V.P. Singh ended up antagonising both the Congress and the BJP — perhaps one of the reasons he has not been given the posthumous attention he deserves…reports Asian Lite News.
Vishwanath Pratap Singh, Indias seventh Prime Minister, struck Indian politics with the force of a tornado.
Primarily remembered for implementing the recommendations of the Mandal Commission report, which provided reservations in Central government services for the first time to the Other Backward Classes, he deserves a place in history for much more — from conducting raids on the biggest business houses of his time when he was Finance Minister to investigating defence deals as Defence Minister (which cost him his job); from bringing together a divided Opposition to form an unlikely coalition government at the Centre comprising the BJP and the Communist parties to spearheading the biggest airlift evacuation in Indian history — of Indians stranded in the Middle East during the first Gulf War.
V.P. Singh weathered repeated crises during his eleven-month tenure: The rise of insurgency in Kashmir, starting with the kidnapping of his Home Minister’s daughter by terrorists; L.K. Advani’s Rath Yatra in support of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, which led to communal riots; and, above all, the backlash that followed the Mandal Commission report’s implementation.
V.P. Singh ended up antagonising both the Congress and the BJP — perhaps one of the reasons he has not been given the posthumous attention he deserves. Debashish Mukerji’s “The Disruptor” (HarperCollins) is a richly detailed account of his extraordinarily eventful life, told in the context of his times.
Here’s a sneak peek into the book:
The rivalry with Amitabh Bachchan; as Finance Minister, V.P. Singh’s raid raj’ against corporate corruption; Taking on Reliance; the V.P. Singh Rajiv Gandhi fallout and his dramatic resignation as Defence Minister; Defamatory campaign against V.P. Singh by the Congress; V.P. Singh curtailing his own security cover, accused of reducing Rajiv Gandhi’s; India could have gone nuclear but V.P. Singh chose not to; Biggest airlift evacuation in world history; steps initiated by V.P. Singh’s government, but completed and claimed by later governments: RTI Act, Lok Pal Act, OROP, MNREGA; and, of course, implementing the Mandal Commission Report.
“By bringing together a divided Opposition to usher in an era of coalition governments at the Centre, as also by implementing the Mandal Commission report which provided job reservations for the Other Backward Classes, Vishwanath Pratap Singh permanently altered India’s political landscape,” says author Debashish Mukerji.
“A politician ambivalent about pursuing power, and obsessed with financial integrity, he was also an extremely complex human being. The main issues he confronted – caste disparities, communal tensions and corruption – continue to bedevil the country even today. All these reasons prompted me to attempt this biography, which sets V.P. Singh against the context of his turbulent times,” Mukerji adds.
Says Siddhesh Inamdar, Executive Editor, HarperCollins India: “V.P. Singh was Prime Minister of India for just about eleven months, and yet his short time in office proved immensely consequential in shaping the country. As a leader who took on a party with an overwhelming majority in Parliament, his career is also relevant in the context of the politics of today.”
#TheDisruptor is the riveting biography about an Indian prime minister that history tends to overlook.
“For all his achievements, V.P. Singh remains an understudied former Prime Minister. November marks the anniversary both of his death (in 2008) as well as of the fall of his government (in 1990), and this meticulously researched biography by a seasoned journalist will throw much-needed light on Singh’s extraordinary life and times,” Inamdar adds.
The First Book (Fiction) Shortlist include ‘A Bit of Everything’ by Sandeep Raina (Westland), ‘A Death in Shonagachhi’ by Rijula Das (Pan MacMillan) and ‘Gods and Ends’ by Lindsay Pereira (Penguin Random House)…reports Asian Lite News.
The shortlists for the Tata Literature Live! Literary Awards were announced Thursday. The winners are traditionally announced at the closing session of the Festival. Since the Festival is online again this year due to the continuing Covid-19 pandemic, the awards ceremony will be streamed on Sunday (November 21).
In the fiction category, the shortlisted titles include ‘Asoca: A Sutra’ by Irwin Allan Sealy (Penguin Random House), ‘China Room’ by Sunjeev Sahota (Penguin Random House) and ‘Names of the Women’ by Jeet Thayil (Penguin Random House).
