Author: Vimala Ramu
Pages: 110
Year of Publication: 2009
Price: HB Rs 150, FB Rs 100
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-897-6 (9788181578976)
FB 978-81-8157-898-3 (9788181578983)

About the Author:
Vimala Ramu was born on 27 October 1937 as the seventh child of N. Narasimha Iyengar (Executive Engineer of the Public Works Department in Mysore). She obtained a First Class in her B. Sc. from Maharani’s College (Mysore University) in 1955 and completed her B. Ed. in 1977 from MES Teachers' College (Bangalore University) with, not surprisingly, First Class marks once more. She married Flt Lt. B.S. Ramu, a tech officer in IAF in 1958 and has three children. She has written two other books: Rainsong (2008) and Wind Chimes (2009), both of which have been brought out by Writers Workshop, India.

Teaser:

A Story in Everything I See!

"One thing I couldn't figure out was, while the rest of the family and friends were appreciative of my newly found talent of writing, that too at the ripe age of 70 years, my daughter's hackles would always rise at the sight of my printed articles.

First I assumed it to be jealousy. But later, when I decided to compile my articles and publish them in the form of a book for posterity and she offered to correct the proofs, I could somewhat understand her attitude to my creative efforts.

Basically, the difference between the two of us lay in the fact that while I was brimming with ideas, finding a story in every everyday event, she was an experienced editorial person in charge of an internationally known and well produced science journal."

Contents:
50 anecdotes

Author: Vimala Ramu
Pages: 70
Year of Publication: 2009
Price: HB Rs 100, FB Rs 80
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-899-0 (9788181578990)
FB 978-81-8157-900-3 (9788181579003)

About the Author:
Vimala Ramu was born on 27 October 1937 as the seventh child of N. Narasimha Iyengar (Executive Engineer of the Public Works Department in Mysore). She obtained a First Class in her B. Sc. from Maharani’s College (Mysore University) in 1955 and completed her B. Ed. in 1977 from MES Teachers' College (Bangalore University) with, not surprisingly, First Class marks once more. She married Flt Lt. B.S. Ramu, a tech officer in IAF in 1958 and has three children. She has written two other books: Rainsong (2008) and Dew Drops (2009), both of which have been brought out by Writers Workshop, India.

Teaser:

The House that Jaya Built

"One day, Jaya was entering the house. She could hear her parents talking to someone loudly inside. She tiptoed cautiously. Someone was saying, "No, this time I have come for good. I was wrong to go with the other woman. She has given me nothing but trouble. Even the two children she gave me are no good." It was Raju! The man she had married! Her own husband! Her eyes went to her wedding picture on the wall. How handsome and muscular he had become! When he looked at her like that, she was ready to leave everything to go and live with him."

Contents:

PART I: FICTION
End of the Rainbow / 11
I Was Jyothi's Eye / 13
The Silver Lining / 15
The Graduation / 18
The Silent Deepavali / 21
The Wait / 24
Statistics Do Not Lie / 28
The House that Jaya Built / 32

PART II: MEMOIRS
The Morning Constitutional / 39
Reminiscences in Marble / 42
The Stone School / 45
Teachers' College Excursion / 48
Holiday at Grandfather's / 53
Few of My (Un)favourite Things / 59
Teachers' Day / 62
My Quirky Gadgets / 65

Title: Wanderings, Windows and White Paper
Author: Bodha Chaitanya
Price: HB Rs 200, FB Rs 160
Year of Publication: 2007

Author: Amrita V. Nair
Pages: 46
Year of Publication: 2009
Price: HB Rs 100, FB Rs 80
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-887-7 (9788181578877)
FB 978-81-8157-888-4 (9788181578884)

About the Author:
Amrita V. Nair was born on 20 August 1989, in Kerala. She started writing poetry at the age of 6. She also writes fiction and has won prizes at the state and national levels for her essays. Apart from writing, she enjoys swimming and music -- she is learning to play the violin. At present, she is completing an integrated MA in Economics at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai.

