On the shelf: Books you would love to read

A Suitable Boy: 30th Anniversary Edition

Vikram Seth

Speaking Tiger

Pp 1,584, Rs1,799

First published in 1993, A Suitable Boy has sold millions of copies worldwide and has been universally praised for its intricate exploration of love and politics in a newly independent India. To mark its 30th anniversary, Speaking Tiger Books has released a limited edition. Available for the first time in India as a three-volume box set, the special edition features an elegantly designed box with the title calligraphy by Vikram Seth himself and will help readers rediscover the effortless magic and deep humanity of his storytelling.

Centres of Power

Chinmaya R Gharekhan

Rupa Publications

Pp 336, Rs795

From advising two Indian PMs —Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi—on sensitive matters of state to negotiating complex global agreements at the United Nations, Chinmaya R Gharekhan offers a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of international politics. With humour and candour, the book recounts the challenges and triumphs of a career spent navigating the intricacies of diplomacy.

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NTR

Ramachandra Murthy Kondubhatia

HarperCollins

Pp 408, Rs699

In the year of NT Rama Rao’s birth centenary in 2023, this is a comprehensive political biography that traces his journey from a remote Andhra village to the forefront of the national stage via a thriving career in Telugu films. NTR, as he was popularly known, had an extraordinary ability to galvanise the masses, as much to watch his films as to support the party he founded—the Telugu Desam.

Indian Ideas of Freedom

Dennis Dalton

HarperCollins

Pp 537, Rs699

Indian Ideas of Freedom is an illuminating study of the lens through which freedom was perceived by thinkers such as Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghose, Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, BR Ambedkar, MN Roy and Jayaprakash Narayan. It examines how, for this ‘group of seven’, the pursuit of freedom was both individual and political; how their ideas and arguments were far from imitative.

Entering the Maze

Translated by Niladri R Chatterjee

Niyogi Books

Pp 176, Rs350

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Krishnagopal Mallick’s works transport the reader back to a nostalgic time when Kolkata had a more relaxed pace of life. His unselfconscious prose pulls us into a city of trams, quiet lanes and quaint by-lanes, and a life lived with honesty and simple joys. Entering the Maze introduces us to a craftsman of deadpan storytelling, who infuses north Kolkata with a queer radiance unmatched in Indian writing.

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