Boo Aur Anya Kahaniyan [Bu and Other Stories]

‘If you find my stories obscene or filthy, then the society you are living in is obscene and dirty,’ once said Manto. While Manto was time and again accused of obscenity, his stories addressed several social issues. With his astute understanding of the complexity of human nature and his ability to write griping stories, Manto was considered one of the most powerful voices of his time. This collection brings together some of Manto's finest stories including 'Chor', 'Mausam ki Shararat' and 'Paseena'.

Satyajit Ray is well known for his contributions to Indian literature. His short stories often explore the macabre and the supernatural and are often marked by keen characterization. This collection brings together Ray’s best short stories - including such timeless gems as ‘Professor Hijibijbi’, ‘Ratan Babu aur Veh Admi’ and ‘Bhakt’. A collection of 12 short stories.

Meri Priya Kahaniyaan contains the favourite stories by the fierce and celebrated poet Amrita Pritam, selected by her. Amrita Pritam, the first female Punjabi poet, novelist, and essayist, and the leading voice of 20th-century Indian literature, was awarded Jnanpith in the year 1982. She authored more than a hundred compositions and has left a special mark in the stories, just like her poems, which are about female sexuality, self-realisation and the pain of loss at a time when women mostly wrote on conservative themes.

A young girl was forced to marry a widower of her father's age, who has three sons from his former wife. The plot unfolds to reveal her husband’s suspicion of a relationship between her and his eldest stepson, a suspicion that leads to the death of many family members and destroys the family. 

Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955) was an established Urdu short story writer and a rising screenwriter in Bombay at the time of India's partition in 1947, and he is perhaps best known for the short stories he wrote following his migration to Lahore in newly formed Pakistan. Ayesha Jalal draws on Manto's stories, sketches, and essays, as well as a trove of his private letters, to present an intimate history of partition and its devastating toll.

Through this book, Ruskin Bond helps listeners appreciate the small things in life. Not only does he know how to make us laugh but also knows how to laugh at himself. Bond himself weaves in and out of the this eclectic narrative that involves an old lady who climbs trees, clock towers, a cassowary bird, aunts, uncles, grandfathers, djinns, and ghosts.

In this sparkling collection of stories, India’s best-known writer addresses some pertinent questions: Why do we believe in miracles? Can a horoscope guarantee the perfect wife? Is the Kamasutra a useful manual for newlyweds? Margaret Bloom arrives in Haridwar from New York to save her soul. But she soon discovers that there are temptations even on the banks of the holy Ganga.

In the Republic of Vaishali - which comprises eight different states and is run by their elected representatives - lives the beautiful Ambapali. Considered to be the most beautiful woman in the whole republic, she is eventually forced to dedicate herself to the republic as a Nagarvadhu (literally, the wife of the city). She, however, demands various privileges in exchange for this and is granted all of them by the authorities, with the condition that she must fulfil her duties well.  

R.K. Narayan’s reputation as one of the founding figures of Indian writing in English is re-examined in this comprehensive study of his fiction, which offers detailed readings of all his novels. Arguing against views that have seen Narayan as a chronicler of “authentic” Indianness, John Thieme locates his fiction in terms of its specific South Indian contexts and cultural geography and its non-Indian intertexts.

In this audiobook, mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik explores the ancient Greek tales, opening us to a whole new world of stories. This audiobook toys with the idea of whether there was a connection between the Greek and Hindu mythologies. Could it have something to do with a common Indo-European root? Or were ideas exchanged when Greek emissaries travelled to the kingdoms of Mathura and Magadha?

Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl is one of the most memorable books in the face of the holocaust that Nazi Germany and its collaborators unleashed on European Jews between 1941 and 1945 across German-occupied Europe. Anne Frank was a German-born Jew hiding in Amsterdam with her family in 1942 when Nazis occupied Holland. She started keeping a diary in hiding - a diary she’d received for her 13th birthday from her parents.

The story of Yayati is perhaps one of the most intriguing and fascinating episodes of Mahabharata. Yayati was a great scholar and one of the noblest rulers of olden times. He followed the shastras and was devoted to the welfare of his subjects. Even the king of gods, Indra, held him in high esteem. Married to seductively beautiful Devyani, in love with her maid Sharmishtha, and father of five sons from two women, Yayati unabashedly declared, 'My lust for pleasure is unsatisfied'. His quest for the carnal continued.

Malgudi Ki Kahaniyan (Hindi) is a set of stories that are based in the fictional town of Malgudi. The town of Malgudi is a South Indian village created by the author and offers a valuable peek into the quality of rural life during the pre-independence era. The characters in these stories come from different walks of life, and each has a unique tale to tell. These stories have characters such as astrologers, postmen, doctors, beggars and priests. 

In 1707, when Emperor Aurangzeb went to his grave, the Mughal empire began to crack into a hundred fractured pieces. It was the lure of the Deccan that drained this conqueror’s energies, putting him on a course of collision with his most threatening adversaries. After all, the Deccan was a land that inspired wonder. Its treasures were legendary, and its kings magnificent. It was a horizon of rousing adventure, attracting talent from beyond oceans.

It is an irony of fate that despite being an extremely important and immortal character in the saga of Mahabharata, Ashwatthama has always been neglected. There are other characters in puranic literature, including Ashwatthama, who are considered immortal. But where other characters have received immortality in the form of a boon, Ashwatthama received in the form of a curse!