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A Town Like Ours
so why have they come, why did they choose Pingakshipura of all places Are they seeking or are they running away? Nourishing myself with bidi fumes, I watch, listen and think. I want to know. Pingakshipura-where the water runs a poisonous black and the hair on every childs head is white. And yet, it is a village-turned-town like any other in India, where every life hides a story. Reclining on her thin mattress in a room at the corner of the temple, Rajakumari, retired whore and long-time resident of the town, shares with us some of these stories. Of Saroja and Sampathu, unlikely lovers and parents who have both fled scenes of murder. Of Kripa and Manohar, the childless couple discovering something new about each other after long years of marriage. Of Lectric Mamu, injured by the infidelity of the one woman who is immune to his charms. Of Gundumani, the boy with the crooked leg and his almost-sister, Rukmini. Of the temple priest, one-time servant of the red-eyed Pingakshi, who birthed the towns new divinity - Sugandha Enterprises. In her seventh novel, Kavery Nambisan takes us again, with great sensitivity and fierce clarity, into the heart of rural and small-town India and into the lives of everyday people, where everything is extraordinary. Interesting Facts Author shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize and the DSC Prize for previous novel The Story That Must Not Be Told. About the Author: Kavery Nambisan is a writer and a surgeon. She picked up the pen after starting to practise surgery and has since combined two professions successfully, because she says - she does nothing else. She is the author of six novels: The Truth (Almost) About Bharat, The Scent of Pepper, Mango-coloured Fish, On Wings of Butterflies, The Hills of Angheri and The Story That Must Not Be Told (shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize and the DSC Prize).
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The Hills Of Angheri
For as long as Nalli can remember, the guardians of her village of Angheri, the hills that have so often come alive in her grandfather’s stories, have been asking her to do something with her life ...Twelve-year-old Nalli is restless to pursue a dream rather unusual for a girl in her traditional society: she wants to be a doctor. After all, how else will she stand by Jai—her friend and hero—when he returns as a qualified surgeon to start Angheri’s very own hospital?Adamantly resisting all the objections her family raises, Nalli travels to Madras and then to London to study, and experiences a world she had never imagined. She learns to keep her voice down and sit with her knees together, is haunted by Subbu, the first human cadaver she cuts up, and encounters complicated medical cases that test her faith in the values Appa taught her to live by and her own skills as a surgeon. Yet, for all her adventures, Nalli yearns constantly for a sight of Angheri’s hills, for Ajja’s gods and Appa’s advice, and, most of all, for the hospital of her dreams to become a reality. But her return home is fraught with heartbreak and disillusion, and Nalli sets off again, this time to remote Keshavganj, in search of solace and the fulfillment of her heart’s desire . . .Sensitive and humorous, graceful and invariably engaging, Kavery Nambisan’s latest novel tells the story of a young surgeon coming to terms with the untidiness of life and her profession.
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The Truth Almost About Bharat
An amazing saga of tender-hearted dacoits, heroic medics, gorgeous women, and assorted encounters with underwear...Bharat a.k.a. Vishwanath a.k.a. Tarzan - teenage philosopher, nearly-there general practitioner and heartbroken victim of unrequited love - takes some time off to chronicle his life.