Five unpublished creations of the acclaimed maestro Satyajit Ray will be brought to light next year by […]
Author: Mitali Chakravarty
By some existential quirk of fate it seemed I owed him money. Owed Kasim that is. Yes, deep down within I always felt I owed him money. I did not remember from when, or even how. Did I run up some losses for him in business? Did I take something precious from him that had to be paid for? I did not know then. I do not know now. But I felt then as I feel now, I owed him.
Kasim was generous. He never insisted that I pay. Not that he did mind when I did. In fact, he had a shrewd mind. He knew I would pay. When you owe someone money, and you are the decent sort, you do pay, don’t you? Kasim knew that. So he made it seem like he never really had his mind on the money. Why bring in money matters when you don’t need to? Well, in any case I paid him regularly. Somehow, the debt never seemed to get repaid. There was no cut-off date in our contract, it seemed.
By Neera Kashyap
Title: Lion Cross Point
Author: Masatsugu Ono
Translated by: Angus Turvil
Lion Cross Point by Masatsugu Ono has been recognised as a lyrical and a psychologically astute novel, lucid but spare, haunting with a tangible evocation of mystery. It has been beautifully captured in translation from Japanese by Angus Turvill, an award-winning translator.
Masatsugu Ono himself is the recipient of the Asahi Award for New Writers, the Mishima Yukio Prize and the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s highest literary honour. Born in 1970 and having first published at the beginning of this century, Ono’s work belongs to the post-Murakami period, strongly marked by the seriousness of modern Japan’s literary tradition.
Lion Cross Point portrays the mind of ten-year-old Takeru, who arrives in his village to live in his mother’s home by the sea. He is haunted by memories of unspeakable atrocities committed against his mother, his older brother and himself in distant Tokyo. As Takeru is befriended by Mitsuko, his new caretaker; by Saki, his spunky neighbour and by Ken Shiomi, his mother’s childhood friend, he discovers his mother’s history and moves inch by inch from the palpable and submerged layers of trauma to a new idea of family and home. The book emphasises the fact that memories and dreams are not individual aspects of one’s personality, but shared by the community and the environment, making it possible to heal through others, and through the forces of dreams and the seascapes that imbue them all. The boy returns to his mother’s roots to find catharsis and truth in a setting by the sea.
By Lwin Mar Htun ( The Irrawady)
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, the globally popular romance novel set in Myanmar by German author Jan-Philipp Sendker, is to be made into a movie with shooting scheduled to start next year.
Published in 2002, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats was the first book by the author. It was the beginning of a series, with the second book, Well Tempered Heart, released in 2012.
The novels have proven successful not only in Myanmar but worldwide, being translated into 35 languages including Burmese. They are set in Myanmar’s popular tourist destination, the hill town of Kalaw in Shan State.
The main producer of the film is Danny Krausz of Austria’s DOR Film, with Germany’s Detlev Buck set to direct.
“Currently, they are casting the actors in Thailand, [Myanmar] and other countries. I and other [crew] members went to Kalaw last month for location scouting,” Sendker told The Irrawaddy.
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats is a romance mystery novel set in Kalaw featuring Burmese characters. Young lawyer Julia Win seeks to track down her father four years after he disappeared in Myanmar. She meets U Ba, a mysterious man who knows many things about Julia through her father. U Ba tells the story of her father’s first 20 years of life—a mystery love story about which her family knew nothing.
Prior to writing the novel, Sendker traveled to Myanmar many times starting in 1995.
(Continue reading in The Irrawady)
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Title — Summer Holidays
Publisher — Rupa
Price — Rs. 295/-
Amazon link: https://www.amazon.in/Summer-Holidays-Koral-Dasgupta/dp/9353333768/
It was Mira’s first day at IIT Bombay. They both had to rush. Rishi packed his bag and hers, dropping a set of duplicate keys into her bag before they left.
‘You know how Kohli sends the ball soaring towards the boundary?’ Rishi asked as they rode his bike. ‘He stands erect as the ball comes from the front and swerves it towards the left like this.’ As they approached a crossing, the red lights turned green and Rishi took a sharp turn towards the left, emulating the skipper’s bat.
‘Are you mad?’ Mira cried. ‘If you get caught by the traffic police, the BCCI won’t be impressed.’
Rishi drove past the khaki-clad policeman standing a few metres away, writing something in a small pad in his hand. ‘…And here’s the end of another over.’ He stopped abruptly at the red signal, and his sister pushed him from behind, irritated.