Teaser:

Green

Sometimes light filters through them
And they are gold --
Not the brilliance of mustard fields
But a pale sleepy glow
As though they are frightened
By their own iridescence.
Sometimes, they are just green
Greener than the eyes of the ocean
And I gaze into them
Wondering if they gaze back at me.
And sometimes, the colours collide
Time itself coagulates;
And I look at that moment
Thinking of its effervescence
I look at that moment
I feel the emerald's transience
I look at that moment
And know that moment is life.

Contents:
Yours Affectionately / 9
Woolf / 10
Decor / 11
To my two-year old, doll-clutching, toothless self / 12
Waiting / 13
Shoes - I / 14
Shoes - II / 15
Cassandra / 16
After the Funeral / 17
Lost / 18
Green / 19
Black Hole / 20
Untitled - I / 21
Her life in colour / 22
Submersed / 23
Sparrow / 24
Untitled - II / 25
Lost in Transit / 26
Half / 27
Apology / 28
Untitled - III / 29
Untitled - IV / 30
Wildflowers / 31
Where the heart is / 32
Why I'm Alive / 33
If I die... / 34
Untitled - V / 35
Time / 36
Untitled - VI / 37
A sad funny thing which you might not understand / 38
She knows she has to leave... / 39
Glass heart / 40

Author: Lahar Singh
Pages: 506
Year of Publication: 2009
Price: HB Rs 500, FB Rs 300
ISBN:
HB 81-8157-853-2 (8181578532)
FB 81-8157-854-9 (8181578549)

About the Author:
Lahar Singh, or John Beaumont Ash, was born on 16th December 1947. He passed away on 31st January 2008. Gondwana was published posthumously.

Ash was multi-faceted. He was a linguist, a photographer, a writer, a historian a lover of people and a lover of communication. He first came to India in 1973 and traveled to the Muria Gond village of Saratpur. He learned Gondi and gradually became a part of the Gond community. It was here that he was given the name, Lahar Singh.

In 2002, Ash started a travel company called GreenGondwana that takes small groups of visitors around selected areas of Chhatisgarh and parts of Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. GreenGondwana takes pride in promoting ethical tourism: for Ash, it was of primary importance that the ethnic group he lived with was not exploited, but treated with sensitivity, equality and respect.

Ash's friend, Sophie Hartman, edited and collated the manuscript of Gondwana. She says:

"Gondwana was left very nearly complete, with its wonderful plot and historical interludes, and with the endings all tied up, but John hadn't quite done with it, some chapters hung unfinished and there was a small confusion around one or two of the characters. I have had the joy and the honour of piecing together a quilt whose wonderful design was not my own, I have shed a little, added almost nothing, and I sincerely hope that I have sewn the whole together in a way that has followed John's intentions. If there are faults, they are mine."

Teaser:
"Deep in the forests of central India a leaf moves soundlessly, affording a better view of the small clearing below. The shadowy green space, speckled with early sunlight filtered through tall dark trees, is filled with people. They sit on the ground, knees up, or squat on their haunches, making an imperfect circle shoulder to shoulder, eyes fixed on the hard, dry earth, ignoring each other.

High in the branches of an eighty-year-old sal tree, the tall deciduous hardwood Shorea robusta that supplied generations of railway sleepers to an empire, the tree beneath which the Buddha was born, the watcher is invisible from below.

His dark skin and crimson loincloth blend seamlessly into the bark of the great tree. The white cloth that serves as his turban is well-hidden in the undergrowth below, along with his axe, a gourd of fresh palm toddy and his only shirt. Beads of red, white and blue cross his forehead, holding his long hair tight against his scalp. Beads of black, green and gold fall from his neck across a tautly muscled chest. Tucked in his waistband is a crude catapult with a pouch of small rounded stones, like shot from an ancient blunderbuss, but deadly against a variety of tasty birds."

