Second World War The Azad Hind Fauj plans to set up the Azad Hind Bank at Port Blair, after the liberation of the Andaman and Nicobar islands from the British. However, the treasure and men sent to open the branch are mysteriously lost. A British police officer is on a dangerous mission to acquire a mysterious weapon in a forbidden island on Nicobar, which can help them win the WWII. The clue to finding this liquid is hidden in a poem. Many British and Japanese search parties sent to acquire the treasure and the weapon keep disappearing on this forbidden island. A son’s journey to find the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of his father during the Second World War leads him to his ancestral village in Manipur. A cache of unread letters takes him back in time. Will the son be able to find his lost father? How and where did the treasure of Azad Hind Bank disappear? Why do people keep disappearing on the forbidden island of Nicobar?
Among the more improbable events of the Asia-Pacific Theater in World War II was the creation in Singapore of a corps of female Indian combat soldiers, the Rani of Jhansi Regiment (RJR). They served under Indian freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose in the Indian National Army. Because the creation of an Indian all-female regiment of combat soldiers was a radical military innovation in 1943, and because the role of women in today’s broader context of Indian culture has become a prevalent and pressing issue, the extensive testimony of the surviving veterans of this unit is timely and urgent. The history of these brave women soldiers is little known, their extraordinary service and the role played by Bose remains largely unexplored. In the years since the RJR surrender in 1945, the story of Subhas Chandra Bose and the Rani Regiment of female combatants as signature symbols of both the national fight for independence and of Indian women’s struggle for gender equality has taken on aspects of myth. Lengthy interviews with the veteran Ranis together with archival research comprise the evidence that separates the myth of the Bengali hero and his jungle warrior maidens from historical fact, and this resulting book presents an accurate narrative of the Ranis. The facts are nearly as impressive as the legend.
When Alok Shirke decided to prepare for the mother-of-all-exams – UPSC Civil Service – little did he know that the journey would turn out to be much more than just books and classes. He moves from the comfort of his home to the crowded lanes of Old Rajinder Nagar. A chance encounter with Sarah seems like destiny’s compensation for all his hard work. He also meets buddies for a lifetime. Their life-stories of love, regret, friendship and shattered dreams take him through Kashmir and Turkey; from brothels to hospitals; and from dingy quarters to the hallowed halls of UPSC. When life finally seems to be coming back on track, he stumbles upon a truth that is bound to change him and the rest of his life. Will Alok crack the exam, or will be just one of the many soon-forgotten aspirants? Will a strange revelation make him see his life as A Pleasant Escape?
What exactly happened to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose? • In 1945, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Leader of the INA leaves Singapore to take a series of flights, and dies in Taiwan after his plane crashes near Formosa. Or so it seems. • In 1947, Mr & Mrs Singh, an illustrious army couple, both veterans of the Indian National Army, are last seen in Delhi, and then never again. • In 1949, the plane carrying the first deputy Prime Minister of India, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, mysteriously disappears for seven hours. • In 2012, following the fall of WikiLeaks, a female hacker of the notorious X group is on the run as most wanted by everyone from Interpol to the KGB • In 2015, the millionaire CEO of a Fortune 500 company suddenly resigns and vanishes from the public eye. A set of seemingly unconnected disappearances emerge to be woven into a single fabric as the answer to one leads to another… In this riveting narrative, bestselling author Shreyas Bhave, takes the reader on a thrilling adventure to solve the greatest mystery the Indian nation has known.
'I was born on a bloody road. The blood was my mother's. My sisters couldn't find a midwife in time. There was no way my mother could get relief from the upper-caste well, and so they tell me, that my sisters ran to some puddles to fill their little mouths up and then ran back to where my mother was almost dying of pain and then spat out some water on her face and the rest down below on mine. That is how I came into this world.' Someone is disposing of politicians one by one. And the murderer has borrowed from the genius of Agatha Christie. When a local Mumbai politician is found wrapped in a plastic bag behind a park bench, the dashing and capable DIG Ajay Biswas is told to take over the case. Ajay arrives in Mumbai along with his wife Aparajita and soon discovers he is being misled by his Mumbai compatriots who are determined to save their own skin. Someone is deliberately providing false leads; his presence is not wanted. While in Mumbai, Ajay and Aparajita meet up with their old college friend Akhil Sukumar. Akhil and Aparajita have had a tortuous history, and it appears that the one-time lovers now want nothing more than to let bygones be bygones. Easier said. From the barren lands of rural India to the immaculate lawns of Cambridge, The Rat Eater is a book whose uninhibitedness may offend purists as it lays bare a few uncomfortable truths about India-a country entangled in a web of caste, corruption and cover-ups. The privileged flourish at the cost of the oppressed. The price has to be paid, and someone has decided that it needs to be paid in blood.
