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Gaata Rahe Mera Dil
Look behind the scenes of fifty celebrated songs, from an estimated repository of over one lakh! 'De de khuda ke naam pe' - When Wazir Mohammed Khan sang these words in India's first talkie, Alam Ara, he gave birth to a whole new industry of composers, lyricists and singers, as well as an entirely new genre of film-making that is quintessentially Indian: the song-and-dance film. In the eight decades and more since then, Hindi film songs have enraptured listeners all over the world. From 'Babul mora, naihar chhooto jaye' (Street Singer, 1938) to 'Dil hai chhota sa' (Roja, 1992), from the classical strains of 'Ketaki gulab' (Basant Bahar, 1956) featuring Bhimsen Joshi to the disco beats of Nazia Hassan's 'Aap jaisa koi' (Qurbani, 1981), from the pathos of 'Waqt ne kiya' (Kaagaz Ke Phool, 1959) to the exuberance of the back-to-back numbers in Hum Kisise Kum Naheen (1977), here is an extraordinary compilation, peppered with trivia, anecdotes and, of course, the sheer joy of music. Find out answers to questions like - With which unreleased film did Kishore Kumar turn composer? In which song picturization was dry ice first used? Which all-time classic musical was initially titled Full Boots? Where was the title song of An Evening in Paris shot? The idea for which song originated when the film-maker visited Tiffany's in London? Which major musical partnership resulted from the celebrations around an award function for a commercial jingle for Leo Coffee? How many of your favourites find mention here? Make your own list!
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Farthest Field
The photographs of three young men had stood in his grandmother's house for as long as he could remember, 'beheld but not noticed, as angels are in a frieze of mortal strugglers'. They had all fought in the Second World War, a fact that surprised him. Indians had never figured in his idea of the war, nor the war in his idea of India. One of them, Bobby, even looked a bit like him, but Raghu Karnad had not noticed until he was the same age as they were in their photo-frames. Then he learned about the Parsi boy from the sleepy south Indian coast, so eager to follow his brothers-in-law into the colonial forces and onto the front line. Manek, dashing and confident, was a pilot with India's fledgling air force, gentle Ganny became an army doctor in the arid North-West Frontier. Bobby's pursuit would carry him as far as the deserts of Iraq and the green hell of the Burma battlefront. The years 1939-45 might be the most revered, deplored and replayed in modern history. Yet India's extraordinary role has been concealed, from itself and from the world. In riveting prose, Karnad retrieves the story of a single family - a story of love, rebellion, loyalty and uncertainty - and with it, the greater revelation that is India's Second World War. Farthest Field narrates the lost epic of India's war, in which the largest volunteer army in history fought for the British Empire, even as its countrymen fought to be free of it. It carries us from Madras to Peshawar, Egypt to Burma - unfolding the saga of a young family amazed by their swiftly changing world, and swept up in its violence.
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A Children's History Of India
Which were the first cities of India and how were they discovered? What was it like living in Mughal times? How did the British, who had come to trade in India, end up ruling the country? How has India changed after Independence? Delve into Indias past to discover the answers to these questions and many more in this comprehensive history of our nation. Journey through time to visit the baths and palaces of the first cities of Harappa, the stupas of Ashoka and the flamboyant courts of the great Mughals, rich in art, culture and architecture. Learn how the revolution of 1857 really started and march alongside Gandhi on his quest for an India free from British rule. Plus, discover more about each period through fun and easy To do activities. Told in simple, lucid prose and interspersed with beautiful illustrations, A Childrens History of India makes learning history a fun and engaging experience for readers of all ages.
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The Argumentative Indian
India is a very diverse country with many distinct pursuits, vastly different convictions, widely divergent customs, and a veritable feast of view points. The Argumentative Indian brings together an illuminating selection of writings from Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen that outline the need to understand contemporary India in the light of its long argumentative tradition. The understanding and use of this rich argumentative tradition are critically important, Sen argues, for the success of India's democracy, the defence of its secular politics, the removal of inequalities related to class, caste, gender and community, and the pursuit of sub-continental peace.
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Unfinished Tales
Published posthumously by Tolkien's youngest son, The Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle Earth tells the stories of how Gandalf found Bilbo and how he decided to send the Dwarves of Erebor to him. It also tells the story of Aldarion and Erendis, one of the most moving love stories to be found in Tolkien's fantasy setting. Illuminating on subjects hitherto untouched such as the identities of the five Istari who would later be known as Wizards, the Palantiri and their making, the legend of Amroth and the coming of the sea god Ulmo before Tuor on the coast of Beleriand, this is a collection any Tolkien fan would not want to miss.
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The Collected Short Stories Of Roald Dahl
Get this amazing book from the acclaimed author that contains a collection of short stories, including: Over To You, Kiss Kiss, Someone Like You, Switch Bitch, The Umbrella Man, Mr. Botibol, Vengeance is Mine Inc., The Butler, Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life, The Bookseller, The Hitchhiker and The Surgeon. Read these tales of the unexpected that will leave you baffled and in awe. It is the perfect book for a Roald Dahl fan that will make you fall in love with the author all over again.
