Second paragraph of third chapter:

একদিন আমার সামনেই আমার মেজো জা হাসতে হাসতে আমার স্বামীকে বললেন, ভাই ঠাকুরপো, তোমাদের এ বাড়িতে এতদিন বরাবর মেয়েরাই কেঁদে এসেছে, এইবার পুরুষদের পালা এল, এখন থেকে আমরাই কাঁদাব। কী বল ভাই ছোটোরানী? রণবেশ তো পরেছ, রণরঙ্গিণী, এবার পুরুষের বুকে কষে হানো শেল।
One day my sister-in-law remarked to my husband: “Up to now ( Read more... )

Gandhi won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1982, and also seven others, Best Director (Richard Attenborough), Best Actor (Ben Kingsley in the title role), Best Original Screenplay (John Briley), Best Art Direction (beating Blade Runner, that year's Hugo winner), Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design and Best Editing. So far only Gigi (9), West ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:"Splendid!" Perveen clapped. Alice was just the remedy she needed for her dark mood.
First in a series of mystery novels set in 1920s Bombay, featuring a Parsi woman lawyer as the protagonist. I wasn't hugely impressed. The actual murder doesn't happen until almost half way into the book, and I was thoroughly ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:He slumped back in his chair, yawning. His eyes began to glaze over at the thought of the steaming cup of sweet, dark tea that was waiting for him at the neon-lit doughnut shop in Penn Station; of the other regulars who occasionally dropped by to sit around the plastic-topped table-the Sudanese bankteller, the well ( Read more... )

Sultana's Dream, by Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain

Second paragraph:

All on a sudden a lady stood before me; how she came in, I do not know. I took her for my friend, Sister Sara.
সহসা আমার পার্শ্বে একটি ইউরোপীয় রমণীকে দণ্ডায়মানা দেখিয়া বিস্মিত হইলাম। তিনি কী প্রকারে আসিলেন, বুঝিতে পারিলাম না। তাঁহাকে আমার পরিচিতা ‘ভগিনী সারা’।

I spotted this ( Read more... )

This is hilarious and amazing. Thank you so much to rmc28 for passing it on to me. It's the story of a young woman whose political grandmother summons her back to their home town and makes her the election candidate for India's traditional party of power; meanwhile the opposition have recruited as their candidate the chap who she always used to fancy. I ( Read more... )

I had been disappointed with the first book I had read about India by Dalrymple, but this is a much more interesting historical narrative about the war of 1857. Dalrymple has two main characters in his tale: the eponymous last Moghul Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, who unintentionally found himself at the head of an anti-colonial movement that shook ( Read more... )

A very readable account of the British withdrawal from India, largely from the point of view of Dickie and Edwina Mountbatten, whose papers are used extensively, though with some effort also made to include the roles of the other key political players. On Lord Mountbatten's responsibility for the horrors of partition, I found it was a useful ( Read more... )

A solid tale of the life of Gogol Ganguli, born in Boston to Bengali parents in the late 1960s, coming to terms with America and his Indian background. I enjoyed it a lot; it's basically an account of a complex love life against a complex cultural background, and Lahiri caught me out with a couple of the plot develoments. Recommended.

I've been working my way through various works of Asian religion recently (see my takes on The Koran and Ta Hsüeh and Chung Yung from last year). The Mahābhārata is much more accessible than the other two, though also much much longer - the Penguin edition is 800 pages, and that is with two thirds of the text brutally summarized. Of course, it ( Read more... )