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Author, critic, and translator M. ASADUDDIN writes on syncretic cultural traditions in India, literature, and language politics. He is currently Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Languages, and former director, Centre for Comparative Religions and Civilizations. He was Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at Rutgers University, New Jersey, 2008-2009, and a Charles Wallace Trust Fellow at the British Centre for Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, 2000. He has lectured at the universities of Delhi, Kolkata, Dhaka, Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, East Anglia, Chicago, Rutgers, New York, St. Louis, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. Among his twenty books are Image and Representation: Stories of Muslim Lives in India (with Mushirul Hasan), Filming Fiction: Tagore, Premchand and Ray, Premchand in World Languages: Translation, Reception and Cinematic Representations, and Premchand: The Complete Short Stories. He has received the Katha Award, Dr A. K. Ramanujan Award, Sahitya Akademi Award, and Crossword Book Award.

In the early years of the twentieth century, Calcutta is grappling with deadly diseases such as the plague, cholera, typhoid, malaria, and kala-azar caused by viruses, bacteria, and other infectious Organisms. The populace is restive under British rule, and world War I looms large on the horizon. Set against this tumultuous backdrop, is an indelible tale of loss, hope, love, and mortality. Dr dwarikanath ghosts is one of the city''s most celebrated physicians. Propelled by a fierce desire to vanquish the diseases that ravage the population, he does not hesitate to dismiss quackery, superstition, and old-fashioned beliefs that have contributed to high mortality rates and the spread of epidemics. Dwarikanath is equally dismissive of irrational customs in his personal life. His impatience with tradition begins early. He decides to study medicine against the wishes of his father (who disowns him), buys and dissects corpses, converts to Christianity, and instils that rebellious spirit in his descendants. Four generations of ghosts continue to infuse their scientific temper and liberal values into the lives of people around them. There is dwarikanath''s headstrong son, kritindranath Ghoshal, who as soon as he acquires his medical degree joins the Bengal ambulance Corps and sets off for the battlefield in Mesopotamia during World War I. There is also his soulmate, his fiery cousin madhumadhabi, who trains to be an Ayurvedic doctor, and is heartbroken when kritindranath is married off. Equally compelling are dwarikanath''s wife, Amodini, his grandson, punyendranath, his great-grandson, dwijottam, and a myriad other brilliantly imagined characters who play out their lives in the course of the novel, fighting diseases, social mores, and trying to cope with the enormous, convulsive changes the city and country are experiencing. Distinctive and beautifully wrought, a Ballad of remittent fever is a stunning exploration of the world of medicine and the ordinary miracles performed by physicians in the course of their daily lives. Originally published in the Bengali as abiram jwarer roopkatha, this is one of the most original novels to have come out of India in the twenty-first century.

Stephen Alter was born and raised in the hill station of Mussoorie, in the foothills of the Himalayas, where he and his wife, Ameeta, now live. Their idyllic existence was shattered when four armed intruders invaded their home and viciously attacked them, leaving them for dead. The violent assault and the trauma of almost dying left the author questioning assumptions he had lived by since childhood. For the first time, he encountered the face of evil and the terror of the unknown. He felt like a foreigner in the land of his birth.This book is an account of a series of treks he took in the high Himalayas following his convalescence-to Bandarpunch (monkey's tail); Nanda Devi, the second highest mountain in India; and Mount Kailash in Tibet. He set himself this goal to prove that he had healed mentally as well as physically and to re-knit his connection to his homeland. Undertaken out of sorrow, the treks become a moving personal quest, a way to rediscover mountains in his inner landscape. Weaving together observations of the natural world, Himalayan history, folklore and mythology, as well as encounters with other pilgrims along the way, Stephen Alter has given us a moving meditation on the solace of high places and on the hidden meanings and enduring mystery of the mountains.

In incandescent prose, award-winning novelist Jeet Thayil tells the story of Newton Francis Xavier, blocked poet, serial seducer of young women, reformed alcoholic (but only just), philosopher, recluse, all-round wild man and India's greatest living painter. At the age of sixty-six, Xavier, who has been living in New York, is getting ready to return to the land of his birth to stage one final show of his work (accompanied by a mad bacchanal). As we accompany Xavier and his partner and muse 'Goody' on their unsteady and frequently sidetracked journey from New York to New Delhi, the venue of the final show, we meet a host of memorable characters-the Bombay poets of the seventies and eighties, 'poets who sprouted from the soil like weeds or mushrooms or carnivorous new flowers, who arrived like meteors, burned bright for a season or two and vanished without a trace', journalists, conmen, murderers, alcoholics, addicts, artists, whores, society ladies, thugs-and are also given unforgettable (and sometimes unbearable) insights into love, madness, poetry, sex, painting, saints, death, God and the savagery that fuels all great art.Narrated in a huge variety of voices and styles, all of which blend seamlessly into a novel of remarkable accomplishment, The Book of Chocolate Saints is the sort of literary masterpiece that only comes along once in a very long time.

