My Life in Indian Politics

HAVING spent six decades in public life as a member of the Indian National Congress, Mohsina Kidwai looks back at life and makes an attempt to present her understanding of the nation, its institutions and its people. A Cabinet Minister in several successive Central governments, she has had a ringside view of Indian politics for almost the entire span of Independent India’s existence. In this candid account of her life, Kidwai assesses not just her own contribution to public life, but also provides an honest appraisal of the turn in fortunes of the political party she has remained a loyal member of. The reader is treated to rare glimpses of the homes, lives and the hurly-burly of election campaigns over the decades. The book has been written with the honesty and simplicity that have been her trademark in public life.

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SINCE 2015, when ‘Nehru’s India: Essays on the Maker of a Nation’ was first published, Independent India’s first Prime Minister and his legacy have been under attack. This, insists author Nayantara Sahgal, makes it necessary to resurrect Jawaharlal Nehru’s role in building and safeguarding what we now know as ‘the Idea of India’. The collection of essays — assessments, criticisms, opinions, insights and emotions — tells us how his contribution is viewed over five decades after his death. The new edition, packed with four more essays, brings together an examination of the different aspects of Nehru’s personality and his legacy by some of our foremost thinkers, writers and activists.

AFTER exploring the tales of Ram, Sita and Raavan in the first three parts of his Ram Chandra series, Amish brings his readers the story of the slaughterous war — the war on Lanka. Sita has been kidnapped. She dares Raavan to kill her — she’d rather die than allow Ram to surrender. Will Ram defeat the ruthless and fiendish Raavan, constrained as he is by the laws of Dharma? Will Lanka burn to a cinder or fight back like a cornered tiger? Will the terrible costs of war be worth the victory? Most importantly, will the Vishnu rise? And will the real enemies of the land fear the Vishnu? For, fear is the mother of love.

A product of modern medicine, somewhere along her journey Dr Kusum S Chand discerned a weakness in the therapeutic system and began studying homeopathy, a system much ridiculed yet surviving for more than two centuries. She dared to differ from conventional medicine in using drugs diluted to an inconceivable extent and from homeopathy in using multiple medicines at the same time. She says allopathy and homeopathy are like two colours of the spectrum, blue and yellow, which come together to form a new colour — green — which denotes good health and wellness. The book includes several case studies that support her theories. The account is as engrossing for the lay reader as it is informative for those in the medical profession. ‘Dare to Differ’ is for those looking for work on a gentler system of healing.

FROM an epic celebrated as the greatest story about a war, Ashok K Banker, an author of fiction based on Indian myth and history, gleans stories of intense love. These timeless tales of desire from the Mahabharata have been retold for the 21st-century reader. The author begins with the classic tale of the star-crossed lovers Shakuntala and Dushyant. Among others is the story about King Shantanu’s consummate passion for Ganga, incarnated as a human, who will eventually abandon him; Satyavati’s healing love that pulls Shantanu out of grief, but for which a son must pay a terrible price; Bhishma and Amba’s brief, tragic meeting that will haunt them for life; and the little-known but perhaps the most poignant story of all — the story of two friends, Devayani and Sharmishtha, and the man they both loved, Yayati.