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Body Language.
This is a completely revised edition of a highly successful book designed to serve as a handy comprehensive guide for correct interpretation of body language. Hedwig Lewis explains the `script' of body language in a systematic and graded manner. He highlights the physical and psychological aspects of non-verbal behaviour to enable professionals to become proficient in their interpretation.
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Murder In Bollywood
Someone at this table has killed before and someone at this table will kill again'. Nikhil Kapoor, Bollywoods biggest film director, made this shocking proclamation to his friends one night. Sameer Ali Khan, Bollywoods badshah, seethed with rage. Nyra Oberoi, filmdoms queen-in-waiting, turned her face away. Ishan Malhotra, producer extraordinaire, laughed out loud, while Kiki Fernandez, dress designer to the stars, looked afraid. Two nights later, both Nikhil and his wife, leading actress Mallika Kapoor, were found dead. It is up to Senior Inspector Hoshiyar Khan to solve the puzzle.
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Me, Mia, Multiple
Killing yourself should be easy, right? Pop a few sleeping pills, lie on a railway track and let the train do the rest of the work. Neat, swift, painless. Yet dramatic. What could possibly go wrong with Jeevan Raikar's plan? Well, this - a girls' night out happening at the graveyard next door, starring a vodka-swilling blackmailer and her dead mother. And so, Jeevan - who ought to be dead by now, mind you - is stuck with bubbly Mia, raging Tanya and sensuous Alisha. Which might seem like an enviable situation to be in, but for one tiny catch. They are all the same person. Me, Mia, Multiple is a debut that cares little for convention - a romance with a twist, a twisted romance, a romantic twister. Whatever you want to call it, you'll tear through it with sheer pleasure.
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Thursday's Child
Two crimes, generations apart . . . Twenty years ago teenager Frieda Klein was brutally attacked in her own home. No one believed her - not the police, not her mother, not her friends. She left town, trained as a psychologist and never went back. Now an old classmate has shown up. She wants help with her daughter, who claims to have been attacked at home. An attack eerily similar to the one on Frieda. No one else believes the girl's story. Now - with a school reunion in the offing - Frieda returns to the darkness she fled. To the small town which refused to help her and which hides a terrible secret. Because someone at the reunion knows what happened. And they'll stop at nothing to prevent Frieda discovering the truth . . .
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There's Something About You
This is not your typical boy-meets-girl story. Okay, they do meet, but there are some complications. Trish is twenty-eight. She's unemployed, overweight, single and snarky. She knows all that. And if one more person - just one more person - tries to fix her, she might explode. Sahil is thirty-five. He has superpowers. Well, kind of. He seems to think so, anyway. He's also hot (in a geeky kind of way, but still). And he plays the guitar, helps the underprivileged and talks about his feelings. Aren't guys like that supposed to exist only in fantasies? When Trish and Sahil meet, magic happens. Real magic, you know, like fireworks, electricity, that sort of thing. But here's the problem. Trish doesn't want anyone in her life. She has enough to deal with - dependent parents, flaky neighbours, bitchy editors, the works. And yet, Sahil is determined to be in her life. From the bestselling author of Just Married, Please Excuse and Sorting Out Sid, here is another zinger of a book.
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Nari-A Novel
Army man found dead in Banjara Hills. Only witnesses -wife and servant. Unconfirmed reports of rape. Can the truth be revealed? Nari is a chronicle of sexual abuse told from the points of view of the victim and the perpetrator.It is set in present-day Hyderabad, when Ramya Tirthankar, the young wife of a retired army man and their seventeen-year-old servant, Narayana lovingly called Nari accuse each other of rape. Layered and disturbingly lyrical, filled with shock, empathy and trauma, Nari uncovers questions related to human sexual behaviour, power play and how gender inequalities are built into our very genes.
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Fairy Tales At Fifty
Nirip on the cusp of fifty is not happy with his life. His father is an ogre and his mother a witch. He is not happy with that either. His sort of half-sister is a sort of halfman. A really close relative turns out to be a serial killer. He is not happy sleeping with his chauffeurs wife. Neither is she. Then, for his amusement, his father arranges a cricket match between rival dacoit teams in which some of the players are shot dead. Who could be happy in such circumstances? Days before his fiftieth birthday, with Nirip still wondering whether he should go ahead and have himself kidnapped so that he can make some money, he discovers, most unexpectedly, that he is not the biological child of his parents. Witty, macabre, sad, cruel, unforgivingly insightful, Fairy Tales at Fifty is part adventure tale, part nightmare, part acid trip and throughout a triumph of fiction.
