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The Greatest Malayalam Stories Ever Told Selected and translated by A. J. Thomas

In Conversation with Dr A J Thomas and Ashutosh Potdar- The Bangalore Review

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The Greatest Kashmiri Stories Ever Told by Neerja Mattoo

Excerpt: The Greatest Kashmiri Stories Ever Told- The Bangalore Review

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The Greatest Assamese Stories Ever Told by Mitra Phukan

Excerpt: The Greatest Assamese Stories Ever Told- The Bangalore Review

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Middle Class India Driving Change in the 21st Century by Manisha Pande

Book Review: ‘Middle Class India’ by Manisha Pande- Storizen

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Being the Other: The Muslim in India by Saeed Naqvi

Book Review – Being the Other: The Muslim in India- Kashmir Times

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The Big Book of Indian Art: An Illustrated History of Indian Art from Its Origins to the Present Day by Bina Sarkar Ellias

Exploring the treasures of India arts is a treat with this guide- Governance Now

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The Big Book of Indian Art: An Illustrated History of Indian Art from Its Origins to the Present Day by Bina Sarkar Ellias

‘The Big Book of Indian Art’ — an encyclopaedic look at more than 300 Indian artists- The Hindu

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Fallen City: A Double Murder, Political Insanity, and Delhi’s Descent from Grace by Sudeep Chakravarti

Geeta and Sanjay Chopra Kidnapping & Ranga Billa Case पर Sudeep Chakravarti की Fallen City | EP 1056- Sahitya Tak

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Ananda: An Exploration of Cannabis in India by Karan Madhok

Words Worth: Flying first class with Sheelavathi- The Financial Express

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Ananda: An Exploration of Cannabis in India by Karan Madhok

Cannabis: A cultural gift- Frontline

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Middle Class India Driving Change in the 21st Century by Manisha Pande

Identity, consumerism and the Indian middle class- HTSmartcast

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A Little Lost Elephant by Stephen Alter

Book Review: ‘A Little Lost Elephant’ by Stephen Alter- Storizen

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How Prime Ministers Decide by Neerja Chowdhury

From Indira’s ‘pro-Hindu’ turn to Modi’s ‘new phase’- The New Indian Express

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A Wonderland of Words: Around the World in 101 Essays by Shashi Tharoor

Tharoor, the wordmeister at work- The Hindu Businessline

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The Third Eye of Indian Art: Aesthetics as Vedanta by Harsha V. Dehejia

‘The Third Eye of Indian Art’ by Harsha V Dehejia: How to critique Indian art- The Tribune- Review

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City as Memory: A Short Biography of Srinagar by Sadaf Wani

A storehouse of stories: Kashmiris on Kashmir- Hindustan Times

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Provincials: Postcards from the Peripheries by Sumana Roy

Reclaiming our archives- India Today

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The Lion and the Lily: The Rise and Fall of Awadh by Ira Mukhoty

Were Nawabs of Oudh effete or visionary?- Deccan Chronicle

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India: A Linguistic Civilization by G. N. Devy

GN Devy’s book questions common assumptions about India’s languages- Business Standard

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Indian Millennials: Who Are They, Really? by A. M. Gautam

Modern or merely muddled? Deccan Herald

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The Peacemakers by Ghazala Wahab

A journalist’s harrowing account of 1984 anti-Sikh massacre that ‘haunts’ him even today- Times of India

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The Lion and the Lily: The Rise and Fall of Awadh by Ira Mukhoty

New light on Awadh- The Telegraph

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Fallen City: A Double Murder, Political Insanity, and Delhi’s Descent from Grace by Sudeep Chakravarti

Sudeep Chakravarti’s ‘Fallen City’ details 1978 Delhi double murder of Chopra siblings- The Print

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India: A Linguistic Civilization by G. N. Devy

On the fear of decline of our languages – major and minor- Governance Now

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India: A Linguistic Civilization by G. N. Devy

Future languages will be less ‘auditory’ and more ‘pictorial’: G N Devy- DownToEarth

