The Lotus Queen, the first novel by Dubai-based and London- educated Rikin Khamar, is set in 14th century Chittor, the capital of the Rajput kingdom of Mewar (most of modern-day Rajasthan). It falls in the genre of historical fiction, as Khamar spins a tragic tale of valour and sacrifice around the time when Mewar is threatened…
At the very start, in her introduction, Subhadra Sen Gupta puts you in the mood to read. There is that rather obvious positivity in the opening/introductory lines that pulls along even adults like me. Who would not like to escape from the chaos spread around, towards those long stretches of exciting distractions holding sway…
Neither Bhojpur nor ‘Naxalism’ stand at the heart of the issues which this book raises. The places, the dates, the individuals—and the ‘-ism’ attributed to them-pale into relative insignificance besides the deeper causes, and the long-running continuities, of the struggle for land rights and human dignities which is the real substance of this work.
Perky and precocious, Tiya the parrot lives in the great big banyan tree which is home to thousands of creatures—feathered bipeds, quadrupeds, centi, deci and millipedes. Tiya’s is a secure and comfortable existence amidst his many neighbours in a place where nothing changes but the seasons. Indeed….
The Puffin Book of Classic Stories for Girls was first published in 2010. Its title is misleading and yet not, depending on what you understand by ‘stories.’ These are neither original stories nor all short stories nor all of them written originally for girls or even for children in general…
The Storyteller: Tales from the Arabian Nights is a pretty good version of the Arabian Nights for children. It has some of the not so well-known stories in it such as ‘The King and the Physician Douban’ and ‘The Diamond Anklet,’ as well as well known ones, tailored for child readers. The familiar but very long story of Aladdin has been broken…