In modern day Rampur, aspiring writer Rukmini finds herself fascinated by the life of Munni Bai Hijab: the real-life 19th-century courtesan and poet whose voice and achievements were eclipsed by her love affair with and role as muse to the great Urdu poet Dagh Delvi. As Rukmini begins researching and transcribing Hijab’s untold story, she…
Usha and her husband Om are part of a Gujarati community in Coimbatore and the parents of three grown children: sons Ashmit and Romit and a daughter named Pari. Om is co-owner of a textile store and takes his role seriously as head of his household even though all three children have moved out. As…
It is 1916, the middle of World War I. Madhusudan Chandra Joshi is a young clerk who works at the District Courts of India. As he journeys to Heidelberg to study law, a chance meeting with a mysterious revolutionary, Amir Farooqui, sets him on a headlong collision with forces he does not understand. He is…
At the center of Kersi Khambatta’s Bombay Tabloid is Cyrus Kerman, the son of an Iran-born bakery owner, and his lifelong entanglement with Devika Wright, a beautiful Anglo-Indian dancer and model who later becomes a lawyer. Cyrus falls in love with her twice. Their story unfolds between two traumatic periods in the city’s history. The…
A border is usually imagined as a line on a map. In Absolute Jafar, Sarnath Banerjee shows how that line can enter a marriage, a family and even a child’s idea of home. His sixth graphic novel follows Brighu Sen, an Indian man who falls in love with a Pakistani artist, marries her, moves to…
The British Indian Overseas Territory is the sort of place only a stamp-collector will have heard of. It’s more commonly and better known as Diego Garcia, in fact the largest of a group of islands (the Chagos Archipelago) smack dab in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and home to a major US military base…
In This is Where the Serpent Lives, Daniyal Mueenuddin unpacks the nuances of the Pakistani landowning class through rich, in-depth characterisation filled with complex interpersonal dynamics that shed light on the realities of class, discrimination and social mobility. Divided into four sections, each with a different narrator, the novel explores the interconnected lives of characters…
In Hindu mythology, the snow-capped region of Kailash in Tibet is believed to be the abode of Kailashpati or Lord Shiva. Mount Kailash is the source of four rivers and in its vicinity lies Manas Sarovar Lake. Derived from the Sanskrit word Kailāsa or Kelāsa meaning “crystal”, this mountain is sacred not only to the…
This review was originally posted in August 2024 and has been re-posted for its US release. Vikas Swarup is interested in narrative spectacle. His famous novel, Q & A, was adapted into the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire, which enthralled a primarily Western audience who had never seen the filth and grit of Mumbai slum life…
Mitya New’s earlier career as a foreign correspondent in Hong Kong, China, and Europe and his present position at universities in Hong Kong and India were evidently good preparation for his debut novel, Beyond Mount Kailash, an engaging story of a cross-cultural marriage that takes a different path from the typical Asian expat story. Maria…
Excerpted from Voicing Aspiration: Bollywood Songs and Dreamwork in Contemporary India by Anaar Desai-Stephens; reprinted with permission from Wesleyan University Press. Envision a young woman in her mid-teens, so skinny and wide-eyed that she looks even younger, but right now filled with self-assurance as she stands in front of her bedroom mirror. It is midnight…
The title of Prakhar Vishwani’s debut, Wedding on the Maharaja Express, evokes the classic mystery Murder on the Orient Express. Both, indeed, feature an eclectic cast of characters and a murder on a luxurious train, yet unlike Agatha Christie’s romantically disinterested detective Hercule Poirot, Vishwani’s protagonist Vir Malhotra is head over heels in love with…
In My Wild City, acclaimed nature writer Neha Sinha takes us on an unforgettable journey through the hidden wildernesses of the bustling metropolis of Delhi, India, where she finds as much natural splendor in her urban environment as one would expect from a rural countryside. Exploring her city over many days and nights, Neha traces…
Once a major Hollywood star, George Abercrombie’s career has quietly cratered after a string of box-office flops. He has moved to Mumbai to be near his wife, Sweety Sahota, India’s biggest actress. George is accustomed to having things under control. Mumbai in Abir Mukherjee’s new novel, The Pinnacle, has other plans for him. During his…
Chapal Rani was one of India’s most famous performers of jatra, Bengal’s popular theater. Traditionally, all the roles, including female roles, were played by men—and Chapal Rani was perhaps the most prominent performer of women on the stage. He’s also the subject of a new book from Sandip Roy, titled Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal. Roy,…