ROHANKAR is a compatriot, a companion and a connoisseur of a wide range of arts. The Poet envisions his emotions with great pizzazz and channels them through a variety of media. His mind churns out tunes of melancholy and echoes them on a pile of flat-woods. This book is an urn to the flowers growing out of ashes that were his days while cast away into the valley of Seytan disguised as a nymph. Temptation and devotion, emotional molestation and simplified perplexity, anxiety and sacrifice, helpless arrogance and selfless indulgence are all painted on hectares of cotton fields like blood rain. These are the themes laid down throughout the pages of this love note. Furthermore, the metaphorical range that this collection encompasses is staggering. It tends to delve into the darker corners of a readers mind. But, at the same time, it gives a clear sense of hope for hopeless romanticism. ROHANKAR succeeds in wandering off even beyond the horizon of his own unique visceral literary style. Going by the final set of wordplay, it is quite safe to assume that this convincing piece of work is just a verbal foreplay, a predecessor to, hopefully, a series of tributes to Nietzschean affirmation.
"This anthology of poems dive into the realms of dark mystic realism and celebrate the obsessive/possessive/compulsive passions that we all have but turn a blind eye to. Rohankar has imbibed a forcefulness that compels the reader to pause from the daily flux of chronos and inspect the dark revelry that unconsciously dictates and establishes the existing paradigms from an antithetical perspective. The poem abides to the Elioton soul of free verse while subtly flirting with the Edgarion scepticism and pessimistic mysticism. Many of the poems adhere to the classic medieval romanticism but at the same time they foray into projected narcissism. These poems then capitulate the projected narcissism within the framework of God complex within the personification of a woman who is adored, worshiped and glorified. Every verse brutally decimates the societal constructs and embraces one’s psyche with all pervasive absolute darkness. The mystic Sufi touch in the poems are not just borrowed principles but they reiterate the undercurrent of the fading reality of truth and increasing understanding of the absolute. Despite drawing so many parallels to the poems here and trying to summarise them in a verbalised manner, I would unflinchingly hold that this is impossible. The work stands on its own inexplicable organic unity and brings one closer to an intellectual orgasm and perhaps even absolute actualization of the prospects one dares not venture into. "
A wide-ranging survey of the Indian sub-continent, Modern South Asia gives an enthralling account of South Asian history. After sketching the pre-modern history of the subcontinent, the book concentrates on the last three centuries from c.1700 to the present. Jointly written by two leading Indian and Pakistani historians, Modern South Asia offers a rare depth of understanding of the social, economic and political realities of this region. This comprehensive study includes detailed discussions of: the structure and ideology of the British raj; the meaning of subaltern resistance; the refashioning of social relations along lines of caste class, community and gender; and the state and economy, society and politics of post-colonial South Asia The new edition includes a rewritten, accessible introduction and a chapter by chapter revision to take into account recent research. The second edition will also bring the book completely up to date with a chapter on the period from 1991 to 2002 and adiscussion of the last millennium in sub-continental history.
'A comprehensive and gripping narrative'---Vikram Sampath, author, historian and Fellow of Royal Historical Society 'A must-read'---Sandeep Unnithan, managing editor, India Today There are not many Indian heroes whose lives have been as dramatic and adventurous as that of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. That, however, is an assessment of his life based on what is widely known about him. These often revolve around his resignation from the Indian Civil Service, joining the freedom movement, to be exiled twice for over seven years, throwing a challenge to the Gandhian leadership in the Congress, taking up an extremist position against the British Raj, evading the famed intelligence network to travel to Europe and then to Southeast Asia, forming two Governments and raising two armies and then disappearing into the unknown. All this in a span of just two decades. Now, new information throws light on Bose's intense political activities surrounding the revolutionary groups in Bengal, Punjab, Maharashtra and United Provinces, his efforts to bridge the increasing communal divide and his influence among the splintered political landscape; his outlook and relations with women; his plunge into the depths of spirituality; his penchant for covert operations and his efforts to engineer a rebellion among the Indian armed forces. With this new information, what appeared to be dramatic now becomes more intense with plots and subplots under one man's single-minded focus on freeing the motherland and envisioning its development in a new era. Furthermore, one of the most sensitive issues that have prevented political parties and successive governments from talking much about Bose is his joining the Axis camp. While Jawaharlal Nehru and other prominent Congress leaders publicly denounced the move, the Communist Party of India went on to a prolonged vilification campaign. Sardar Patel issued instruction to Congress leaders to defend the INA soldiers without eulogizing their leader. Was Bose really a Nazi sympathiser? Knowing very well about the strong public opinion that existed among the political leadership and the intelligentsia in India against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and imperial Japan, why did he risk his own political image by allying with the Axis powers? Pacey, thought-provoking and absolutely unputdownable, Bose: The Untold Story of an Inconvenient Nationalist will open a window to many hitherto untold and unknown stories of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Probably the first critical biography of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose till date.
