Indians

Looks like desi whodunits have finally found a clue. Madhulika Liddle, who is working on stories featuring detective Muzaffar Jang of The Englishman’s Cameo, recommends research. “Since my focus is on historical crime fiction, I can’t afford to get my facts wrong. I also spend a lot of time exploring the area I’m writing about on foot.”

Random House and HarperCollins seem to be on the same page where sleuths are concerned; the former with The Imran Series: The House of Fear — Ibn-e-Safi (English), the latter with Ibn-e-Safi: Jasoosi Duniya (Hindi).

Other partners in crime are Manisha Lakhe’s The Betelnut Killers (Random House), Kalpana Swaminathan’s Monochrome Madonna (Penguin), and Smita Jain’s Piggies On The Railway (Westland).

Ramachandra Guha assembles The Makers Of Modern India (Penguin). HarperCollins brings out India Under Siege (Neelesh Mishra and Rahul Pandita). Mother Pious Lady: Making Sense Of Everyday India (Santosh Desai), and Dragon On The Prowl: India’s China Problem (Brahma Chellaney), joined by Penguin’s The Red Elephant: The Story Of India And China (Raghav Bahl).

Shashi Deshpande, who translates Marathi novel Nirgathi by Gauri Deshpande, says: “I have done one translation from Kannada and with this one, I will have translated books from both my languages.”

Picador brings us the Evidence Of Suspicion, which is A Writer’s Report On The War On Terror by Amitava Kumar and Tale Telling by Amit Chaudhuri.
Prerna Bindra heeds Voices In The Wilderness (Rupa) while Vikram Sampath strikes the right note with a book on Gauhar Jaan, India’s first classical musician to record on gramophone: “Gauhar had achieved unprecedented popularity nationally and internationally. But she lost all her wealth and was then sheltered in Mysore where she died in 1930. After innumerable trips to Kolkata, Rampur, Darbhanga, Banaras, Mumbai and other places that Gauhar had lived in, I somehow managed to piece together her story.”

More politicians pick up the pen. Somnath Chatterjee’s Memoirs Of A Parliamentarian (HarperCollins) lines up alongside Penguin candidates APJ Abdul Kalam and YS Rajan’s The Scientific Indian: A Twenty-first Century Guide To The World Around Us, Pavan K Varma’s Becoming Indian: Free India’s Unfinished Revolution, Shashi Tharoor’s India A-Z with illustrations by RK Laxman, Manvendra Singh’s Campaign Diary and Nayantara Sahgal’s Nehru’s Vision And India’s Place in the World.

Rupa’s Encyclopedia Of Hinduism on Sanatana Dharma, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism spans 11 volumes and Arjun Shekhar explores A Flawed God (Hachette). Ganesh Scripture by Alice Albinia and Devdutt Pattanaik’s Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling Of The Mahabharata (Penguin) show the Mahabharata effect while Ashok Banker returns to the scriptures with The Valmiki Syndrome (Random House) and Vengeance of Ravan (Penguin).

Susan Visvanathan says about her book on Ramana Maharashi, The Children of Nature: Sacred Manifestation And Popular Culture In Tiruvannamalai, South India (Roli): “It is about Ramana Maharshi and a history of the ashram, it’s visitors, and my own recovery from multiple sclerosis through meditation and sharing in the community life.”

HarperCollins doubles its divinity dose with Mother Teresa: Something Beautiful For God by Malcolm Muggeridge and Mother Teresa: Faith In The Darkness by Greg Watts. Rohini Gupta’s Mantramala: Mantras To Live By will aid the layperson choose mantras while Mukanda Rao’s In Search Of Shiva is about Bhakti saints Basveshvara, Allama Prabhu and Akka Mahadevi (Dronequill).

Stardust Papers by Omar Qureshi (Random House) sprinkles masala while Biddu gets autobiographical with Made In India (HarperCollins) even as Bhanu Athaiya comes across all sartorial while Dressing The Stars (HarperCollins). Anupama Chopra jots down Bollywood Musings (Penguin), Omkar Sane scripts Coming Soon, The End (Westland) as Meghnad Desai zooms in on Pakeezah (HarperCollins).

Jerry Rao takes stock with Notes From An Indian Conservative (Rupa) as does Kiran Karnik with Coalition Of Competitors: Nasscom And Indian IT (HarperCollins) while Azim Premji prefers Connecting The Dots (Penguin). Vijay Nair warns The Boss Is Not Your Friend (Hachette) while R Gopalakrishnan mulls Why The Penny Drops Only At Fifty (Penguin).

Penguin will drive Nano-vation: How A Little Car Can Teach The World To Think Big by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg, Brand Tata by Morgan Witzel, and The TCS Story And Beyond by S Ramadorai, leaving Fabulous: The Story Of Fabindia by Radhika Singh to dress for the occasion.

Amar Chitra Katha editor Reena Puri is gung-ho about tales for tots. “We will release the best stories from Indian history, mythology and literature as also from around the world in comics and picture-books.” Waiting in the wings are Epics & Mythologies Collection, Tinkle collections, and ACK Junior.
Puffin will launch Mission Moon by SK Das with Ruskin Bond’s Mr Oliver’s Diary, Leila Seth’s We The People andSubroto Bagchi’s I Did My MBA At 16 as Monideepa Sahu solves The Riddle Of The Seventh Stone (Young Zubaan).

Samhita Arni, whose Mahabharata: A Child’s View was published when she was 12, sums up: “The problem is that many authors and publishers anticipate parents buying books for children that fit into their notions of what children’s fiction should be. We must be more adventurous.”