E-Paper
HT Picks; New Reads
This week’s reading list includes a book on the Sindhi experience of Partition, recovery and rebuilding, a collection of short fiction about the mundane aspects of life, and stories from Hindu traditions that deal with pain and loss
Personal accounts of sudden trauma
Sindh 1947.
Sometimes, terrible things happen. This book tells the story of a people who faced their misfortunes with bravery and creative enterprise. It is a collection of true personal accounts of sudden trauma, followed by a process of recovery, exploration and rebuilding.
For a people who lost their homeland – and realised, much later, that the loss had also cost them their language and their culture – this book forms a repository of precious memories supplemented by historically-authentic illustrations and rare archival photographs.*
On the mundane aspects of everyday life
The Greatest Enemy of Rain presents 14 memorable short stories about the mundane and mysterious aspects of everyday life of the eccentric and oddball characters that occupy its pages. These unforgettable men and women grapple with questions of life and death, newfound freedoms, lifelong vendettas, love and longing, and memories of days gone by.
In The Greatest Enemy of Rain, Gopi recounts the ups and downs of his lifelong quest to outsmart a formidable enemy — the persistent Kerala rain. In the ancient India of These New Fangled Ways, Mista decides to do what no one has done until then — cooking over fire — even as her parents swoon and faint in the background. In Shabari and Anita, a couple eschews the humdrum activity of daily life to pursue new trends in men’s fashion and beauty at their shiny new salon. The Answer is a befitting response to the epic highs and lows of a supercomputer tasked with proving the existence of God.
Written with Manu Bhattathiri’s characteristic wit and humour, The Greatest Enemy of Rain is a breezy exploration of the peculiarities of human nature.*
Lessons from our gurus
Those of us who have not had to face death, hardship and tragedy in our lives are indeed fortunate. We have all experienced hard times. We have all had to struggle through pain and grief. How did India’s great spiritual teachers talk about these moments? What stories did they tell their followers to console them?
In this beautiful book, Renuka Narayanan selects some of India’s most compelling stories that deal with the subject, from the Jataka Tales and Sri Ramakrishna’s parables to the retelling of the lives of our saints like Surdas and Tukaram.
Wise and moving, Learning from Loss will be your trusted companion through the ups and downs of your life.
*All copy from book flap.