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A Wonderland of Words: Around the World in 101 Essays by Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor on the ABC of diplo-speak- Times of India

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A Wonderland of Words: Around the World in 101 Essays by Shashi Tharoor

Book Review | Grasping the ineffable magic of words!- The Asian Age

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Indian Millennials: Who Are They, Really? by A. M. Gautam

Voices of a Generation: An Interview with A.M. Gautam on INDIAN MILLENNIALS- The Chakkar

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India: A Linguistic Civilization by G. N. Devy

From GN Devy’s new book: How Adivasis have become activists to tackle the neglect of their languages- Scroll.in

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Unlocking Wealth: Secrets to Getting Rich at Any Age by Rohit Sarin

Unlocking Wealth: Secrets to Getting Rich at Any Age- The Hindu Business Line

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City as Memory: A Short Biography of Srinagar by Sadaf Wani

Srinagar’s Critical Biography: In Conversation With Sadaf Wani- Kashmir Observer

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City as Memory: A Short Biography of Srinagar by Sadaf Wani

Love in the time of conflict- The Hindu

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A Wonderland of Words: Around the World in 101 Essays by Shashi Tharoor

Whether you’re seasoned wordsmith or a casual reader curious about the world of linguistics, this book offers something for everyone- Storizen

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A Wonderland of Words: Around the World in 101 Essays by Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor’s dictionary of dope words- Mint

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Indian Millennials: Who Are They, Really? by A. M. Gautam

‘Indian Millennials’: What being a Millennial means to the Akashs, Sameers, and Siddharths of India- Scroll.in

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A Wonderland of Words: Around the World in 101 Essays by Shashi Tharoor

Back on the carousel of words- The New Indian Express

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Provincials: Postcards from the Peripheries by Sumana Roy

Sumana Roy’s latest The Provincials explores the slow degradation in the quality of attention we pay to people and things around us- The Indian Express

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Mangifera indica: A Biography of the Mango by Sopan Joshi

Mangifera Indica is Sopan Joshi’s first nonfiction book in English. It is an absolutely fascinating account of the king of fruits intertwined with a bit of a memoir- Moneycontrol

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A Wonderland of Words: Around the World in 101 Essays by Shashi Tharoor

‘Genocide’ or ‘crimes against humanity’? How language shapes our view of conflict- Frontline

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Your Company Is Your Castle How to Build a Successful Company by Sandeep Chennakeshu

Book review: Monumental measures- The Financial Express

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How Prime Ministers Decide by Neerja Chowdhury

Biography on Ambedkar, book on Hindutva pop among five books shortlisted for Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2024- The Hindu

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How Prime Ministers Decide by Neerja Chowdhury

NIF announces five-book shortlist for the 2024 Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Book Prize for nonfiction- Scroll.in

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Swallowing the Sun: A Novel by Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puri

Ants flying into the sky | Review of ‘Swallowing the Sun’ by Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puri- The Hindu

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The Lion and the Lily: The Rise and Fall of Awadh by Ira Mukhoty

A counter-narrative to the rise of the British in 18th century India- Times of India

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Unlocking Wealth: Secrets to Getting Rich at Any Age by Rohit Sarin

How money works – and how to make it work for you- Governance Now

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A Wonderland of Words: Around the World in 101 Essays by Shashi Tharoor

I’m Besotted With Words—Shashi Tharoor on Indian English V Bad English, Spoonerisms, Paraprosdokians- The Wire

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The Lion and the Lily: The Rise and Fall of Awadh by Ira Mukhoty

Book Review: Decadent Despots or Barriers to British Hegemony? Re-examining Awadh’s Early Nawabs and Begums- The Assam Tribune

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Mangifera indica: A Biography of the Mango by Sopan Joshi

Sopan Joshi on writing “that mango book”, research and a “memorable” feast- Governance Now

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Mangifera indica: A Biography of the Mango by Sopan Joshi