— Literature Live! The Mumbai Litfest (@litlivefest) November 12, 2021
In the non-fiction category, ‘Born a Muslim: Some Truths About Islam in India’ by Ghazala Wahab (Aleph), ‘The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move’ by Sonia Shah (Bloomsbury) and ‘Undercover: My Journey into the Darkness of Hindutva’ by Ashish Khetan (Westland) have been shortlisted.
The First Book (Fiction) Shortlist include ‘A Bit of Everything’ by Sandeep Raina (Westland), ‘A Death in Shonagachhi’ by Rijula Das (Pan MacMillan) and ‘Gods and Ends’ by Lindsay Pereira (Penguin Random House).
The First Book (Non-Fiction) Shortlist include ‘Breathing Here is Injurious to Your Health: The Human Cost of Air Pollution and How You Can Be the Change’ by Jyoti Pande Lavakare (Hachette), ‘It’s All In Your Head, M’ by Manjiri Indurkar (Westland) And ‘Landscapes of Loss: The Story of an Indian Drought’ by Kavitha Iyer (HarperCollins)
In the Business Book of the Year category, ‘Fossil Free: Reimagining Clean Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World’ by Sumant Sinha (HarperCollins), ‘Pandemonium: The Great Indian Banking Tragedy’ by Tamal Bandyopadhyay (Roli Books) and ‘Spring: Bouncing Back From Rejection’ by Ambi Parameswaran (Westland) have been shortlisted.
The publisher said they are “delighted” with the Bombay High Court order “setting aside the injunction which had greatly aggrieved both Pan Macmillan India and our author Vijaypat Singhania”…reports Asian Lite News.
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday vacated the stay on the distribution of Vijaypat Singhanias autobiography “An Incomplete Life”, saying it had been erroneously passed by a single judge bench of the court.
The publisher, Pan Macmillan India, said it would immediately start reselling the book. This, however, could not be the end of the matter as the petitioner, Raymond Limited, has been granted leave to again approach the single judge for a fresh injunction.
A division bench comprising Justice Abhay Ahuja and Justice S.J. Kathawalla ruled that the injunction order of November 4 against the book was passed “under an erroneous impression that the district court at Thane has passed the order dated April 22, 2021 granting stay/interim order against the erstwhile publisher from publishing the book was to continue until the pendency of the appeal filed by Respondent No. 1 (Raymond Ltd)”.
“We do not want to say anything more in view of the following order: i. The Order of the Learned Single Judge dated 4th November, 2021 is set aside. ii. Parties are at liberty to move the Learned Single Judge sitting in vacation today or tomorrow and renew the Application afresh which will be decided on its own merits without being influenced by what is stated in this Order. iii. The above Appeal as well as Interim Application are accordingly disposed off,” the bench ruled.
AN INCOMPLETE LIFE, Vijaypat Singhania’s exclusive autobiography is now available at @GranthBooks, Mumbai. Get your copy today! pic.twitter.com/bHOjcMuTLf
The publisher said they are “delighted” with the Bombay High Court order “setting aside the injunction which had greatly aggrieved both Pan Macmillan India and our author Vijaypat Singhania”.
“Raymond Ltd has been granted liberty to approach the Single Judge for renewing the injunction, but we are confident that we will succeed before the Ld. Single Judge as well,” the publisher said.
The book also talks about household risks and how adopting certain lifestyles can minimise the risk of cancer…writes Vishnu Makhijani
His father being diagnosed with lymphoma prompted Aditya Mohan Wig, a best-selling author and content development consultant with the World Bank, to collaborate with Dr Mrinal Kaushik, whose expertise was in chemotherapy on a book on cancer, specifically in the Indian context.
The book was almost complete when tragedy struck – Dr Kaushik met with a fatal accident in the Mussoorie hills and it was left to Wig to complete “Life After Cancer – An Essential Guide for Patients and Caregivers’ (Bloomsbury).