Aditya Shankar is an Indian poet, flash fiction author, and translator. His poems, fiction, and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in the Moon Park Review, The Ghost Parachute, Indian Literature, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Little Magazine, The Ghost Parachute, Canada Quarterly, Chandrabhanga, Asiawrites, The Four Quarters Magazine, Muse India, Anti Heroin Chic, Dissident Voice, Cliterature and elsewhere. His published books of poetry are After Seeing (2006) and Party Poopers (2014). He lives in Bangalore, India.
By Rajat Chaudhuri
“Anything conceivable I believe is possible.”
— Black to the Future, Walter Mosley (Dark Matter)
A sorcerer-librarian in ancient Korea who transforms people into books locking them up in his shelves for ever, a far-future civilisation on the planet Ruo, remembering their ancestors in the drowned world of BlueGemm — finished off by greed and climate change, a time travelling ghost in Hong Kong disconcerted by the rules of afterlife.
These are just a few of the characters and situations that we present before you dear reader in this book of amazing tales — stories from Asia, a continent blessed with mindboggling creativity and chutzpah, zen and brio, or what they sometimes call the Asiatic imagination, which is born of course out of its chequered fabric, the diversity of its peoples, the textures of our histories. Asia, a multitudinous hundred-headed medley of contemplativeness and chaos, a mélange of landforms, a kedgeree of ideas, a crucible of cultures, and you get it all here in this book, served fresh, sizzling, wok-fried and ready to tease your taste buds.
By Dr Usha Bande
Title: Be Present in Every Moment: Life Lessons from Moinuddin Chishti
Edited by Babli Praveen.
Aleph, 2018.
Moinuddin Chishti is a familiar and revered name across religious faiths. This Sufi saint, originally from Central Asia, made India his home; served the needy and the poor for more than five decades and became one of the venerated figures of the subcontinent. Be Present in Every Moment has selected nuggets from Moinuddin Chishti’s preaching translated into English. The slim volume is full of everyday wisdom and imparts practical knowledge to help enhance our potential for happiness through tolerance and peaceful co-existence.
The editor, Babli Praveen, who teaches at Delhi University, specializes in Medieval Indian History and has researched on Sufi saints and Sufism in South Asia. The book, published by Aleph under their “Life Lessons” series, is a handy compilation of the great Master’s penetrating yet straightforward teachings that emphasize renunciation, tolerance, generosity and spiritual transformation.
The organization of the book is simple; the introduction gives relevant biographical information about Chishti; it is followed by his teachings arranged thematically. This allows the reader easy access to the key issues highlighted by his insights on the oneness of being, personal piety, music, charity, compassion and spiritual cleanliness.
Hazrat Sheikh Khwaja Syed Moinuddin Hasan Chishti, commonly referred to as Khwaja (sufi teacher) was a mystic, scholar, philosopher and poet known for introducing and establishing the Chishti order in India. Born to Khwaja Ghiyasuddin Hasan and mother Syeda Bibi, in 1142 CE, Moinuddin was an heir to the spiritual legacy of his parents’ lineage. Even at a very young age Moinuddin showed spiritual inclinations.
By Mitali Chakravarty
Labli was woken up by the dawn chorus. It was hard not to smile at the chirping of the sweet birds. She grabbed her long scarf from the foot of the bed and threw it over her head. Brushing back a loose strand of black hair from her forehead, she opened the door quietly so as not to disturb her younger brother, Joynal. He still had a few hours of sleep before waking up to go to school.The door squeaked as she pulled it shut behind her.
Labli looked down at her red shalwar kameez and tried to brush out the creases. It didn’t look as rumpled as it had before. Anyway, it would have to do; her only other set was still drying in the kitchen after yesterday’s thunderstorm.
As she felt her way along the cold, dark hallway, she noticed her parents’ bedroom door was ajar. Her mother was stirring on the bed; her father’s place was empty. Labli unlocked the front door and made her way to the tube well at the bottom of the veranda steps. The air was crisp and cool. Doel birds flapped overhead and one landed in one of the betel palm trees, lifting its white tail as it whistled. The Adhan, the call to prayer, blared out over the masjid’s loudspeakers. She filled up a plastic jug with water and made ablution. After praying the four units of the dawn prayer, she collected firewood from around the courtyard and milked the cow. She had just lit the fire when her mother walked into the kitchen.