The mango: India’s beloved fruit has a storied past- Frontline

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A Wonderland of Words: Around the World in 101 Essays by Shashi Tharoor

What’s Shashi Tharoor’s favourite four-letter word?- India Today

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A Wonderland of Words: Around the World in 101 Essays by Shashi Tharoor

Backflap: Wonderland of Words- The Tribune

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Mangifera indica: A Biography of the Mango by Sopan Joshi

Biography of the mango | King of Fruits- India Today

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Fallen City: A Double Murder, Political Insanity, and Delhi’s Descent from Grace by Sudeep Chakravarti

In cold blood- The New Indian Express

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Fallen City: A Double Murder, Political Insanity, and Delhi’s Descent from Grace by Sudeep Chakravarti

Sudeep Chakravarti on his books Fallen City, The Eastern Gate and vote-bank politics in Manipur- Force Magazine

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Fallen City: A Double Murder, Political Insanity, and Delhi’s Descent from Grace by Sudeep Chakravarti

From Ranga-Billa to RG Kar: 45 Years of Unchanged Crime, Criminals and Policing | ETV Bharat

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My Beloved Life: A Novel by Amitava Kumar

Amitava Kumar’s My Beloved Life explores the fractures of history with the tale of a father and daughter- The Indian Express

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Fallen City: A Double Murder, Political Insanity, and Delhi’s Descent from Grace by Sudeep Chakravarti

Sudeep Chakravarti, Author Of Fallen City | Cover Story | NewsX

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Mangifera indica: A Biography of the Mango by Sopan Joshi

How mango helped in the spread of Buddhism- The Hindu

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Provincials: Postcards from the Peripheries by Sumana Roy

Review of Sumana Roy’s Provincials — Postcards from the Peripheries: The outsiders- The Hindu

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A Wonderland of Words: Around the World in 101 Essays by Shashi Tharoor

Exclusive | Congress MP Shashi Tharoor On MeToo In Mollywood, Bangladesh, His New Book And Much More- CNN News18

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A Wonderland of Words: Around the World in 101 Essays by Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor Speaks To NDTV On His New Book – ‘A Wonderland Of Words’- NDTV  

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Mangifera indica: A Biography of the Mango by Sopan Joshi

Sopan Joshi’s Mangifera Indica traces the influence of the mango on Indian life- Mint    

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City as Memory: A Short Biography of Srinagar by Sadaf Wani

A Poignant Portrait of Srinagar’s Beauty and Struggle- The Pioneer

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The Hill of Enchantment: The Story of My Life as a Writer by Ruskin Bond

Ruskin Bond: A writer who offers ‘a note of cheerfulness in a world of conflict and uncertainty’ – The Hindu

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How the World Was Born: Wondrous Indian Myths and Legends Retold by Lopamudra Maitra

In Praise of the Provincial – Open Magazine

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The Hill of Enchantment: The Story of My Life as a Writer by Ruskin Bond

And so it began…: A new book offers insight into rich Indian creation legends – Hindustan Times

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Provincials: Postcards from the Peripheries by Sumana Roy

The book of margins: Provincials Review – The New Indian Express

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My Beloved Life

My Beloved Life review: Amitava Kumar’s self-aware novel shows what good fiction can achieve – The Federal

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Provincials

The book of margins: Provincials Review – The New Indian Express

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India’s Most Legendary Restaurants

MTR invented rava idlis when Japan invaded Burma. It caused a rice shortage in Bengaluru – The Print

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The Hill of Enchantment

Ruskin Bond | NDTV Exclusive: Author Ruskin Bond’s Take On AI, Advice For Budding Writes

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Love Jihad and Other Fictions: Simple Facts to Counter Viral Falsehoods

Debunking propaganda myths, restoring truths – Hindustan Times

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Swallowing the Sun

“Change is disquieting for those in positions of power and complacency”: Lakshmi Puri – The Indian Express

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Anger Management

Diplomacy on the edge – Business Standard

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Shashi Tharoor on his love for language and words in conversation with David Davidar

