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MUSIC BY LAXMIKANT PYARELAL
A saga without parallel in the music industry Laxmikant-Pyarelal’s music is played, every hour if not more frequently, in every nook and cranny of the country, over two decades after they stopped composing together. It also finds due place globally, wherever Indian music is loved. Today, Pyarelal has his own global standing, and is the only Indian composer to have a symphony registered in his name. This book encapsulates what can only be called the ‘Musical Universe’ of Laxmikant-Pyarelal. Here is a duo known as much for incomparable range and quality as for unmatched popularity and quantity; as much for intimate associations with lyricists, singers, filmmakers and stars as for giving career breaks and breakthroughs to so many; as much for chartbusters from the 1960s to 1990s as for leading in the list of re-created songs today. From teenage musicians to being the composers of over 500 films, their journey is truly incredible in every aspect. They are admired by international as well as Indian classical maestros.
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The Year of High Treason
The Year of High Treason brings together the twentieth century's most famous literary heroes and villains in an unexpected setting: Delhi, in 1911, for the great coronation durbar of King George V. The legendary detective duo Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson have been sent to Delhi by Winston Churchill to protect the king. There they come across a pair of charming thieves, Arsene Lupin and Raffles, who have crossed swords with Holmes before. There is also the mysterious Dr Fu Manchu, whom the British dread, Michael Strogoff, special envoy of the Tsar of Russia and Tarzan and Karzan, the viceroys of the apes. The Imperial Crown of India also has a starring role to play: the heaviest crown in history, it manages to disappear into thin air. This racy and humorous novel on the secret history of the coronation durbar takes the reader on an unforgettable walk back in time.
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Sunny Days: Sunil Gavaskar's Own Story
Sunny Days is the fascinating account of the growth of one of India's greatest batsmen, one whose astonishing feats on the cricket field have caused innumerable records to be re-written and set close to impossible targets. How did the story of Sunil Manohar Gavaskar begin? What was the genesis of the man who grew to be a legend in his own lifetime? The story starts with a baby being switched after birth – luckily restored by an eagle-eyed uncle, he grows up to almost break his mother's nose with a mighty hit (a childhood habit that persists in later life), plays good cricket in school and college, inevitably graduates beyond university and trophy cricket, is occasionally booed by the crowd as his uncle happens to be a selector and then bursts into the international cricket scene with his test debut at Port of Spain at the age of twenty-one. The year is 1971, it is Gavaskar's year and sunny days have finally begun for Indian cricket. By the end of the 1975-76 season Gavaskar has played 147 first class matches, amassed 11574 runs and thirty-eight hundreds. He has played twenty-four matches in eight Tests, with 2123 runs and eight hundreds. And there is still nearly a decade left before the glory-days of the Kotla and Chidambaram stadiums. A fluently written book with Gavaskar's usual self-effacing modesty imparting a rare grace to its pages, Sunny Days is a must-read for all cricket fans.
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The Mating Season
'It's hard to single out one book as the entire Jeeves and Wooster collection is Bach Rescue Remedy in literary form, but this tale of romantic imbroglio is a priceless hoot... Every sentence is a perfectly wrought delight.' Independent At Deverill Hall, an idyllic Tudor manor in the picture-perfect village of King's Deverill, impostors are in the air. The prime example is man-about-town Bertie Wooster, doing a good turn to Gussie Fink-Nottle by impersonating him while he enjoys fourteen days away from society after being caught taking an unscheduled dip in the fountains of Trafalgar Square. Bertie is of course one of nature's gentlemen, but the stakes are high: if all is revealed, there's a danger that Gussie's simpering fiancée Madeline may turn her wide eyes on Bertie instead. It's a brilliant plan - until Gussie himself turns up, imitating Bertram Wooster. After that, only the massive brain of Jeeves (himself in disguise) can set things right.
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The Great Mughal
An engrossing saga of one of the greatest dynasties of the world, The Mughal dynasty contemporaries of the Mughal empire called it the sultanate-i-mughalia. In terms of the area and time that it covered, The empire was gigantic. From the warrior king Babur who laid its foundation to the Lonely poet king Bahadur Shah Zafar who saw its dilution, the book charts the origin, rise, success and eventual downfall of an empire that ruled India for three centuries. With pure history as a backdrop the narrative sweeps along the myths and mysteries of the Mughal times unfolding on its pages the Courts and harems, bazaars and battlefields, blood and gore and the gloss and glamour of the Mughal empire. Beyond the glistening surface of their glory, farhat nasreen’s authoritative account brings the empire vividly to life, rolling out the saga of the fabulously talented Rajputs and Marathi along with the challenges the Mughal emperors faced to sustain their phenomenal empire.
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Man-Eaters and Jungle Killers
Called upon to rid affected locality of the prowling man eaters, Anderson the hunter rises to the occasion. Step by step he takes the reader through the adventure, explaining his modus operandi and the terrible excitement and lurking danger. Stirring tales of wild animal's cunning pitted against human wit and presence of mind told by the ace hunter and master story teller himself.
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The King And I : Travels In Tigerland
With insatiable curiosity and acute powers of observation, Prerna Singh Bindra embarks on a journey through the vast canvas of India's forests, on the trail of its beautiful and endangered big cats. She begins her pilgrimage in the holy city of Rudraprayag where the legendary Jim Corbett shot a man-eating tiger, treks the snowy Himalayas in search of the elusive snow leopard, walks through the dry forest of Gir, the last abode of the Asiatic lion, searches the sterile forest of Sariska for tigers and visits the Sundarbans, home to myth and man-eating tigers. The King and I takes on special significance in today's times. The Royal Bengal Tiger is facing its worst ever crisis. Less than 2000 tigers are left in the Indian wild. Lions number fewer than 350. The fate of the snow-leopard is unknown. At least one leopard is killed every day. A celebration of India's big cats, a warning about their future, a lamentation for their passing, The King and I embodies the hope that, despite all odds, these beautiful creatures will continue to rule the wild forever.