“By all rights, it should be Dr Kaushik who answers these questions, but he passed away towards the end of this project, before the final draft was submitted. If it had not been for his notes and his vast understanding of the subject well, it’s unlikely this book would have been written,” Wig told in an interview.
It’s a project that had begun in 2018.
“This came about a year or so after my father had been diagnosed with lymphoma (cancer of the lymphatic system). I agreed, for a few reasons: First, it was a crash-course of sorts into the medical process-diagnosis, confirmation, treatments-that my father was undergoing. Second, I had already done some reading on the subject and had realised that while there was a lot of information available, more often than not, it was written by doctors for other doctors, not for the general public.
“Third, after my father’s diagnosis, I had already been grappling with a lot of fear about what might happen. Writing about it helped process that. Fourth was the financial motivation – I was in between jobs at the time, and while I wouldn’t describe the Indian literary market as a particularly good place to earn money, something is better than nothing,” Wig explained.
The primary research material was the draft chapters Dr Kaushik had written.
“Before signing on with Bloomsbury, we’d structured the book outline and written a few sample chapters. If I remember right, these were the introduction – a short overview of how our understanding of cancer has evolved over the past few centuries – a chapter on chemotherapy, and a chapter on a carcinogen (I think it was tobacco).
“The research process for this was essentially me first reading Dr Kaushik’s draft of the chapter and then noting down the questions I had, which I figured would be a decent proxy for the questions other people without medical degrees might have. After that, I’d rely either on institutional sources (reports from the Mayo Clinic, the World Health Organization, etc) or on Dr Kaushik’s notes to restructure/ rewrite the chapter based around those questions, which was then sent to Dr Kaushik for review, or for more explanation of a particularly complicated concept,” he said of the manner in which the book was structured.
The book is primarily focussed on two aspects of cancer – known carcinogens (substances that increase a person’s risk of getting cancer) and treatment. Some carcinogens are very well known, like alcohol, tobacco and meat. Others are pretty surprising; for one, even fluorescent lighting is suspected of being a risk factor.
“After a month or so of research, I realised that one reason it is difficult for people to come to grips with the subject is because there are simply so many moving parts in the equation, so many aspects to the disease, so many complicating factors. It is not as straightforward as cigarettes cause cancer; also in the mix are factors like a person’s specific genetic makeup, their individual immune response, their lifestyle, how many other carcinogens they’re being regularly exposed to and so on.
“This complexity can lead to an extraordinary mish-mash of information that can be very difficult for people without medical degrees, like me, to make sense of. This book attempts to put some of that information into context with other relevant information – for example, explaining what the ‘cell cycle’ is so that readers are in a better position to understand the two broad types of anti-cancer drugs – CCSAs and CCNSAs (cell cycle specific and cell cycle non-specific agents),” Wig elaborated.
What, then, are the key aspects that cancer patients and caregivers need to be aware of?
“For one, treatment is not a guaranteed cure. It often dangerous, and can be fatal. For example, some medications cause a condition known as ‘myelosuppression’-the body’s ability to produce blood cells is damaged, which can lead to death. Many anti-cancer drugs are carcinogenic themselves. All the allopathic treatments I’ve personally come across can have major side effects. Dealing with these is a major aspect of treatment, especially for patients and caregivers, since treatment is an extended (weeks- or months-long) process.
“The psychological aspect is another major factor. It’s extremely common to become depressed or fatalistic or to lose hope once a diagnosis has been confirmed. This becomes worse if there are major side effects to the treatment.
“Think of how miserable it feels to simply be hung over; now imagine feeling the same way because of a medication that you have to take for an extended period of time to treat a condition that will probably kill you, especially if you refuse treatment.
“This is also where the fear of death becomes very real. We often refuse to engage with the idea that our loved ones will most certainly die at some point, simply because it’s too painful to deal with. I personally found that this conversation is essential, especially early on when there is still time to have difficult conversations. My own relationship with my father is certainly richer, deeper and more evolved because of it. After acknowledging my own fear of his death – and expressing it to him – it has become a lot easier to be a source of emotional support,” Wig elaborated.
