Becoming Goan: A Contemporary Coming-Home Story, Michelle Mendonça Bambawale
Goa’s magnetism and its promise of a relaxed, almost bohemian lifestyle, have always attracted admirers and colonizers. Before the locals could make up their minds about such interlopers, Covid-19 brought hordes of them to town – Michelle Mendonça Bambawale was one of them. In June 2020, Michelle found herself moving to the 160-year-old house she had inherited in Siolim, a village in North Goa, with her human and canine family.
Having never lived in Goa before, she couldn’t help but wonder if her Goan ancestry made her an insider or if she would forever remain an outsider. In this memoir, she confronts her complex relationship with her Goan Catholic heritage and explores themes of identity, culture, migration, stereotypes and labels.
Shooting the Sun: Why Manipur Was Engulfed by Violence and the Government Remained Silent, Nandita Haksar
Conflicts between ethnic groups are not new in Manipur. But the violence in 2023, which killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands, was shocking for the sheer viciousness on display. Any effort to find explanations for this conflict only throws up more questions.
Why is there such anger in the people of the state? Is this a religious or an ethnic conflict? Why were the police and paramilitary forces – of which huge numbers are deployed in Manipur – unable to stop the violence? What role did chauvinist Meitei organisations like Arambai Tenggol play in the violence? Why did it take several months for India’s national leadership to break their silence on the issue? Is there a problem of illegal immigration into Manipur from Myanmar? Who are the KukiZo people? Are they to blame for the drug menace in the state, as claimed by the Meiteis? What have the state and central governments done to prevent drug trafficking in the region? Does anyone benefit from what is happening?
Anger Management: The Troubled Diplomatic Relationship between India and Pakistan, Ajay Bisaria
On August 7, 2019, High Commissioner Ajay Bisaria was expelled from Islamabad, the first time an Indian head of mission had been asked to leave by Pakistan. His expulsion marked yet another low in the troubled relationship between the two neighbours who had been born within a day of each other in 1947.
The latest diplomatic row followed the dismantling of Article 370 in the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir, but the hostility had been ratcheting up for a while, with the Pakistani terror attack in Pulwama, followed by the Indian airstrikes on terrorists in Balakot, and the grandstanding Pakistan engaged in over the return of a captured Indian Air Force pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman. This book looks in eye-opening detail at all these incidents that took place while the author was India’s top diplomat in Pakistan, including blunders by Imran Khan, the then Pakistani prime minister, and parleys engaged in by the powerful head of the Pakistani army, General Qamar Bajwa. He also describes his interactions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, and key members of the Indian establishment as they dealt with the multiple crises that took place during that time.
Varanasi: Reading a City, Vertul Singh
A kaleidoscopic view of Banaras, Varanasi charts a narrative that spans from the city’s present-day to its origins as Kashi, and the fin de siècle of the 18th, and 19th centuries, which witnessed Varanasi’s inclusionary development as a cultural and pilgrimage centre, an opulent trading hub, and a basilica of political power.
Weaving facts, interesting anecdotes and untold stories to make a rich tapestry, this book is an insider’s account and an unparalleled portrait of the city.
Gurkha Brotherhood: A Memoir of Childhood and War, Kailash Limbu
Considered to be among the finest infantrymen in the world, the Gurkhas are proud, brave warriors who have seen combat across the globe. In five tours of active service in Afghanistan that involved dangerous resupply missions and offensive patrols that took them to the heart of the “killing zone”, Captain Kailash Limbu and his men of the 2nd Battalion Royal Gurkha Rifles came under frequent attack from Taliban fighters. Captain Limbu lost several friends and colleagues from the close-knit Gurkha brotherhood, and on many occasions feared he would not live to see the end of the day. His means of coping with the trauma of conflict was to travel back to his childhood in a remote Himalayan village in Nepal. But even there, amid the simplicity of mountain life, danger and tragedy lurked.
An Uncommon Love: The Early Life of Sudha and Narayana Murthy, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Sudha Kulkarni was forging a career as TELCO’s first woman engineer when she met the serious, idealistic and brilliant Narayana Murthy, and they fell in love. For the first time comes the story of their early years – from their courtship to Infosys’s founding years, from their marriage to parenthood – told by novelist Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.
