Hello Bastar: The Untold Story Of India’s Maoist Movement, Rahul Pandita

Hello Bastar provides an authoritative account of how a handful of men and women, who believed in the idea of revolution, entered Bastar in Central India in 1980 and created a powerful movement that New Delhi now terms as India’s biggest internal security threat. The book traces the circumstances due to which the Maoist movement entrenched itself in about 10 states of India, carrying out deadly attacks against the Indian establishment in the name of the poor and the marginalised.

The book also offers rare insight into the lives of Maoist guerillas and also of the Adivasi tribal groups living in the Red zone. Based on extensive on-ground reportage and exhaustive interviews with Maoist leaders including their supreme commander Ganapathi, Kobad Ghandy and others who are jailed or have been killed in police encounters, Hello Bastar is a combination of firsthand storytelling and intrepid analysis.

28 Jobs, 28 Weeks, 28 States, Jubanashwa Mishra

At age 28, when most people are expected to settle down or risk disaster, Jubanashwa Mishra decided on an extraordinary adventure. Over the next 28 weeks, he travelled to 28 states of India – by train, bus, shared taxi, airplane, bike, boat, and on foot – spending a week at a different job in each state.

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This memoir-cum-travelogue draws upon that 25,000-kilometre journey. We follow Mishra and discover what it takes to manage a small hotel in Udaipur; clean hillsides in Dharamshala; cremate dead bodies on the ghats of Varanasi; sell condoms in Bihar’s villages, and peanuts on Chennai’s Marina beach; help a caregiver looking after HIV positive patients in Shillong; go river-rafting in Jammu and Kashmir; and assist a tattoo artist in Goa and a motorbike mechanic in Aizawl.

In between, there are memorable encounters with Buddhist monks, Aghori sadhus, Naxalites, Bollywood publicists, drug dealers and aged hippies – and a brief reunion with lost love.

The Sex Book: A Joyful Journey of Self-Discovery, Leeza Mangaldas

In The Sex Book, sex educator Leeza Mangaldas offers scientifically oriented, judgement-free answers to all the awkward questions about sex and the body. From anatomy to hygiene, from consent to contraception, from masturbation to orgasms, the books fills many knowledge gaps with sharp insights of the author who has been researching the physical, social and emotional aspects of sex and sexuality.

Cubbon Park: The Green Heart of Bengaluru, Roopa Pai

Over 150 years ago, in 1870, a public park was inaugurated in Bangalore. Designed by British engineer Richard Sankey, it spread over 100 acres and encompassed features typical to the city – granite outcrops, lush greenery, wide avenues and government buildings. Originally named Meade’s Park, it has been known to generations of Bangaloreans as Cubbon Park – sanctuary, lung space, thoroughfare, battlefield, picnic spot, repository of urban biodiversity, and public park.

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In a first of its kind book about Cubbon Park, a true-blue Bangalorean attempts to decode the enduring appeal of the Park. Historical sketches trace the story of not just Cubbon Park, but that of Mysore state and the city itself. Her conversations with Bangaloreans of today show the Park in all its contested glory and the citizen activists who tirelessly protect it.

Degh to Dastarkhwan: Qissas and Recipes from Rampur Cuisine, Tarana Husain Khan

The author was an indifferent eater and an unenthusiastic cook until a chance encounter with a 19th century Persian cookbook in Rampur’s fabled Raza Library started her off on a journey into the history of Rampur cuisine and the stories around it.

Part food memoir and part celebration of a cuisine, Degh to Dastarkhwan answers the question – ‘What constitutes and distinguishes Rampur cuisine?’ Each chapter represents an emotion, an observance, or a celebration. The spread of Rampuri food from the grand royal cuisine to the simple daily fare becomes the arena to express love, loss, forgiveness and spirituality. Peopled with compelling characters from all walks of life, the book includes recollections of a princess to the spiritual ambience of a Sufi shrine, with stories of khansamas, weddings, and funerals.

Kishore Kumar: The Ultimate Biography, Anirudha Bhattacharjee and Parthiv Dhar

This is the story of the voice of a generation and a legend – Kishore Kumar. Beginning with his time spent in Khandwa, Bhagalpur and Indore and going on to Bombay where Kishore moved to try his luck in cinema, this new biography by Parthiv Dhar and Anirudha Bhattacharjee tells it all.

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Produced after more than thirty years of research, the biography goes beyond Kishore’s nearly three thousand songs and his varied contributions to cinema, and reveals unknown facts about his four marriages, his run-ins with the government in the 1970s, and his health issues. Kishore Kumar celebrates the music, the films and the genius of Kishore in the most definitive way for a new generation of readers.

The Dismantling of India in 35 Portraits, TJS George, illustrated by Tapas Ranjan and Soumydip Sinha

In October 1947, two months after Independence, TJS George arrived in Bombay. He was nineteen years old, with a degree in English Literature. He sent out job applications – to the Air Force and to the city’s English-language newspapers. Only one organisation cared to reply, The Free Press Journal. The editor was known to hire anyone who asked for a job, but most new hires were sacked in a fortnight.

George was put on the news desk as a sub-editor and eventually became an assistant editor. In Patna, as editor of The Searchlight, he was arrested by the chief minister for sedition. He spent three weeks in Hazaribagh Central Jail. In Hong Kong, he worked for the Far Eastern Economic Review as regional editor; in New York he was a writer for the United Nations population division; and, back in Hong Kong, in 1975, he founded Asiaweek. Six years later, he returned to India and settled in Bangalore.

He began a column for Indian Express that ran without a break for twenty-five years, until 2022. His seventy-five years of journalism, concurrent with India’s development as an independent nation, make for a unique understanding of events and personalities. The Dismantling of India is the story of India told in 35 concise biographies, beginning with Jamsetji Tata and ending with Narendra Modi.