Another miserable reality is the cost. Cancer diagnosis and treatment can often cost tens of lakh rupees, if not more. For most people, this is a life-changing expense. Many people are unable to get treatment because of this, and it can be another factor that causes depression, he said.
The book also talks about household risks and how adopting certain lifestyles can minimise the risk of cancer.
“Three primary household risk factors are tobacco, alcohol and meat. Giving these up – much easier said than done – goes a long way toward reducing the risk. A major aspect of the risk is also the amount of exposure one has to a given carcinogen, and how often it happens. If you find yourself unable to give these up, you can at least reduce the amount you consume, or how often you do so,” Wig said.
Other risks are less easy to address.
“There is little one can do about exposure to Delhi’s air, for example, or the toxins that may be in the water, or in paint, or in cleaning solutions or even in our food. The ideal solution, as I understand it, would simply be not to live in a city; however, that’s again easier said than done.
“Reducing the risks often involves giving up pleasurable lifestyles – it is as simple as that. The balance one chooses to strike is a personal choice; this much risk for that much pleasure. Of course, another way to look at it is that 70 or 80 years from today, most people reading this will have passed on, cancer or no cancer.
“There is no ‘total protection’ from risk, and I personally feel is somewhat futile to attempt to create such a bubble. Live as healthily as you are able, and be honest – at least with yourself – about the risks you are taking. The rest is largely out of our hands,” Wig concluded.
Bestselling novelist leads the global launch of his latest work, 400 Days, at 40th Sharjah International Book Fair …reports Asian Lite News
Overnight success is nothing but 20 years of hard work, underlined Chetan Bhagat, bestselling author the of2 States and Five Point Someone in a freewheeling conversation with journalist, Nasreen Abdulla, at the 40th Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF 2021), which runs its course at Expo Centre Sharjah until November 13.
Chetan Bhagat: Overnight success is nothing but 20 years of hard work
The Indian author, who was at SIBF 2021 for the global launch of his new book, 400 Days, was all praise for the fair, calling it “a five-star event which is free and open to all.” Holding a fully physical event of this stature as the world emerges out of the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, showed that “the human spirit will evolve. That is what books and writers are about,” said Bhagat, a columnist, screenplay writer, motivational speaker and of late, a stand-up comedian, who has been seen on the SIBF platform frequently over the past few years.
Penned during the lockdown in India, 400 Days is inspired by the real-life story of a mother’s search for her missing 12-year-old daughter, and how, with the help of a young neighbour, she continues her search long after the police have given up.
Discussing the book, the author warned parents about the danger of letting children talk to strangers on social media, advising them to remain emotionally connected with their children. “If a child is talking to a stranger more than you, that’s a sign that trouble is brewing,” said the prolific writer who admitted that 400 Days was his most challenging work as he had to strike a balance between humour and emotions and immerse himself into the mental state of the mother of a missing child.
CHETAN BHAGAT, INDIAN AUTHOR: “Being at the right place at the right time” and releasing his first novel before the age of smartphones are what helped his books become bestsellers, said Bhagat. He added: “Reading a book changes your personality; it builds your imagination, and the content stays in your memory. Memes and social media posts rarely touch you the way a book can.”
“It is not that simple to be simple,” quipped the writer who is often criticised for his use of easy-to-read vocabulary. “Like the crazy number of spices that go into Indian cooking, my books have a mix of everything from mystery to romance. I make the Indian buffet.”
Bhagat, whose four novels have been adapted for the screen, said: “Writing a book is like preparing a six-course meal while writing a screenplay is more like preparing chaat (an easy to prepare Indian fast food that blends numerous spices). Writing a book is also quite a lonely experience.”
In this context, she noted that an important step taken by the New Education Policy (NEP) is making school clusters which can go a long way in improving learning standards in schools in rural and remote areas…writes Vishnu Makhijani.
One of the primary factors determining the strong foundation of a nation is effective educational leadership and schools need to adapt to the changing environments “for which we need leaders who can guide and motivate the students and teachers to evolve intellectually, socially and emotionally — in a continuous process,” says Seema Malik, a school teacher for over three decades and author of the path-breaking book “Unlocking Leadership” (Konark).