Shashi Tharoor on his love for language and words in conversation with David Davidar | The Hindu Lit Fest 2024

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Love Jihad

Debunking propaganda myths, restoring truths – Hindustan Times

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Swallowing the Sun

“Change is disquieting for those in positions of power and complacency”: Lakshmi Puri – The Indian Express

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Anger Management

Diplomacy on the edge – Business Standard

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The Hindu Lit Fest 2024

Shashi Tharoor on his love for language and words in conversation with David Davidar | The Hindu Lit Fest 2024

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The Girl In The Magical Flute

“Bookrack for the week” – Deccan Herald

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The Collected Stories of Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury’, translated from the Bengali by Lopamudra Maitra

“For children: Short stories written (and illustrated) by Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury in translation” – Scroll

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The India Cookbook

“Read: A Recipe Of Hyderabadi Biryani From Shabana Azmi” – SheThePeople

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The Greatest Malayalam Stories Ever Told

“The Greatest Malayalam Stories Ever Told”—A compendium of stories that reflect Kerala’s progression” – The Week

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The Assamese

“This Legendary Tapestry Travelled Over Centuries From Assam to Britain. But Will it Ever Return?” – The Wire

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The Greatest Malayalam Stories Ever Told

“The Greatest Malayalam Stories Ever Told: A language’s vision, depth, appetite for storytelling” – The Tribune

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Features Aleph Books

“November Reads for Your Autumn Bookshelves” – Kashmir Observer

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The Indian Cat

“The Indian Cat: Stories, Paintings, Poetry, and Proverbs By BN Goswamy” – Outlook

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Three Countries, Three Lives

“October nonfiction picks: Six recent books that look at aspects of Indian history through new lenses” – Scroll

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The Indian Village

“Change and fluidity in rural India” – Books and Authors Podcast

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The Greatest Punjabi Stories Ever Told

“An honest celebration of the Punjabi short story” – The Tribune

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The Less You Preach, the More You Learn

“Shashi Tharoor: Word Class” – Open Magazine

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The Less You Preach, the More You Learn

“Shashi Tharoor is at his wittiest and wisest in his new book on aphorisms” – The Week

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The Peacemakers

‘These stories offer us hope that it is possible to rise above the hatred and violence’ – The Tribune

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How Prime Minister Decides

‘How Prime Ministers Decide’ delves into tackling of pulls and pressures – The New Indian Express

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She, the Leader

‘Inside Track by Coomi Kapoor: Allied problems, Cong-AAP ties & Hema Malini’s cross with BJP’ – The Indian Express

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A Plain Blunt Man

‘Misappropriated and misunderstood: The life of Sardar Patel’ – Nation Herald

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The Anglo-Indians’ Praise for the Book

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A fresh retelling brings 69 stories from the ‘Panchatantra’ to a new generation of readers

A fresh retelling brings 69 stories from the ‘Panchatantra’ to a new generation of readers. – Scroll.in

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A New History of India’s Praise for the Book

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Aleph Book Company is delighted to present Vivekananda by Govind Krishnan V. releasing on 5th May, 2023

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Aleph Book Company Announces Children’s List

Aleph Book Company is delighted to announce the launch of its children’s book list.  ‘We have long wanted to add children’s books to our publishing mix—Stephen Alter’s Great Indian Children’s…

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Aleph Book Company, Highlights 2022

Click here to view highlights from our catalogue for the next year: Aleph Book Company — Highlights 2022

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Nehru The Writer | Pride, Prejudice, and Punditry

Perhaps the most underestimated quality of Jawaharlal Nehru—whose life has seen more than its fair share of both hagiology and denigration—was his extraordinary achievement as a writer. Having delved extensively into…

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New Kings Of The World

PART ONE ‘I think I’m able to fulfill each latent desire of a woman in whatever role she comes in front of. I’m able to make a mother feel nice,…

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The Extended Mind – An Excerpt | Who Are We by Rajesh Kasturirangan