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Tales From The Indian Jungle
Ace hunter and wildlife chronicler Kenneth Anderson recalls real life jungle tales, some macabre and some incredible, of adventures in pursuit of man eating tigers and leopards. He brings the animal and human characters alive against the background of the jungle and the excitement and danger their co - existence generates.
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The Tiger Roars
Hailed as the best of all Anderson's books, The Tiger Roars reminds one of the man-eating tigers he had tracked down, ferocious panthers fond of human blood, the ageing elephant meeting a sad end, and his own adventurous hours spent in the primeval jungles of India.
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All about My Walkabouts
‘The adventure is not in getting somewhere, it’s the on-the-way experience. It is not the expected; it’s the surprise. Not the fulfilment of prophecy, but the providence of something better than that prophesied.’ The world has a lot to offer to the people who seek new experiences and are curious about the places, each distinctly unique, that makes up the world and the people that inhabit these places. Although one lifetime is not enough to visit and know every place in the world, we have books that introduce us to new cultures, foods and peoples. In All about My Walkabouts, Ruskin Bond offers us delightful stories from his travels around the world. From the stories from Indian hills, to the streets of London, to small towns in India like Mathura and Meerut, this book is for children and adults alike.
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Friends of My Youth
‘I needed a friend but it was not easy to find one among a horde of rowdy, pea-shooting fourth formers, who carved their names on desks and stuck chewing gum on the class teacher’s chair. Had I grown up with other children, I might have developed a taste for schoolboy anarchy; but, in sharing my father’s loneliness after his separation from my mother, I had turned into a premature adult.’ There is no telling where friendships might be made and how. Friends of My Youth is a collection of short stories by Ruskin Bond on how little and almost seemingly insignificant incidents of life can lead us to the person in whom we may find a companion, a comrade. These are the stories of how unknowingly, at times, friends are found and how they help eliminate our loneliness or become partners in crime in our personal missions. Narrated with utter simplicity, the tales make for a delightful remembrance of the friends made in the early years of life.
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What The Heck Do I Do With My Life?
‘As the world grows in complexity, Ravi’s guidance to be curious and adaptable has never been more relevant.’ —Bill Gates Our world will change more in this century than in all of human history, driven by many factors including technology, climate change, demographics and inequality. Such extreme change is throwing up unprecedented opportunities and creating an ‘adaptive challenge’ for individuals, organizations and societies. Those who can adapt to a fast-flowing, complex, volatile and uncertain world will flourish. Those who cannot will suffer greatly. There are clear signs everywhere that we need new ways to think about the world and our place in it. Our old ideas about education, lifestyle, success and happiness no longer work. How is work changing? How can you know what skills will be useful when jobs of the future are still being invented? Will ‘jobs’ even exist or are we moving to a world of projects and gig work? How do you make sense of all this and more? In What the Heck Do I Do With My Life? Ravi Venkatesan makes the case that successful adaptation in the new century requires a ‘paradigm shift’, a different mindset, new skills and new strategies. Ravi also reflects on how we will need to live life more intentionally, making deliberate choices about who we are, what we do and how we live rather than simply being carried along like a piece of driftwood.
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26 11 Braveheart My Encounter With Terrorists That
Four bullets ripped through his body; a lung was punctured; four ribs were shattered and splinters scattered all over his chest; doctors attending to him declared that his life had been cut short, that he could never swim or run. But he proved everyone wrong. On the night of the 26/11 terrorist attacks on Mumbai, marine commandos of the Indian Navy (Marcos) entered the Taj, one of the places held captive by Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists. Their brief was simple—rescue the hostages and neutralize the attackers. Decorated with the Shaurya Chakra for his role in rescuing hostages, Praveen Kumar teotia was one of the Marcos who was leading his team, who fought the terrorists, suffered near-fatal injuries and, in the end, saved more than 150 innocent lives. In this gripping, edge-of-the-seat thriller, teotia narrates a minute-by-minute account of that deadly night, how his team entered the Taj, how he confronted the terrorists and how he was nearly killed. Declared unfit for life until he fought back and became a marathon Runner and the coveted ironman, praveen’s is a story of courage, conviction and resurrection. Above all, this is a story of an Indian soldier.
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Happiness In The Age Of Ambition
This is the story of a corporate spiritualist, if ever there was one. It started with a young author Megan bajaj’s quest to find answers to the questions that surrounded her existence it possible to be childlike and yet have the wisdom of an old soul? Is it possible to lead a life that is materialistically abundant and yet spiritually grounded? Her search led her to hard Prasad kanoria, a ‘corporate spiritualist’ whose life had been an example of how to be passionately involved in day-to-day activities and still have a part of the ‘self ’ immersed in the higher consciousness. This was a man who balanced his life on two pillars—faith in God and belief in himself. As Megha explored Hari Prasad’s life, she started finding answers to the everyday dilemmas she had been facing. In happiness in the age of ambition, she takes on the role of a kathavachak (the narrator) to share the extraordinary tale of hard Prasad, who founded several leading enterprises. This book is not just the story of a business legend but an answer to the trials and tribulations of people across the world, as they struggle to find a fine balance to manage the contradictions of life that affect their peace of mind. It is a book for the young and the old alike; for those seeking meaning in life, and those chasing materialistic and spiritual pleasures.