“Every leader evolves her/his leadership pattern. What we all need to develop as leaders is the nuance that is required to lead everyone to a higher goal of education. When the schools are driven at all times to reach their vision and mission, both the students and the teachers rise to their highest potential,” Malik, who has studied at Cambridge University and has been associated with prestigious institutions like Delhi Public School, Salwan Public School and Cambridge School, told IANS in an interview.
How did the book come about?
“Having been a researcher in the field of education for more than a decade, I was intrigued by a lot of research done by the western countries, in particular, UK, Australia, New Zealand and USA. I noticed a lot of gap about educational research in India which I have addressed in this book. A huge body of research has been used for writing this academic work in a style that is more easily understandable, with due credit given to the authors and researchers,” Malik said.
The main fields of research that have gone into this book are leadership models practiced in schools and what impact they lead to, strategies for school improvement, and moral as well as ethical responsibilities of leaders.
“Most of this research is used in the western democracies, which has led to the higher standards of educational attainment in these countries, for example in OECD countries,” she said.
1. Leadership is the single most important factor affecting quality of education in schools.
2. Collaborative and distributed models of leadership builds teams in schools.
3. Teachers are leaders in their own right and it is the responsibility of the school head to give them decision-making powers.
4. Great leaders develop mutuality and reciprocity among various stakeholders in the school to take them all towards achieving the organisational vision.
5. One of the most salient features of any leadership is their sense of moral imperative.
The book is essentially aimed at schools in the private sector. What about schools in the government sector and in the semi-urban and rural areas? How are they to address this issue?
“Schools in the government sector as well as the rural and remote areas need to work on infrastructural development to provide at least the minimum required facilities for learning. The ‘twinning of schools’ has already started taking place where a few government schools are attached with the public schools to develop synergies of operations and develop better systems of assessments. Public schools are involving these less privileged schools in teacher training opportunities,” Malik explained.
In this context, she noted that an important step taken by the New Education Policy (NEP) is making school clusters which can go a long way in improving learning standards in schools in rural and remote areas.
The NEP, she pointed out, also “lays a great emphasis on teacher empowerment through continuous professional development opportunities. It also aims to create national professional standards for teachers. School leaders and teachers are being encouraged now to undertake research in emerging pedagogies for improved learning outcomes. It is time that school education becomes an integral part of public conversation and it should get the focus that it deserves,” Malik elaborated.
“I am writing my memoirs of studying in Cambridge University. Life was very different there and every student experiences difficulties in the beginning which slowly ease away. However, as an older and mature student, besides being observant and reflective, my experiences were very different. I learnt a lot there but also saw traces of racism in the society.”
“A University, like any other part of the society is like a reflection of its ethos. There were many positives as well as some negatives that I noticed that left an indelible impression on my mind. However, what I have taken away from there as a student is the rich and intellectual very stimulating culture of learning provided to each student.”
“Cambridge changed my life forever and there are reasons for that, which I am currently writing for my next book. It was sad that such a reputed university of the world could treat a meritorious student so shabbily. Not disclosing much right now, the book would be thought provoking as well as shocking, once read by the people,” Malik concluded.
‘San-84 Justice’, he said, apart from being released theatrically on Tuesday, November 2, would also be streamed on an OTT platform…reports Asian Lite News.
The 78-minute-long Hindi-Punjabi film ‘San-84 Justice’ views the anti-Sikh riots that erupted after the assassination of the late former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi through the lens of a lower-middle-class family caught in the vortex of the violence.
Speaking about the film after a screening here on Monday, writer-director Sandeep Kumar Rana said that he had grown up in a neighbourhood where people lived through the trauma and had been personally impacted by it. The memories that refused to die inspired him to make the movie.