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Wounded Tiger
Since the nation was born out of the trauma of Partition in 1947, the story of Pakistan Cricket has been filled with both triumph and tragedy. From a narrow base, it has grown to win players and followers from all over the country. Cricket has brought the nation together to support its heroes with men such as A. H. Kardar, Fazal Mahmood, Javed Miandad, imran Khan and Wasim Akhram giving all Pakistanis a chance to excel and a cause for pride in their country.
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The Girl Who Couldn't Stop Arguing
Madison Flight refuses to be born for five days. She comes out eventually - kicking, screaming, and scarred for life by forceps - but it isn't long before her mother, Cynthia, realises the terrible truth: she has given birth to the world's first arguing baby. Cyntha's husband Mitchell soon takes off in terror, leaving her to raise their quarrelsome rugrat with only the help of the next door neighbour Shirley - a sadistic retired nurse who detests children. Madison's young life is full of proud milestones: at the age of one she breaks the world record for the number of times anyone has said the word 'no' during a two week Spanish package holiday - 4,477 times - and she gets better with practice. Lots of practice. This is the story of a girl who wanted to be right rather than happy. This is the story of the girl who couldn't stop arguing.
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Kismetwali And Other Stories
This octet of novellas is set against an Indian backdrop amid circumstances that transcend place, purse and prestige, Kismetwali and other stories speaks to all. It offers a glimpse into the parallel lives of the privileged and penniless, closing in on the moments when free-will collides against fate and the gap between the parallels vanishes, along with the distinctions inherent in their preordained paths. A humble barber becomes an intimate collaborator in a love story, a light-fingered maid servant helps a young flight attendant clean up the emotional debris of a mes this octet of novellas is set against an Indian backdrop amid circumstances that transcend place, purse and prestige, Kismetwali and other stories speaks to all. It offers a glimpse into the parallel lives of the privileged and penniless, closing in on the moments when free-will collides against fate, and the gap between the parallels vanishes, along with the distinctions inherent in their preordained paths. A humble barber becomes an intimate collaborator in a love story a light-fingered maid servant helps a young flight attendant clean up the emotional debris of a messy romance, a long-serving masseuse conceals her mistresss secret while offering a gift of revelation to her troubled daughter, and a clairvoyant petitions the fountainhead of fate on behalf of her affluent clients. Kismet positions these characters along the totem pole, but the choices they make are theirs alone. Reetika Khanna Nijhawan was born and raised in a small town in northern India. While growing up, she traveled the world extensively with her father, an officer in the merchant navy. After receiving her degree in Psychology from Delhi University, she worked as a flight attendant with Lufthansa German Airlines before settling down to write, first as a senior features writer for Elle magazine and then as an associate features editor for Elle Decor in Mumbai. She later moved to Atlanta, where her work has been published in the Atlanta Journal - Constitution and Khabar magazine. Kismet wali and Other Stories is her first work of fiction. She penned these eight novellas over time, while waiting in the carpool line outside her daughters school. romance, a long-serving masseuse conceals her mistresss secret while offering a gift of revelation to her troubled daughter and a clairvoyant petitions the fountainhead of fate on behalf of her affluent clients. Kismet positions these characters along the totem pole, but the choices they make are theirs alone.
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Vital Signs
Where life begins, terror lurks... Only Robin Cook, acknowledged master of the techno-medical thriller, could have written this supremely chilling novel about the passion to create life—and the power to destroy it. Millions of readers met crusading epidemiologist Marissa Blumenthal in the pages of the bestselling Outbreak. Now Robin Cook brings back his feisty heroine in a gripping new tale, Vital Signs—a roller-coaster ride into the unexpected and the utterly unconscionable. In the eyes of her envious peers, Marissa has it all: a superb professional reputation, a flourishing pediatrics practice, even a fairy-tale marriage with the man of her dreams—Robert Buchanan, an entrepreneur involved in health-care administration and research. But there is one thing Marissa does not have: the child she desperately desires. And when tests confirm that her sealed fallopian tubes have rendered her infertile, her perfect world begins to crumble. Obsessed with becoming pregnant, Marissa barely even notices the disastrous effect her idée fixe is having on her marriage and career. When a little medical sleuthing points to suspicious origins of her infertility, Marissa boldly challenges the law. Along with Wendy, a new friend with a similar infertility problem, she breaks into a fertility clinic, travels to Australia, a center of in-vitro fertilization, then on to Hong Kong. The two women's exploration of the brave new world of reproductive technologies takes a shocking turn when Wendy is violently killed—and Marissa's own life is mysteriously threatened. But personal danger does not deter her, and she allows herself to be drawn into the dark vortex of the baby-making business, where a woman's dearest dream turns slowly, agonizingly to dread... Timely, top-notch suspense that will grip the reader from the very first page, Vital Signs proves once again the unique and compelling genius of Robin Cook.
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Fatal Cure
Doctors Angela and David Wilson believe that they have found personal and professional bliss when they leave the stresses of urban life for a state-of-the art medical centre in Vermont. Swiftly, their happiness disintegrates as mysterious and unexplained deaths become more than coincidences.