SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 JHALAK PRIZE 1964. Ceylon is on the brink of change. But Kairo is at a loose end. School is closed, the government is in disarray, the press is under threat and the religious right are flexing their muscles. Kairo's hard-wor
Our mind is the singular most important factor determining the quality of our life. It has the potential of being our greatest comrade or worst adversary. If the mind is successfully controlled, it becomes our best ally. But if we permit it to run am
India first Machine made paper was manufactured around 1812. Paper Industry in India is mainly plantation based so to increase the production of [paper more area of land should be brought under plantation of eucalyptus and other tress apposite for ma
September 1838. A storm blows up on the Indian Ocean and three ships - the Ibis, the Anahita and the Redruth - and those aboard are caught in the whirlwind. River of Smoke follows the fortunes of these men and women to the crowded harbours of China w
Set in 1920s’ Sri Lanka, during the turbulent closing days of colonial rule, Cinnamon Gardens takes the reader behind the fragrant gardens and polished surfaces of the elite who reside in a wealthy suburb of Cinnamon Gardens in Colombo to reveal a wo
On full moon nights, from deep within the lagoons of Mattakalappu, Ilankai, mysterious sounds emerge. During the three decades of civil war, it is said, those sounds had ceased. The mermaid Ila, who has lived in those waters for a long, long time, sp
Writers of South Asian descent have been garnering more and more success, acclaim, and attention. Story-Wallah gathers the finest South Asian voices in fiction for the first time in a single volume. As Shyam Selvadurai writes in his introduction, “Th
A young poet is killed by her lover, a politician, in the eastern Indian state of Bihar. Soon afterward, across India in Bombay, an idealistic journalist is hired by a movie director to write a Bollywood screenplay about the murdered poet. Research f
For most of us, our desk is like a second home. In fact, we probably spend more time glued to our desks than at home. This often results in severe backache, frozen shoulder, difficulty in walking and body pain. All this affects the quality of life an
At the age of eleven, Triton goes to work as a houseboy to Mister Salgado, a marine biologist obsessed with the island’s disappearing reef. It was the biggest house he had ever seen. People from all over the world came here-to sell their wares, to ta
India Shastra is a collection of 100 articles and essays, some longish, some rather short, that seek to convey a portrait of contemporary India from the perspective of late 2014. Many of the pieces began life as columns in the media, but have been up
The English translation of the epic Kannada novel Anchu by the renowned author S.L. Bhyrappa, Brink is a love saga between Somashekhar, a widower, and Amrita, an estranged woman. The novel deliberates on the moral, philosophical, and physical aspects
The setting is Sri Lanka, 1980, and it is the season of monsoons. Fourteen-year-old Amrith is caught up in the life of the cheerful, well-to-do household in which he is being raised by his vibrant Auntie Bundle and kindly Uncle Lucky. He tries not to
I thought the nation was coming to an end,’ wrote Khushwant Singh, looking back on the violence of Partition that he was witness to over half a century ago. He believed then that he had seen the worst that India could do to herself. But after the vio
kavita hindi
Hinduism is one of the world's oldest and greatest religious traditions. In captivating prose, Shashi Tharoor untangles its origins, its key philosophical concepts and texts. He explores everyday Hindu beliefs and practices, from worship to pilgrimag
In Buddhist myth, the dead may be reborn as “hungry ghosts”- spirits with stomach so large they can never be full - if they have desired too much during their lives. It is the duty of the living relatives to free those doomed to this fate by doing ki
Set in London, The Sandglass tells the story of two feuding families whose lives are interlinked by the changing fortunes of postcolonial Sri Lanka. After his mother’s death, Prins Ducal is driven to re-examine his family’s history. In doing so, he d
Set in the mannered, lush world of upper middle class Tamils in Sri Lanka, this deeply moving first novel, though not autobiographical, draws on Selvadurai’s experience of being gay in Sri Lanka and growing up during the escalating violence between t