We lose it. We gain it. We hate it. We hide it. We shame it. We suck it in and we even suck it out. Fat is an international obsession, a dirty word and our least understood body part. A ground-breaking combination of historical, cultural and cutting-edge scientific research, The Secret Life of Fat reveals everything we need to understand fat, how it influences our appetite and willpower, how it defends itself when attacked and why it grows back so quickly. Find out how our genetics and hormones determine how much fat we have and where exactly it will show. Fascinating and surprising in equal measure, this book will give you a powerful new understanding of fat.

Swimmer Among the Stars announces the arrival of a writer who is gifted not just with extraordinary talent but also with a subtle, original and probing mind.' - Amitav Ghosh. The fiction debut of the year.An interview with the last speaker of a language. A chronicle of the final seven days of a town that is about to be razed to the ground by an invading army. The lonely voyage of an elephant from Kerala to a princess's palace in Morocco. A fabled cook who flavours his food with precious stones. A coterie of international diplomats trapped in near-earth orbit. These, and the other stories in this collection, reveal an extraordinary storyteller, whose tales emerge from a tradition that includes the creators of the Arabian Nights and the Kathasaritsagara, Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Angela Carter and other ancient and modern masters of fabulist, surrealist and magical short stories. Furiously inventive, beautifully crafted and remarkably assured, Swimmer Among the Stars announces the arrival of a blazing new talent.

Indian food is one of the world's most popular cuisines. Even as it has transformed the contemporary urban foodscape in this age of globalization, social scientists have paid scant attention to the phenomenon. The essays in this book explore the relationship between globalization and South Asia through food. Udipi restaurants, Indian food in colonial times, dum pukht cuisine, staples of the prepared food industry like Bangalore's MTR Foods, Britain's curry culture, Indian fast food in California-these and other distinctive aspects of South Asia's food and culture are examined to gain new insights into subcontinental food and the ways in which it has influenced the world around us

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Asia Reborn unveils the story of Asia's resurgence over the past century. In the first single chronicle of the modern economic and political history of the whole continent, Prasenjit K. Basu weaves together a compelling account of how Asia's nations overcame European domination in the twentieth century-and its legacies of war and famine-to begin the long climb to economic dynamism.Asia Reborn shows British, Dutch and French colonies to have had scant infrastructure or modern industry and to have consequently been far behind Taiwan, Manchuria and Korea in social indicators such as literacy and life expectancy by mid-century. In West Asia and Burma, the brief European imprint created the ethnic conflicts that still plague these regions. The British Indian Army held the edifice of empire together. Ultimately, it was the undermining of its legitimacy by the armies of Subhas Bose, Sukarno, Ho Chi Minh and Aung San that helped end the ravaging of Asia during the first half of the twentieth century. By the end of the century, the eastern part of the liberated continent, had emulated Japan and Singapore in transforming itself into an industrious, dynamic and increasingly creative force finally capable of taking its people to new heights in an Asian twenty-first century.

Go to any party, in any country, on any moonlit terrace of the world, the best dressed man is always the one from Patna. ' In these nine interlinked stories we meet the not so quintessential Patna man Hriday Thakur, Literature junkie, aspiring writer, inveterate lover of women and rain, Jishnu da, his acquaintance from Delhi University, who is now an 'importer of blondes', Samuel Crown, the fastidious proofreader who mentors Hriday and instils in him an irrevocable love for the art of 'book-making', the parade of women in Hriday's life: austere, doe eyed Charulata, love of his youth, the one who got away, Chitrangada, his wife, who works hard to be accepted in his world of books, art, politics and activism, the beautiful Anjali Singh Nalwa, ex-flame who is now a fiery, controversial novelist, Imogen Burns, the intrepid chronicler of graveyards, Sadaf Khan Abdali, who loves the smell of Listerine early in the morning and 'Sophia Loren', dream girl of many schoolboys, now a mother of two.

In this book, read three stories from Shiva's adventure-filled life. Find out the tale behind the origin of the river Ganga and what role Shiva had to play in it; how the Shiva lingam avatar of Shiva came about and how Shiva destroyed three demons with one arrow. Beautifully retold by Subhadra Sen Gupta and accompanied by Tapas Guha's magnificent illustrations, this book will be loved by every child.

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The Small Wild Goose Pagoda is a natural and social history of 433 square yards of India. On this piece of land in the foothills of the Himalaya, the Sealy family have a small brick house with one-and-a-half bedrooms, two-and-a-half gardens, front, back and side, an old Fiat, an internet link with the world, and a terrace roof for walking on under the sky. Here-surrounded by trees: litchi, rosewood, magnolia, silk cotton, jacaranda, a reluctant pear, a profusely flowering peach-Allan Sealy looks back on his life as he turns sixty and goes from Householder to Forest Dweller (the two middle stages in the life of a man - as set out in Indian philosophical tradition).Lending depth and texture to a narrative written in the form of an almanack is his experience of building, after a visit to China, a pagoda on his roof. As the pagoda takes shape we are introduced to a host of extraordinary characters who drift in and out of the 433 square yards: Dhani, family retainer and mali, bent in half by age; Habilis, master brick-layer and contractor with a roving eye; Beauty, part of Habilis's crew, who may or may not be his lover; Victor, stoic assistant to Habilis....In this remarkable book, his first in a decade, award-winning novelist and travel writer, Irwin Allan Sealy, gives us an evocative account of the drama of small town life; at the same time it is an extraordinary meditation on work, family history, nature, Indian society, and the passage of time.