The Indian mind is shaped both by biology and by society. Nothing about human biology makes it specifically Indian but without those capacities there wouldn’t be a mind to be…

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Born a Muslim | Ghazala Wahab | An Excerpt

My most vivid childhood memories pertaining to religion are of Ramzan, the month of fasting which culminates in the biggest festival of Muslims—Eid. For several years (from the time I…

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Free Choice | The Misadventures of Mullah Nasruddin | An excerpt from Teaching a Horse to Sing

A new bakery opened up on the main street in Aks¸ehir, the same road that Nasruddin and his classmates took on their way to and from school. The aroma of…

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JNU Stories | Udaya Kumar: The Classroom

For someone who had stayed away from many lectures during undergraduate and postgraduate years, I was surprised to find myself attending most of my classes in JNU. I don’t think…

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The Aleph Decade

Sublime books make known the unimaginable universe, or parts thereof, within their pages and further kindle it in the minds of readers. Every great book that we were able to…

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Gazing Eastwards by Romila Thapar

    THE START OF THE RETURN JOURNEY VIA YUMEN We are journeying back. I am sitting in a hotel room in Yumen, drinking cup after cup of jasmine tea….

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‘Lord of the Rubble’ by Mohan Rakesh from ‘The Greatest Hindi Stories Ever Told’

They had come to Amritsar from Lahore after seven-and-a-half years. Attending the hockey match was an excuse, they were more interested in seeing those houses and bazaars that had become…

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Why Gandhi Still Matters: An Appraisal of the Mahatma’s Legacy

OF CASTE AND AMBEDKAR Perhaps no one was personally closer to Gandhi than his English friend Charlie Andrews, whom he first met in South Africa in 1912. In August 1942,…

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Jean Drèze’s Preface to ‘Rumble in a Village’

At first sight, Palanpur is as dull a place as its name suggests. I’m not talking of the hill station called Palampur in Himachal Pradesh, or of the headquarters of…

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The Crisis Within: On Knowledge and Education in India

The Colonial Indian Self-image An ancient civilization with amazing wealth of philosophical, literary and scientific treatises and unparalleled continuity of ‘the life of the mind’, India nonetheless was not at…

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The Idea of India

At the stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947, India won her independence from the British empire and a nation was born.Over the past seventy-three years, our country has struggled…

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‘Idgah’ by Munshi Premchand

Premchand (Dhanpat Rai Srivastav, 1880-1936) was one of India’s greatest writers. He wrote in Hindi and published over a dozen novels and nearly 300 short stories.

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DHONI TAKES INDIA TO THE SUMMIT – An Excerpt from Mihir Bose’s ‘The Nine Waves’

Three days before India played England at Lord’s in the first of the four Test series in July 2011 a dinner was held in honour of Mahendra Singh Dhoni at…

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The Island of Self – Thich Nhat Hanh

When the Buddha was eighty years old and knew he wasn’t going to live much longer, he offered the practice of the ‘island of self ’ to his students. He…

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Suffering And Happiness Are Not Separate – Thich Nhat Hanh

When we suffer, we tend to think that suffering is all there is at that moment, and happiness belongs to some other time or place. People often ask, ‘Why do…

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Many Indians have not been told who the architect of India’s economic reforms really was

At an interaction with students at a university near Delhi, in the winter of 2015, I asked the audience what the year 1991 meant to them. A young man replied…

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HOW WE GOT HERE – Excerpted from ‘Dragon On Our Doorstep’ by Pravin Sawhney and Ghazala Wahab

On the evening of 6 August 1947, with the partition of the subcontinent looming, a party to bid farewell to officers assigned to the Pakistan Army was in full swing…

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Blanks on the Map – An Excerpt from Shiv Kunal Verma’s ‘1962: The War that Wasn’t’

This treaty of 1842 settled the boundary between Ladakh and Tibet in unequivocal terms leaving no cause for any kind of border dispute in this region. * Arguments and counter-arguments…

