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The years leading up to the Independence and accompanying Partition of India mark a tumultuous period in the history of Bengal. Representing both, a major front in the Indian struggle against Colonial rule, as well as a crucial Allied outpost in the British and American war against Japan, Bengal stood at the crossroads of complex and contentious structural forces, both domestic and international. These together defined an era of political uncertainty, social turmoil and collective violence. In particular, there are three major crises that shaped the social, economic and political context of pre-partition Bengal: WWII, the Bengal famine of 1943, and the Calcutta riots of 1946. This book examines these intricately interconnected events, foregrounding the political economy of war and famine in order to analyse the complex nexus of hunger, war and civil violence in Colonial Bengal at the twilight of British rule.

Beyond the Clouds is a threshold to wisdom and delight, excellence and grandeur. The author in his extra-ordinary attempt has eloquently described the spirit of life ethos, its soaring vistas and transdental spirit of goodness. It is a sensitive and beautiful perspective reminiscent of ancient songs. The poet speaks for birds, flowers, clouds, mist, sighs and candles. The poem A Bird and a Spring reminds us of the cycle of joys and miseries. In the Autumn, the poet finds the nature fascinating. 

Essential. Evocative. Addictive. The experience of food can mean many things to many people. Whether it’s carrying a chilli around to dinner parties in the UK or finding out what it really means to be a vegetarian in a carnivorous world, whether it’s exploring the junk food revolution in India or discovering the art of slow cooking, this full-bodied collection of food writing will take you back to the kitchens of your childhood, and far out to realms of imagined flavours and sensory excitement.

A joyous mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar, the home-grown and the street-born, Chillies and Porridge is a celebration of that most vital ingredient of life: Food.

Malcolm MacDonald’s description of the bird which appears on the cover of this book is fresh and arresting. These qualities mark his accounts of Delhi’s birds in Birds in My Indian Garden, and made it an instant classic when it was first published. Readers will learn about the drama of the lives of the city’s avian residents and visitors — their quirky courtship and mating rituals, the industriousness and skill with which they build their nests, the hatching and training of their young, their desperate efforts to fend off ruthless predators who hunt their eggs and hatchlings, and much more. The numerous birds described include mynahs, flycatchers, drongos, white-eyes, hoopoes, sunbirds, shikras, crows, sparrows, kites and koels; all of them come gloriously alive in the pages of MacDonald’s masterpiece.