Rich in detail, this eye-opening book explores the activities and political strategies of women political workers and leaders of Shiv Sena. Based on more than ten years of in-depth ethnographic fieldwork with dozens of women Sena workers in urban Maharashtra, the work shows how they conjure political authority through the inventive, dangerous, and transgressive political personas known as dashing ladies. Through the narratives of these women, Tarini Bedi develops a feminist theory of brokerage politics, and what can be termed 'political matronage'.

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A brave new voice on India's literary scene.' - Indian ExpressA teacher lies dead in a small village near Calcutta. Since the Chinese took over, things in the Bengal Protectorate have been sliding from bad to worse. It looks like the work of the New Thug Society, whose members are determined to free Bengal from Chinese oppression.Under Governor Wen, who is confused and slightly weepy, the law and order situation continues to deteriorate. Resurrected members of the Bengal politburo stalk the land, demoralizing all those who thought they were dead. The Maoists are still in the jungle, and remain strangely reluctant to re-integrate with the Motherland. Meanwhile, Didu has escaped, the price of fish is rising, and the Competent Authority, undisputed ruler of India, is trying to start a war with China Unimpressed by the rising threat of war, which is none of his business, Inspector Li of Lal Bazaar doggedly pursues his prey. Why is Propagandist Wang so keen that he investigate something else? What are mining magnate Sanjeev Verma and his partner Agarwal up to, and how is Governor Wen involved? Will Inspector Li be able to interview his suspects before General Zhou shoots them all? And why does his ex-wife keep calling, even though her new boyfriend is rich enough to have a duplicate Eiffel Tower in his garden?Outrageously funny and wickedly imaginative, Murder with Bengali Characteristics marks the return of one of our finest comic writers.

A couple of decades from now, India is not shining-the Chinese have nuked large parts of the country. Bombay has been obliterated, Delhi is in the throes of rigorous reconstruction, Bengal has seceded and is now a protectorate of China, the Maoists have taken over much of what remains. The southern states are a distant and tranquil place that nobody has visited in years. The most powerful person in the country is a deranged bureaucrat called the Competent Authority, who has used his official position as the head of the Bureau of Reconstruction, to subvert all forces of governmental authority. Cloaked in anonymity, his identity known only to his terrified minions, the CA rules the remnants of India with an iron fist.Although, in theory, the government and the armed forces still exist, the Prime Minister, who looks very familiar and the General, who commands the Army, are mere puppets in the hands of the Competent Authority. All they can do is watch in horror as he tries to put in motion a fiendish plan to annihilate everyone in the country, for reasons that are completely logical. The only person who can stop him is Pintoo, a mutant twelve-year-old from Shanti Nagar, where all the poor people live. Determined to thwart the CA's plan and save the country from disaster, Pintoo employs three reluctant henchmen to help him: Pande, a corrupt and vicious policeman, Chatterjee, a pessimistic but determined CBI officer and Ali, the last surviving member of Al Qaeda. And then there's also the matter of the hand that has a mind of its own

The monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have severely limited the portrayal of the divine as feminine. But in Hinduism 'God' very often means 'Goddess'. This extraordinary collection explores twelve different Hindu goddesses, all of whom are in some way related to Devi, the Great Goddess. They range from the liquid goddess-energy of the River Ganges to the possessing, entrancing heat of Bhagavati and Seranvali. They are local, like Vindhyavasini and global, like Kali; ancient, like Saranyu and modern, like 'Mother India'. The collection combines analysis of texts with intensive fieldwork, allowing the reader to see how goddesses are worshiped in everyday life. In these compelling essays, the divine feminine in Hinduism is revealed as never before-fascinating, contradictory, powerful.

Salil Tripathi brings together the narrative skill of a novelist and the analytical tools of a political journalist to give us the story of a nation that is absorbing, haunting and illuminating.' Kamila Shamsie, author of A God in Every Stone. Between March and December 1971, the Pakistani army committed atrocities on an unprecedented scale in the country's eastern wing. Pakistani troops and their collaborators were responsible for countless deaths and cases of rape. Clearly, religion alone wasn't enough to keep Pakistan's two halves united. From that brutal violence, Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation, but the wounds have continued to fester. The gruesome assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country's charismatic first prime minister and most of his family, the coups and counter-coups which followed, accompanied by long years of military rule were individually and collectively responsible for the country's inability to come to grips with the legacy of the Liberation War Four decades later, as Bangladesh tries to bring some accountability and closure to its blood-soaked past through controversial tribunals prosecuting war crimes, Salil Tripathi travels the length and breadth of the country probing the country's trauma through interviews with hundreds of Bangladeshis. His book offers the reader an unforgettable portrait of a nation whose political history since Independence has been marked more by tragedy than triumph