Namita Gokhale Libros

A story about the happenings at the Jaipur Literary Festival and the millions of aspiring writers who inhabit literary festivals.

Before Mother Left, In A Long-Ago Time, We Had Been Very Rich&. My Grandmother Had Been A Great Singer, A Kothewali Whose Voice Was More Liquid And Beautiful Than Lata Mangeshkar S. Eleven Nawabs And Two Englishmen Were Besotted With Love Of Her&. From These Great Heights Gudiya S World Plunges Into The Depths Of Almost Complete Penury When She Arrives In Delhi With Her Ancient Grandmother, Ammi, Fleeing Small-Town Scandal And Disgrace. Just When All Seems Lost, Ammi Works A Miracle: A Slab Of Green Marble Stolen From A Building Site, And Five Rounded Pebbles From A Sahib'S Garden, Are Transformed By The Power Of Her Singing Voice Into An Inviolable Place Of Worship. From Here On, Gudiya S Life Takes On An Extraordinary Momentum Of Its Own. Ammi Dies A Small-Time Saint, Pandit Kailash Nath Shastri Predicts A Future Of Impossible Luck, The Irrepressible Phoolwati Becomes An Unlikely Guardian, And The Inhumanly Handsome Kalki Rides In On His White Horse And Steals Her Heart. As We Follow The Twists And Turns Of Gudiya S Story, We See Unfold Before Us The Peculiar Dance Of Chance And Will That Is Human Existence.

The stories herein are as varied as the flora and fauna of the mountains.

'I am the rakshasa Ghatotkacha, born of the Lord Bhimasena and the lady Hidimba. I rule over hill and vale, wood and stream, protecting the spirit of the forest and all who live in it.' Young Chintamani Dev Gupta, on holiday in a bird camp near Lake Sattal, is transported via a wormhole to the days of the Mahabharata. Trapped in time, he meets Ghatotkacha and his mother, the demoness Hidimba. But the gentle giant, a master of illusion and mind-boggling rakshasa technology, wields his strength just as well as he knows the age-old secrets of the forest and the elemental forces. And in his enlightening company, Chintamani finds himself in the thick of the events of the most enduring Indian epic. An intense yet tender look at a rare friendship as well as the abiding puzzles of the past, this is a fascinating read.

I t is best, in one's sojourns across the Himalaya, to be cautious in chance encounters, for one could well encounter a saint, a siddha, a madman or a charlatan. Mystics and Sceptics, edited by Namita Gokhale, comprises essays on all of these.