He said: “I grew up in an area that was represented by Sajjan Kumar, the former Congress MP who has been sentenced to a jail term for his role in the 1984 Sikh massacre. I remember a Sikh gentleman who lost his mind because of a lethal attack on him. For years, he would keep sitting for hours on the street with a board that read ‘Radio Singer – Yahan har tarah ke gaane gaaye jaate hain’. Our producers Mujeeb-ul Hassan and Jitesh Kumar were in London for the premiere of their film ‘Side A & Side B’ and they met some Sikhs who were victims of the 1984 massacres. Listening to them, they decided to make a film on this subject.”
The film revolves around the family of a rice merchant, Gurfateh Singh, played by the actor Vipin Sharma. He, his wife, three sons and brother, were leading a regular life till Operation Bluestar happened at the Golden Temple and then Mrs Gandhi was assassinated on October 31, 1984. The following day, the violence spiralled out of control.
These seismic events, and the ways they affected the lives of ordinary people, form the core of the storyline of the haunting film, which was shot on a shoestring budget just before the second wave of the pandemic. Talking about the dark film, the director said, “The screenplay makes the audience bond with members of the family of Gurfateh Singh. The audience wants them to live, but that does not happen. The film is about a real event and the real world.”
Rana’s earlier work as writer and director have included the satirical comedy ‘Camp Decent’ and ‘Auzaar’, which has travelled to a number of film festivals. ‘San-84 Justice’, he said, apart from being released theatrically on Tuesday, November 2, would also be streamed on an OTT platform. He added: “Our objective is to reach the maximum number of people, but not provoke any adverse sentiments in any particular community.”
The film, however, does bring to life a particularly painful moment that India would like to forget.
Gokhale says “The Blind Matriarch”, which she began just before the pandemic set in, “followed through on thoughts and themes from many of my previous novels…reports Asian Lite News.
One of Indias most respected and well-known literary figures, Namita Gokhale, has written a family saga that is both contemporary and timeless. Set against the backdrop of the pandemic, it explores the traditional bonds of the Indian joint family in the face of upheaval.
“The Blind Matriarch” has already earned praise from the likes of writer Chigozie Obioma and India’s best-loved poet Gulzar.
The sprawling novel follows the life of the eponymous blind matriarch who lives on the topmost floor of an old house with many stories. Ebbing and flowing like the waves of a pandemic, the novel is a clear-eyed chronicle of the tragedies of India’s encounter with the coronavirus, the cynicism and despair that accompanied it, and the resilience and strength of the human spirit.
The design of this book comes with its own story. Penguin Random House India art director Ahlawat Gunjan read the novel and commissioned a stunning embroidered panel for the cover which interlaces intricately with the many threads of the tale. Gokhale then wove elements of the panel itself into the rich tapestry of the book. The imagery on the cover reflects the narrative of the protagonist, Matangi, worked lovingly upon, even as her eyesight began abandoning her. Most jackets are the beginning of a book’s journey in the reader’s hands, but here it is also the very fabric of the book.
Gokhale says “The Blind Matriarch”, which she began just before the pandemic set in, “followed through on thoughts and themes from many of my previous novels. It is a quiet book, paced in a real-time narrative of lock-down days, which examines the dynamics of the Indian joint family. The central character, the blind matriarch Matangi Ma, has remained in my heart and mind long after I finished the book”.
Manasi Subramaniam, Executive Editor and Head of Literary Rights at Penguin Random House India says: “The Namita Gokhale bookshelf is an unexpected and unpredictable mix. Her range seems almost limitless, right from ‘Paro’ in 1984, a groundbreaking tale of female sexuality, to ‘Jaipur Journals’ in 2020, a charming romp across the greatest literary show on earth. She has done it yet again, with ‘The Blind Matriarch’, and we are especially proud to publish her twentieth book.”
Gokhale is an award-winning writer and festival director. She is the author of eleven works of fiction and has written extensively on myth as well as the Himalayan region. Her acclaimed debut novel, “Paro: Dreams of Passion”, was published in 1984. Her recent novel “Jaipur Journals”, published in January 2020, was set against the backdrop of the vibrant Jaipur Literature Festival. “Betrayed By Hope”, a play on the life of Michael Madhusudan Dutt, was also published in 2020.
