing diabetes using naturopathy.

Description

The propensity to become a diabetic is higher in Indians as compared to other nationalities. Indians have a low threshold for the risk factors. Americans develop diabetes when the body mass index (BMI) is 30 and 35; we develop it with the BMI is only 25. Diabetes can be prevented with the right natural cure.

This book is a comprehensive manual to prevent, control, and cure diabetes using naturopathy. With a host of celebrity clients like Avanti and Yash Birla, Natasha and Adar Poonawala, Neetu Singh Kapoor, Rani Mukerji, Karan Johar, Siddharth Malhotra, Anita and Naresh Goyal, Ekta Raheja, Manav Gangwani and many others who swear by her, Charmaine D’Souza tells us how diabetes happens and why, the

health hazards, and how to manage diabetes through natural remedies.

Charmaine gives diabetes patients and their families 20 healthy recipes and a note on the current research. She then focuses on what the way forward should be.

About the author

Charmaine D’Souza is a consultant nutritionist with more than 20 years of experience in assisting clients who are interested in improving their health through better nutrition and natural care. She has a huge client network of celebrities, industrialists,

and others.

Rokda - Nikhil Inamdar

Keynote

A profile of 5 prominent baniya businesses and their owners showcasing the qualities of a Baniya to excel in business.

Description

The Baniyas—they are at the epicentre of every imaginable business in India— from infrastructure to oil & gas and retail to e-commerce, from IT to telecom and education to aviation, no trade it seems, is beyond their grasp. Rokda, is a book which for the first time chronicles their journeys. From the Agarwals of Emami and the mild mannered R.K. Somany of Hindware, to the savvy Rohit Bansal of Snapdeal and the dynamic Guptas of Meru Cabs, Rokda seeks to uncover the secrets of doing business the Baniya way.

Nikhil Inamdar, through extensive interviews with the businessmen, their family and friends, tries to piece together the very qualities that make the Baniyas such a successful entrepreneur group in he country. In this book, through tracing these profiles, he tries to find out what it is that gives them the Midas touch, and the distinction of being India’s biggest wealth creators.

About the author:

Nikhil Inamdar is a business journalist settled in Mumbai. He has been a journalist for over 7 years and has been employed by prestigious news organisations like Times Now, NDTV and Bloomberg TV India, where he has been a news anchor and reported on sectors like realty and infrastructure. He currently is a Special Correspondent with the Business Standard.

He has a degree in broadcast journalism and documentary film making from the University of Westminster, UK.

Iqbal - Zafar Anjum

Keynote: The story of Urdu’s greatest modern poet, the man who wrote Sare JahanSe Acha Hindustan Hamara and was later considered the poet laureate of Pakistan

Description: Allama Mohammad Iqbal, whom Sarojini Naidu called the ‘poet laureate of Asia’, remains a controversial figure in the history of the Indian subcontinent. On the one hand, he is regarded as one of the last great Muslim thinkers and considered the ‘Spiritual Father of Pakistan’. 

On the other, his message of Eastern revivalism and his fight against colonial powers and Islamic fundamentalists place him in the ranks of the twentieth century’s major intellectuals.

Iqbal’s tragedy was that after his death, he was made the national poet of Pakistan and largely ignored in India. In his time, Iqbal was lauded as much as Tagore, but today India celebrates Tagore while Iqbal has been banished from her consciousness.

This is the story of Iqbal’s evolution as poet, philosopher and politician. While Iqbal’s roles in the struggle for India’s freedom and the Pakistan movement are well-known, not much is widely known about his personal life. This biography highlights some of the least known facets of Iqbal’s life: how did a nationalist poet transform into a poet of Islamic revivalism and global revolution? How did three years in Europe chang Iqbal’s political and philosophical outlook? Why did he change his language of poetic expression from Urdu to Persian during his stay in Europe? Why did his first marriage fail and how did his romantic relationships affect him as a person?

Author bio:

Singapore-based journalist, writer, and filmmaker Zafar Anjum has been published in India, the US, the UK, Singapore and other countries. His most recent works include a work of non-fiction, The Resurgence of Satyam (Random House India, 2012), and a collection of short stories, The Singapore Decalogue: Episodes in the Life of a Foreign Talent (Red Wheelbarrow Books, Singapore, 2012). He also blogs, mentors budding writers and is editor of kitaab.org, a literary website. A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year