How can a Pigeon be a War Hero manages to present what is otherwise a grim and complex historical period in a light and amusing manner. The book has a multitude of pictures and diagrams and charts which make the book less about reading and more a video presentation for young children.
In these lines Owen captures the monumental losses of a generation. In the four years of the War about 10,300 people died everyday for four and half years. Yet many who lived to tell their tales made places like Somme, Flanders and Gallipoli enter the domain of popular mythology across the world. There are no veterans from the War alive today…
History is not a hot favourite with students. Most look upon it as a monstrous subject that is not just voluminous but also irrelevant. Why bother memorizing names of people long dead and their complicated, boring histories? But history can become interesting if you pick up the right book.
Who are the Baigas? The author explains that the Baigas are Gonds, a tribal community that inhabits the forest areas of central India. Like the author, I have spent some years in the area around Raipur, now part of Chattisgarh, as well as in the forested areas of Jharkhand.
2014
The simultaneous publication of two anthologies of the works of Ruskin Bond, Uncles, Aunts and Elephants, and The Very Best of Ruskin Bond is ample proof that he continues to be one of the best loved and admired writers today in India. While a few stories and essays, such as ‘Wilson’s Bridge’ and ‘Bhabiji’s House’ appear in both the selections, the first published by Puffin, is evidently meant for a younger audience.
2014
Books for children cater to a range of interests, with stories of worlds distant and familiar, often with a mixture of fable, myth and the modern world.
Have you ever pondered the pleasure and excitement of solving a riddle? Would you like to explore a book on riddles? Riddles for the English Classroom is a unique collection of fifty-seven riddles by Dr. Phool Singh Narvaria, who is an experienced teacher educator from Gwalior, India and has documented numerous folk forms to use in the language classroom.
You plunge directly into the story, which starts with the birth of a girl called Sundari and an elephant called Lakshmi—at about the same time, and at the back of the palace where the elephant stables are. Sundari’s father is a mahout and so, naturally, she and Lakshmi practically grow up together, Sundari marking the milestones of a human being, and Lakshmi, those of an elephant.
The Adventures of Stoob is a breezy read that you probably will finish reading in one sitting.
A children’s book on all the books that children can read! Preeti Singh’s Great Books For Children is a compilation of books (including Indian ones) that might be of interest to independent young readers and parents or elder siblings of very small children who may want to introduce books to them.
2014
A good story will always move you regardless of anything. On Sal Mal Lane by Ru Freeman makes no demand of its readers being associated with one or the other identity unlike the characters in the book. It doesn’t make the readers take sides, which is why it is so easy to let oneself be moved by it.
We know the past can be changed. We can choose what we should believe, we can choose what we should remember. This is what frees us, this choice frees us to hope…. Amy Tan in The Opposite Of Fate (cited in page (i) of the Memoir. I have never read any book by Temsula Ao.
Just One Life and Other Stories is a collection of short stories about the ordinary person, the poor person, the underprivileged person—people about whom very little is written, who merely find mention in passing. The author has written about them, their relationships,…
Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s travelogue written and published first in Bangla in 1977 titled Karuna Tomar Kon Patha Diye fills the gap in an important sub genre of travel literature in that it narrates a road story of a woman. The work was first published in the special edition of Desh, a Bengali periodical…
2014
At a key moment in this novel, the protagonist Uma reflects upon a Baul song by Lalon Shah, evoking the mysterious allure of Mirror City—‘a place that adjoins one’s home, yet remains forever unreachable’. This is also the feeling we get about the city of Dhaka as it appears in Chitrita Banerji’s…
Ismat Chughtai has often been described as Urdu’s most courageous and also controversial woman writer, which is not to say that the epithet ‘controversial’ has worked to her disadvantage. Think Ismat: think delightful, fiery, provocative and well known feminist stories, never mind if they are occasionally heart breaking too.
2014
It is doubtful whether even the most confirmed admirers of M.T. Vasudevan Nair’s novels will judge Varanasi (2002) as a mature or profound work. The reason? Certainly not the lack of good, solid ingre-dients in the composition.
Written between 1991 and 1993, Daruwalla’s collection celebrates the histories and legends of the grand Persian Empire, a phase of history barely glanced at in contemporary literature. The book explores the stories of the kings—Darius, Cyrus and Alexander.
The second book by S.K. Saksena, the distinguished Professor of Philosophy, collects his essays on western philosophy and Hindustani music. There are a range of meditations on Hegel, Kant and Croce and how their theories illuminate Indian musics.
The first book is an affectionate portrait of Shiv Kumar Sharma put together by his devoted friend Ina Puri. The text comprises a long interview by Puri, an appraisal of the maestro by Vijay Kichlu and an account of Sharma’s career in Hindi films by enthusiast Manek Premchand.