A co-founder and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival, Gokhale is committed to supporting translations and curating literary dialogues across languages and cultures. She was conferred the Centenary National Award for Literature by the Asam Sahitya Sabha in Guwahati in 2017. She won the Sushila Devi Literature Award for her novel “Things to Leave Behind”, which also received the Best Fiction Jury Award at the Valley of Words Literature Festival 2017, and was on the longlist for the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award.
The book was acquired at an auction from Anish Chandy, Founder of the Labyrinth Literary Agency, by Teesta Guha Sarkar, Head of Editorial, Pan Macmillan India…reports Asian Lite News.
“Coffee King” is the definitive biography of the late VG Siddhartha, the founder of the Cafe Coffee Day retail chain and several other businesses.
Known to be an extremely savvy technology investor, Siddhartha had also backed at a very early stage some of the marquee names in the Indian IT services landscape today. But by 2019, he was highly leveraged on both business and personal fronts and facing a liquidity crisis. In July that year, he died by suicide after jumping into the Netravati river.
Siddhartha left behind a grieving and bewildered family, investor community and employee base, and a startled but curious media and public.
Through extensive research, hundreds of interviews and the analysis of thousands of official documents, Rukmini Rao and Prosenjit Datta now piece together the story of Siddhartha’s dynamic rise as a businessman and also his fall from grace, unravelling the reasons that led to his financial crises and eventually his shocking death.
The book was acquired at an auction from Anish Chandy, Founder of the Labyrinth Literary Agency, by Teesta Guha Sarkar, Head of Editorial, Pan Macmillan India.
Commenting on the acquisition, Rukmini Rao said: “VG Siddhartha’s biography will offer much more than just the story of the man who created India’s biggest coffee chain. There were many facets to him that remain unknown. This book will bring all those aspects together to present a complex, holistic portrait.”
Prosenjit Datta said: “As we proceeded with the research for this book, we realised that Siddhartha had built an organization that was far more complex than what appeared on the surface. So we peeled the onion, layer by layer, in order to properly understand the business tycoon’s professional and personal avatars and where the two intersected. He was a man of many contradictions, and few can say that they knew the real Siddhartha. We hope to present a more complete picture in (the book).”
Anish Chandy said: “Rukmini Rao and Prosenjit Datta have drawn a fully accessible portrait of VG Siddhartha and his labyrinthine business empire through exacting research, drawing upon their multi-decade investigative journalism experience.”
Teesta Guha Sarkar said: “Consummate business journalists Rukmini Rao and Prosenjit Datta’s investigation into the life and death of one of India’s most intriguing business tycoons has culminated in a riveting, finely nuanced character study. The great depth of their research, combined with an empathetic approach, make this undoubtedly the most definitive book there may ever be on India’s coffee king.’
Featured at a number of indoor venues, the festival also extends to Roundhay Park, writes Prof. Geetha Upadhyaya
Prof. Geetha Upadhyaya
The RadhaRaman Folk Festival, a three-day long prodigious presentation of Bengali folk music and dance along with other global folk art forms, is returning to Leeds for eleventh year from Friday 5 November to Sunday 7 November.
The highlights of the festival includes 24 hour performances of Bengali folk music, Dhamail dance, Moroccan/ North African Folk Music through Oud, Nye and Lute, Irish and Flamenco dance, early European music, multicultural poetry, a panel discussion along with the ancient music from other cultures of the globe.
Featured at a number of indoor venues, the festival also extends to Roundhay Park.
Organised by Leeds-based art organisation RadhaRaman Society, approximately 28 prominent performers including award-winning musicians and dancers national and international artists.
The festival will also feature talks by a few guest speakers including important political personalities.
The inaugural performance will kick off at Seven Arts Centre Leeds on Friday 5 November leading to the all night session and many more on the days following.
Amal Podder, Amar Baidya and Sujith Chowdhury who have been very involved in this unique festival felt that this festival offers a great opportunity for everyone to enjoy a cultural extravaganza whilst promoting wider humanism and love to make the most of the living moment.”
Link below for free registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/-11th-radharaman-folk-festival-tickets-170276360177?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
