Unbreakable

Currently ranked world number one in women's doubles, Sania Mirza became an instant sensation when she won the Wimbledon Championships girls' doubles title at the age of 16. From 2003 until her retirement from the singles circuit in 2012, she was ranked by the Women's Tennis Association as India's top player, both in singles and doubles. A six-time Grand Slam champion, she notched up an incredible 41 consecutive wins with her doubles partner, Martina Hingis, between August 2015 and February 2016.

Mani Ratnam’s Nayakan is among Time’s "100 Best Movies Ever", and his Roja launched A.R. Rahman. For the first time ever, Mani Ratnam opens up here, to Baradwaj Rangan, in a series of freewheeling conversations - candid, witty, pensive, and sometimes combative - and looks back at these and 19 other masterly films. With Rangan’s personal and impassioned introduction setting the Tamil and national context of the films, Conversations is a treat for serious lovers of cinema as well as the casual moviegoer looking for a peek behind the process. 

Kautilya, also known as Chanakya and Vishnugupta, wrote the Arthashastra not later than AD 150, though the date has not been conclusively established. Legend has it that he was either a Brahmin from Kerala or from north India; however, it is certain that Kautilya was the man who destroyed the Nanda dynasty and installed Chandragupta Maurya as the King of Magadha. A master strategist who was well-versed in the Vedas and adept at creating intrigues and devising political stratagems, Kautilya's genius is reflected in his Arthashastra.

Mahatma Gandhi is the most influential Indian of the 20th century, whose shadow continues to loom large over the country even 60 years after his death. He struggled and dreamt of an India free not only from the yoke of the British rule but also from the evils of poverty, illiteracy and un-touchability, with all its citizens enjoying equally the fruits of freedom and prosperity. This book offers a fascinating peek into the mind and ideas of Gandhi and his dream for a vibrant and prosperous modern India.

Milkha Singh has led a life dominated by running, running, running....from a boy who narrowly escaped death during Partition (most of his family was not so lucky) to a juvenile delinquent who stole and outran the police to a young army recruit who ran his very first race to win special privileges for himself (a daily glass of milk). After that first race, Milkha Singh became an athlete by default. And what followed was the stuff legends are made of.

Malala Hoon Main tells the story of Malala Yousafzai, a student in Pakistan. She is a well-known activist, and her fight for women’s right to education, particularly in Swat Valley, has granted her global recognition. The Taliban, who were in power here, forbid girls from attending school. On October 9, 2012, she was shot in the head by a gunman but survived. This attempted assassination sparked an outpouring of national and international support for Yousafzai.

Karan Johar is synonymous with success, panache, quick wit, and outspokenness, which sometimes inadvertently creates controversy and makes headlines. KJo, as he is popularly called, has been a much-loved Bollywood film director, producer, actor, and discoverer of new talent. But who is the man behind the icon we all know? Honest, heart-warming and insightful, An Unsuitable Boy is both the story of the life of an exceptional filmmaker at the peak of his powers and of an equally extraordinary human being who shows you how to survive and succeed in life. 

In this brilliantly listenable autobiography, one of India’s greatest writers shows us the roots of everything he has written. He begins with a dream and a gentle haunting before taking us to an idyllic childhood in Jamnagar by the Arabian Sea and New Delhi in the early 1940s - where he found material for his first short story. A search for companionship and security, undercut by a fierce independence and a tendency for risk-taking, would inform every choice he made for the rest of his life.  

For the average Indian, Japan is the land of the bullet train, zippy cars, and geishas, and also hard to understand. However, what appears to be opaque and insular to the world outside turns out to be a society that is friendly, intimate and closely knit when you get to know it better.

 Talkhiyan literally means ‘bitterness’ and was written in the poet’s student days. He discovered his unique style of expression by weaving his poetry with shades of bitterness that captured the decadence of the contemporary world. His romanticism was not in praising beauty or the consuming passion of love, but in sensitively urging the reader to empathise with other challenges of the world. His heart went out to the suffering of people in war, debt, poverty, homelessness, political conflict and gender inequality.  

On 17 June, 2015, Chandra Shekhar Ghosh stepped out of the Reserve Bank of India building in Mumbai with the much-coveted banking licence, beating some of the country's top corporate houses. This moment compensated for all the frustrations that had come along the way. A year later, Bandhan Bank was launched with 6.7 million small borrowers. So, how did Ghosh build India's biggest MFI from scratch and then, along with his team, transform it into a universal bank? Bandhan: The Making of a Bank chronicles that journey.

The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results is a 2013 book written by authors Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. The book, The One Thing, explains how the habit to succeed can be incorporated in our life to overcome the hurdles like the lies that will block our success, the thieves that will steal our time and increase our concentration in the purpose, the way we prioritize and the productivity of our business. The book comes in handy for people involved in business and helps them increase the efficiency of their work and remove hindering factors.

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.

Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was one of the most remarkable figures in the 20th century. Born an Untouchable - the lowest element of Indian society deemed to be outside the caste system, and literally 'untouchable' - he rose from abject village poverty to become the architect of the new Constitution of India following its independence from Britain in 1947. A combination of exceptional talent, hard work and determination, vision and luck took him to Harvard and the LSE, and then back to his home country.

When P.V. Narasimha Rao became the unlikely prime minister of India in 1991, he inherited a nation adrift, violent insurgencies, and economic crisis. Despite being unloved by his people, mistrusted by his party, and ruling under the shadow of 10 Janpath, Rao transformed the economy and ushered India into the global arena. With exclusive access to Rao’s never-before-seen personal papers and diaries, this definitive biography provides new revelations on the Indian economy, nuclear program, and foreign policy and the Babri Masjid.