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#DystopianTales: ‘A Lockdown Fantasy’ by Cyrus Mistry

During bewildering times such as the present, the divide between fiction and reality is increasingly blurry and we turn to stories to make sense of our predicament. With our brand-new…

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An extract from ‘The New World Disorder And The Indian Imperative’ by Dr Shashi Tharoor & Dr Samir Saran

What Next?  If we seek with trepidation to avoid the pitfalls of history, the key questions we must ask are: how do global governance frameworks that were shaped in the…

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#DystopianTales: ‘Mr Pisharody’ by Manu Bhattathiri

During bewildering times such as the present, the divide between fiction and reality is increasingly blurry and we turn to stories to make sense of our predicament. With our brand-new…

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‘The Book of Indian Kings’ – Olio Series

Ranjit Singh, Maharaja of the Punjab* by Khushwant Singh *Ranjit Singh, the greatest monarch of the Sikhs, was born in 1780 and died in 1839. This extract is taken from…

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‘How I Became a Tree’ by Sumana Roy – An Excerpt

TREE TIME At first it was the underwear. I wanted to become a tree because trees did not wear bras. Then it had to do with the spectre of violence….

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#DystopianTales: ‘Doggy and Me’ by Tejaswini Apte-Rahm

  During bewildering times such as the present, the divide between fiction and reality is increasingly blurry and we turn to stories to make sense of our predicament. With our…

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‘Rebati’ by Fakir Mohan Senapati from ‘The Greatest Odia Stories Ever Told’

But oft some shining April morn Is darkened in an hour, And blackest griefs o’er joyous home, Alas! unseen may lower. —Rev. J. H. Gurney ‘Rebati! Rebi! You fire that…

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Eid Feast Special: Noormehali Pulao – A recipe from ‘The Lucknow Cookbook’

Image source: Emirates 24/7 NOORMEHALI PULAO SERVES: 8 PREPARATION TIME: 1 HOUR INGREDIENTS Basmati rice (long-grained and old) ½ kg, soaked in water for 45 minutes Paneer (cottage cheese) 1…

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Eid Feast Special: Mutton Biryani – A recipe from ‘The Lucknow Cookbook’

Mutton Biryani SERVES: 8–10 PREPARATION TIME: 1½ HOURS INGREDIENTS Basmati rice (long-grained and old) 500 gms Mutton puth ka gosht 500 gms (short loin chops) Onions 3 medium, finely chopped…

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#DystopianTales: ‘Breaking News and Broken People’ by Amitava Kumar

During bewildering times such as the present, the divide between fiction and reality is increasingly blurry and we turn to stories to make sense of our predicament. With our brand-new…

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‘The Kabuliwallah’ by Rabindranath Tagore

My five-year-old daughter talked all the time. It had taken her a year after her birth to master the language, and since then she has not wasted a second of…

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‘Coming Out As Dalit’ by Yashica Dutt – An Extract

For some Dalits, Ambedkar is an actual prophet who changed the course of their history and future. But despite his outstanding political career and invaluable contribution to Dalit rights, Ambedkar’s…

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‘Akbar’ by Ira Mukhoty

THE MEMORY–KEEPERS ‘Write down whatever you know of the doings of (Babur) and (Humayun)’. This ordinary phrase sounded innocuous enough and gave no indication of the seismic rumble it actually…

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‘A Ballad of Remittent Fever’

The House of the Ghoshals The river lay ahead. A blue current. A densely-wooded hill sloped upwards on the left. A boy of thirteen or fourteen lay on the ground,…

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‘Swimmer Among the Stars’ by Kanishk Tharoor

As a rule, the last speaker of a language no longer uses it. Ethnographers show up at the door with digital recorders, ready to archive every declension, each instance of…

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‘A Matter of Rats’ by Amitava Kumar

PATALIPUTRA I would not have turned to writing if I was able to draw. When I was thirteen or fourteen, and attending school in Patna, I had not yet given…

