This book is a collection of essays and stories of lesser known historical events and heroes of Medieval Odisha. Within these pages, the epic chronicles of Hamvira Deva, Devendravarman Rajaraja-I, Raja Trilochana Deva, Langula Narasingha Deva and Gajapati Ramachandra Deva-I unfurl, celebrating their enduring heroics.
Odisha of my times is a faithful rendition in English of Mo Samayara Odisha, published in Odia in 1978 by the eminent historian and archaeologist, Dr. Krishna Chandra Panigrahi. It is more than an autobiography. In it is mirrored not only the author’s story of growing up amid adversity and his struggle up the academic echelon, it also is the pen-picture of the prevalent socio-cultural and academic world of Odisha of fifty years (1920s to late-1970s). Honest, candid, forthright, even at times unsparing, it is a no-holds-barred portrayal of the shenanigans and nepotism that the author experienced and of the contemporary times. The frank and guileless views expressed in the Odia book endeared the readers to the book that ran into multiple editions, apart from receiving the Odisha Sahitya Academy award in 1978. The author was conferred the fourth highest civilian award Padma Shri from the Republic of India in 1976 for his contribution in the field of literature and education.
The glorious tales of brave Indic resistance to invaders are still not fully known to us. This book contains 52 stories of valour, a tribute to these unsung warriors, both men and women from the last1300 years.
A university is an institution for higher education and research. It can also be a place where academic brilliance leads to overinflated egos, bitter politics and finally, murder. Cirisha Narayanan, a professor who has risen meteorically, stumbles upon a cryptic message. Aditya Raisinghania, her banker husband, sets up a highly innovative financial hoax. Her profiteering father harvests Australia’s largest bird—the emu—in India. The US elections are on and the debate on gun control has reached a fever pitch. Set in Mumbai, Coimbatore and Boston, Ravi Subramanian creates an impeccably researched world where everyone has a motive to kill. Nothing is as it seems in this cunningly vicious thriller where the plot turns on a dime.
‘Ma, I feel exhausted with consuming, with taking and grabbing and using. I am so bloated that I feel I cannot breathe any more. I am leaving to find some air, some place where I shall be able to purge myself, push back against the life given me and make my own. I feel I live in a borrowed house. It’s time to find my own . . . Forgive me . . .’ Calcutta, 1967. Unnoticed by his family, Supratik has become dangerously involved in student unrest, agitation, extremist political activism. Compelled by an idealistic desire to change his life and the world around him, all he leaves behind before disappearing is this note . . . The ageing patriarch and matriarch of his family, the Ghoshes, preside over their large household, unaware that beneath the barely ruffled surface of their lives the sands are shifting. More than poisonous rivalries among sisters-in-law, destructive secrets, and the implosion of the family business, this is a family unraveling as the society around it fractures. For this is a moment of turbulence, of inevitable and unstoppable change: the chasm between the generations, and between those who have and those who have not, has never been wider. Ambitious, rich and compassionate, The Lives of Others unfolds a family history, and anatomizes a social class in all its contradictions. It asks: can we escape what is in our blood? How do we imagine our place amongst others in the world? Can that be reimagined? And at what cost? This is a novel of rare power and emotional force.
‘The thirst to be boundless is not created by you; it is just life longing for itself.’ —Sadhguru This is the extraordinary story of Sadhguru—a young agnostic who turned yogi, a wild motorcyclist who turned mystic, a sceptic who turned spiritual guide. Pulsating with his razor-sharp intelligence, bracing wit and modern-day vocabulary, the book empowers you to explore your spiritual self and could well change your life. It seeks to re-create the life journey of a man who combines rationality with mysticism, irreverence with compassion, ancient wisdom with a provocatively contemporary outlook and a deep knowledge of the self with a contagious love of life. Described as ‘a profound mystic, visionary humanitarian and prominent spiritual leader of our times', he is equally at home in a satsangh in rural Tamil Nadu as at the World Economic Forum in Davos. In his early years, Jaggi Vasudev (or Sadhguru as he is now known) was a chronic truant, a boisterous prankster, and later a lover of motorbikes and fast cars. It is evident that the same urgency, passion and vitality echo in his spiritual pursuits to this day, from his creation of the historic Dhyanalinga—the mission of three lifetimes—to his approach as a guru. In Sadhguru's view, faith and reason, spirituality and science, the sacred and the material, cannot be divided into easy binaries. He sees people as ‘spiritual beings dabbling with the material rather than the reverse’, and liberation as the fundamental longing in every form of life. Truth for him is a living experience instead of a destination, a conclusion, or a matter of metaphysical speculation. The possibility of self-realization, he strongly believes, is available to all. Drawing upon extended conversations with Sadhguru, interviews with Isha colleagues and fellow meditators, poet Arundhathi Subramaniam presents an evocative portrait of a contemporary mystic and guru—a man who seems to pack the intensity and adventure of several lifetimes into a single one.
The book brings to the reader a set of political and social narratives woven around people’s resistance against big dams, mining and industrial projects, in short, displacement and dispossession in Odisha, India. This saga of dispossession abounds with stories and narratives of ordinary peasants, forest dwellers, fisher folk and landless wage laborers, which make the canvas of resistance history more complete. The book foregrounds these protagonists and the events that marked their lives; they live in the coastal plains as well as the hilly and forested areas of south and south-west Odisha. The authors have chronicled the development trajectory from the construction of the Hirakud Dam in the 1950s to the entry of corporations like POSCO and Vedanta in contemporary times. It thus covers extensive ground in interrogating the nature of industrialization being ushered into the state from post-independent India till today. The book depicts how and why people resist the development juggernaut in a state marked with endemic poverty. In unraveling this complex reality, the book conveys the world view of a vast section of people whose lives and livelihoods are tied up to land, forests, mountains, seas, rivers, lakes, ponds, trees, vines and bushes. These narratives fill a yawning gap in resistance literature in the context of Odisha. In doing so, they resonate with the current predicament of people in other mineral-rich states in Eastern India. The book is an endeavour to bring Odisha on the map of resistance politics and social movements in India and across the world.
Orissa Society of Americas 18th Annual Convention Souvenir for Convention held in Palo Alto, California in 1987 re-published as Golden Jubilee Convention July 4-7, 2019 Atlantic City, New Jersey commemorate edition. Odisha Society of the Americas Golden Jubilee Convention will be held in Atlantic City, New Jersey during July 4-7, 2019. Convention website is http://www.osa2019.org. Odisha Society of the Americas website is http://www.odishasociety.org
Families are like the sweet mangoes of aamnagri—messy, filled with juicy secrets and sticking together through all times. The a was this of aamnagri are the quintessential Indian family, who Bumble through their lives encountering missing jewels and stolen eggs, deaths foretold, averted and a suspected suicide with no body. The mysteries are solved by the inquisitive minds of young Lakshmi and Guddu and the saffron-clad Guruji. With charming agility, the a was this sail through life and its quirks. The advent of god-men, genuine and fake, is a source of both relief and embarrassment for them. But not for the lady of the mansion—mataji. She is the sutras who strings this tale of silk sarees and talking parrots together, who handles bedridden bahus and in-danger bhaiyyas with equal ease, who is tyrannical and vulnerable at the same time. And through whom the awaited family discovers that happy endings come for a price—of truth and love. All over a game of bridge!.