He Fixed The Match, She Fixed Him !

                                      By : Shikha Kumar

No, it's not a Cricket Match that the author talks about. 

It's about a matrimony match that Kunal *who is from Mumbai* & Shreya *who is from Delhi* find themselves entangled in, a vicious circle of tit-for-tat , playing dangerous games to settle personal scores.

Shreya eventually manages to change Kunal's evil attitude towards her, by enduring his hatred.  
As the author rightly mentions,"Revenge is a two edged Sword"
kunal finally falls in love with Shreya, and both of them overcome initial hiccups that successful relationships often go through.  

The book initially feels sad & depressing to read but eventually as pages turn & the main characters start to rise in Love, the story becomes interesting & humorous to read. 

Caravans

Indian Merchants on the Silk Road
By: Scott C. Levi

The great adventure of the Multani merchants on the Silk Road to ancient Asia

Caravans tells the fascinating story of tens of thousands of intrepid merchants who risked everything to travel great distances and spend years of their lives pursuing their fortunes in foreign lands.

From the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, these merchants lived as ‘guests’ in cities and villages across Afghanistan, Central Asia, Iran and Russia. Scott C. Levi examines the sophisticated techniques they used to convert a modest amount of merchandise into vast portfolios of trade and moneylending ventures. At precisely the same historical moment that the rising European trade in the Indian Ocean usurped the overland ‘Silk Road’ trade, the Multani merchants began making their way to Central Asia, linking the early modern Indian and Central Asian economies closer together than ever before.

This elegantly written, meticulously researched book brings a forgotten chapter of India’s business history to life. Caravans is the seventh volume in The Story of Indian Business series edited by Gurcharan Das.

Scott C. Levi is Associate Professor of Central Asian History at Ohio State University. 

And Home Was Kariakoo: Memoir of an Indian African

By: M.G. Vassanji

M.G. Vassanji was born in East Africa and, like many East African Indians of his generation, he emigrated to the West. But Africa remained his primal home—the land whose colours and smells most beckoned to him, the land in which his family roots went deepest. 

In And Home Was Kariakoo, he travels to this homeland to draw a vivid portrait of East Africa today and tells the story of the Gujarati Indians of that region for whom Africa is both home and not home.  Entwined through Vassanji’s accounts is the story of his own childhood in Dar es Salaam.  Part memoir, part travelogue, part history, And Home Was Kariakoo is an insightful, thoughtful, deeply moving meditation on the Indians of East Africa and what it means to call a place one’s home. 

M.G. Vassanji is the author of ten books. The Gunny Sack won the Commonwealth Prize, The Book of Secrets and The In-Between World of Vikram Lall each won the Giller Prize, while the memoir A Place Within: Rediscovering India won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-fiction. 

The Eye Still Seeks: Pakistani Contemporary Art

By: Salima Hashmi

A superb art book of one of the most arresting art movements in the world today.

Pakistan’s contemporary art scene is arguably the most exciting in South Asia. Well-known curator, artist and teacher Salima Hashmi gives us a superb overview in this lavishly designed book, which includes interviews with artists such as Rashid Rana and pieces by writers like Kamila Shamsie and Mohsin Hamid.

Salima Hashmi is a well-known artist and dean at the School of Visual Arts and Design at the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. 

What Will You Give for This Beauty

By: Ali Akbar Natiq

Translated by: Ali Madeeh Hashmi

Qaim Deen sneaks across the Sutlej, into India, to steal cattle—braving cobras, wild boars and the border patrol—and gives generously of his earnings to those in need. Young Nauman’s forbidden love for Nuzhat leads him to seek refuge in a holy place, at terrible cost to his family. Maulvi Abdur Rahman and his neighbour’s bull terrier engage in a hilarious and unrelenting battle of wits. Could Kareeman’s beauty, which hits the village like a storm, be the salvation of Ghafoora the Dimwit?

Possessed of dark irony and a searing moral vision, Ali Akbar Natiq is a storyteller of exceptional talent and manifest power. He renders the robust rhythms of the Punjab countryside, with its undercurrent of violence and poverty, through feuds and feasts, hunts and marriages, mobs and floods, elopements and gossip. Acrobats, holy men, thieves, peasants, landowners, masons and courtesans populate the stories of his virtuoso debut collection What Will You Give for This Beauty?

About the Author

Ali Akbar Natiq began working as a mason, specializing in domes and minarets, to contribute to the family income while he read widely in Urdu and Arabic. Acclaimed as one of the brightest stars in Pakistan’s literary firmament, Natiq has published two volumes of poetry and one collection of short stories.

Ali Madeeh Hashmi is a psychiatrist, writer and translator. He has written about the lives and works of Faiz, Ghalib, Iqbal and Manto. 

Me, My Fiancée and #I Fu*!ed Up

By: Arya Babbar

We all want to be loyal but is love meant to last? 

All Rushabh Shah, a nice Gujarati boy, has done in his life is love his girlfriend and listen to her. So there is not an iota of doubt in his mind when he proposes. Both the families are overjoyed and soon the preparations for the wedding begin.

But then from nowhere doubts begin to creep in and he meets the love of his life—or so he thinks! Panicking, he embarks on a mission to find out whom he truly loves.

Question is, is there such a thing as true love?

This comedy of errors set against the backdrop of the great Indian wedding is unputdownable!

Aarya Babbar is an Indian actor who has worked in several Hindi/Punjabi films & was a participant in recent Big Boss 8 season.  

REGRET

By: Ikramullah

Translated by Faruq Hassan and Muhammad Umar Memon

Deeply moving and elegantly wrought, these two novellas skillfully evoke the long shadow cast by the violence of Partition through poignant tales of families and friendships sundered by the carnage of 1947.

Ikramullah is a renowned Urdu novelist and short-story writer.

Faruq Hassan was an Urdu poet, critic and translator.

Muhammad Umar Memon is an eminent critic, short-story writer and translator.