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‘The Blue Lotus: Myths and Folktales of India’ by Meena Arora Nayak

POSTOMONI, THE OPIUM GIRL There was a rishi who lived alone by the Ganga. His only companion was a mouse that he had found in his palm-tree hut and had…

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‘Plassey: The Battle that Changed the Course of Indian History’ by Sudeep Chakravarti

BUSINESS AND POLITICS: THE LAY OF THE LAND ‘And that we keep an Extraordinary lookout…’ The eighteenth century, when the nawabs of Bengal and John Company came into their own,…

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‘Em and the Big Hoom’ by Jerry Pinto

‘Someone turned on a tap’ Dear Angel Ears, Outside the window, a Marathi manus is asking mournfully if anyone would like to buy salt. Or at least that’s what I…

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‘The Angel’s Beauty Spots’ by KR Meera

I Angela was killed in front of her children. Her husband was the killer. He thrust the knife deep into her fair-skinned, well-rounded belly again and again. She writhed like…

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Animalia Indica

A HORSE AND TWO GOATS R. K. NARAYAN Of the seven hundred thousand villages dotting the map of India, in which the majority of India’s five hundred million live, flourish,…

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The Greatest Urdu Stories Ever Told

THE SHROUD by Munshi Premchand Outside the hut, father and son sat in silence in front of the firepit already gone cold. Inside, Budhya, the son’s young wife, kept thrashing…

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The Greatest Bengali Stories Ever Told

The Discovery of Telenapota by Premendra Mitra If Saturn and Mars—it must be Mars—are in conjunction, you too, can discover Telenapota some day. In other words, if a day or…

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‘Modern South India’ by Rajmohan Gandhi

TIPU (1750–1799) Shorter than his father, darker in the skin and possessing larger eyes, Tipu wore (Wilks informs us) ‘a plain unencumbered attire, which he equally exacted from those around…

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‘City Adrift’ by Naresh Fernandes

ONE For months, the front pages had warned of imminent doom. Bombay was reeling under an explosion of ‘pollution, crowds and noise’, noted one pessimist. Predicted another, ‘The urban landscape…

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‘The Portrait of a Lady’ by Khushwant Singh

My grandmother, like everybody’s grandmother, was an old woman. She had been old and wrinkled for the twenty years that I had known her. People said that she had once…

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‘Finely Chopped Dill’ – A short Story from Cyrus Mistry’s ‘Passion Flower’

Jacintha was angry with the world for making her what she had become. In particular, it was a few individuals she held responsible. Sons of whores, daughters of bitches, may…

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‘Manto & I’ by Nandita Das

Being a ‘Woman Director’ Up until a few years ago, the label of being a ‘woman director’ used to upset me. When asked, “How is it to be a woman…

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‘Indian Cultures as Heritage’ by Romila Thapar

Knowledge as Heritage   It is repeatedly said that education is critical to the making of a civilization. In its different forms through the centuries it has been and is…

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‘Pilgrim Nation’ by Devdutt Pattanaik

  Introduction Once upon a time there was a boy called Shravan-kumar who travelled with a bamboo sling on his shoulders. On either side of this sling were two baskets….

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‘A Suitable Boy’ by Vikram Seth

Chapter 1 1.1 ‘You too will marry a boy I choose,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra firmly to her younger daughter. Lata avoided the maternal imperative by looking around the great…

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Thich Nhat Hanh Series

‘[Thich Nhat Hanh] shows us the connection between personal, inner peace and peace on earth.’ —His Holiness the Dalai Lama Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the best known Zen…

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‘Rhododendrons In The Mist’ by Ruskin Bond

Blood-red, the fallen blossoms lay on the snow, even more striking when laid bare. On the trees they blended with the foliage. On the ground, on those patches of recent…

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Vaishnodevi: Waiting for Ram – An Excerpt from Devdutt Pattanaik’s ‘Pilgrim Nation’

After a long crawl, through a narrow cave, in the hills of Jammu, you finally arrive at Vaishnodevi, embodied as three outcroppings of rock, draped with red cloth with gold…

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‘An Era of Darkness’ by Shashi Tharoor

  THE LOOTING OF INDIA Durant’s outrage – the conquest of India by a corporation – the East India Company – the deindustrialization of India – destruction of Indian textiles…

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UNCERTAIN ALTITUDES: An Excerpt from Stephen Alter’s ‘Wild Himalaya’

Mountains are often defined by their height, though the summit of a peak is nothing more than the point where it ends, giving way to clouds and sky. The true…

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Sher Singh and the Hot-Water Bottle: An Excerpt from Ruskin Bond’s ‘A Gallery of Rascals’

It’s been many years since Sher Singh, of village Solti, came to my rescue. At the time I was living right at the top of the Landour hill, in a…

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Superhuman River: Re-Enchantment at Gaumukh

  In the summer of 2009, I trekked to the Gangotri glacier, the rapidly melting source of the Bhagirathi—one of the two glacial streams that join to form the Ganga….

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WHY GANDHI STILL MATTERS

Many decades ago, back in 1948, when Gandhi was killed by an assassin’s bullets, the world responded with shock, grief and tribute. Today, seventy years later, he continues to be…

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Kalpana Sharma on the narrative around violence against women in India

From the rape of Mathura, a young tribal girl, by two policemen in Desaiganj, Maharashtra, in 1972, to the brutal sexual assault and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua,…

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Celebrating 550 years of Guru Nanak

  Guru Nanak, the first of the ten Sikh Gurus, was a sixteenth-century reformer and the founder of Sikhism. He challenged ritualism and shows of piety and attacked the citadels…

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Fatima Bhutto in conversation with Shah Rukh Khan – An Excerpt from ‘New Kings Of The World’

  There is a vast cultural movement emerging from the Global South and sweeping all before it. India’s Shah Rukh Khan, after all, is the most popular actor in the…

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Books to add to your Diwali festivities

What do your reader friends expect on Diwali (or any other occasion or no occasion actually)?

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Not Just Another Story – An Excerpt

  The poignant chronicle of three generations of sex workers—Saraju, Malati and Lakshmi—takes us from a village in Bangladesh to a refugee camp in India in the years before the…

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The Legacy of Gandhi

The year 2019 marks the 150th anniversary of Gandhi’s birth. Whether or not you agree with all his views and whether you hail him as a mahatma or not, his…

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Grey Sunshine – Epilogue by Shaheen Mistri, CEO, Teach For India

7 August 2019 India is battling an educational crisis of unprecedented proportions. Half of the country’s Standard 5 students cannot read a Standard 2 level text in their native language….

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Walking the Roadless Road: Exploring the Tribes of Nagaland – An Excerpt

Walking the Roadless Road: Exploring the Tribes of Nagaland is a comprehensive history of the Naga tribes who live within the borders of Nagaland. Starting with an overview of migration…

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Aleph Olio Series

One of the meanings of the word ‘olio’ is ‘a miscellany’. The books in the Aleph Olio series contain a mélange of the finest writing to be had on a variety…

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Life Lessons

India has produced some of the world’s greatest religious leaders, sages, saints, philosophers and spiritual thinkers. They were monks, nuns and renunciates, nationalists and reformers. No one religion had a…

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This Unquiet Land: The Cost Of War

The Kargil conflict had exposed a woeful moment of under-preparedness—both in the intrusions going undetected for as long as they did and the damage that years of neglect and miles…

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Book of Aleph 7

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Bestsellers

FICTION Muhammad Umar Memon, The Greatest Urdu Stories Ever Told Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy David Davidar, A Clutch of Indian Masterpieces Mini Krishnan, Tell Me a Long, Long Story Arunava Sinha, The Greatest…

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Business is seduction

When King Dashrath’s wives bear him no children and Lompad’s kingdom suffers drought, both are advised to get Rishyashring to perform a yagna. Rishyashring cannot perform a yagna unless he is married…

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