Contents:
A novel in 2 parts, 22 chapters

Author: Vivek Sharma
Pages: 90
Year of Publication: 2009
Price: HB Rs 150, FB Rs 100
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-851-8 (9788181578518)
FB 978-81-8157-852-5 (9788181578525)

About the Author:
Vivek Sharma was born in Mandi (Himachal Pradesh) in 1979 and his ancestral village, Chattar, lies in the same district. He completed his schooling in Shimla, Una and Kasauli. His parents were determined to provide him with the best educational opportunities and their efforts in this direction sometimes forced them to live apart from each other. Sharma's academic achievements have, in turn, been impressive. After graduating from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, he obtained two consecutive MS degrees in Polymer Science and Chemical Engineering from the University of Akron, Ohio, and Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, respectively. He went on to complete his Ph.D. in Polymer Science and Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. At present, he is conducting post-doctoral research in Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Sharma's love of poetry and writing, in Hindi and English, began when he was a child and he wrote consistently through his school and college days.

Teaser:

Saga of a crumpled piece of paper

I was a crumpled piece of paper
till your curiosity unfurled me;
An excited child in you ironed away
my wrinkled and discarded past
and laughed at what I bore boldly
written in her hand, in pencil
in dark arches, colons, commas,
with a full stop.

You laughed till your tears
made maps over me
and then you smiled and erased away
her words, her punctuations
and took crayons to wax me with colour.
Fascinated by the impact of your hands,
you embellished me,
revived me and then artfully
sold me away.

Contents:
51 poems spread over 4 sections

Author: Tuhin Sanyal
Pages: 98
Year of Publication: 2009
Price: HB Rs 150, FB Rs 100
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-907-2 (9788181579072)
FB 978-81-8157-908-9 (9788181579089)

About the Author:
Tuhin Sanyal's love-affair with poetry dates back to his school days. Himself a student of English literature, he takes pleasure in reading W. B. Yeats, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes and T. S. Eliot. Sheer passion led him to take up Yeats as a dissertation topic for his M. Phil course under the University of Calcutta. He has taught English at St. Xavier's School, Bokaro, for quite some time, worked as a freelancer for The Times of India, and is presently a post-graduate English teacher appointed by the West Bengal School Service Commission. His first collection of poems, White, Blue and Other Poems was published by Writers Workshop, India, in 2004.

Teaser:

Awake, in My Senses

There will be a day
For you to stay
Awake, in my senses,
While I sketch sleep.

There will be a night
For you to fight
Out the wrong tenses
That grammarians keep.

There will be a hutment
With morsels and parchment
Of ancient minces
When logics peep.

Then there may be tempests
And attending he-guests
With myopic lenses,
To favours reap!
Can I then share
Your winding stair,
With you in my senses...
While I sketch sleep?

Contents:
51 poems

Author: Nileen Putatunda
Pages: 40
Year of Publication: 2009
Price: HB Rs 100, FB Rs 80
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-901-0 (9788181579010)
FB 978-81-8157-902-7 (9788181579027)

About the Author:
Nileen Putatunda was born in 1978 in Calcutta. He did most of his schooling in St. Mary’s School in Bombay. He graduated from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi in 2000. Since then, he has worked in the social development sector. Four books of his spiritual poetry were published by Writers Workshop between 2006 and 2008. His books have been reviewed in the international Vedanta journals, Prabuddha Bharata and The Vedanta Kesari.

Teaser:

Stopping Prayer

It's past midnight,
I lie in bed
Discussing the day gone by
With my Maker,
But I must learn
To stop prayer too
At the right moment,
In thought that is,
And in complete silence
Merge into Him/Her
So that with the morn
Begins yet another chance
To honour Him/Her
Who gives us this cosmos
To serve, enjoy and conquer.

Contents:
Feast / 11
Rising / 12
For Rabi Thakur / 13
Stuck / 14
Fever / 15
Sweet Home / 16
Kalpa / 17
Agni / 18
One Drop for Gold / 19
Prayer / 20
Shiva / 21
Remembering Mother / 22
To Indra / 23
Two Uncles / 24
Swallowing / 25
Looking / 26
At the Tower / 27
Annya / 28
Stopping Prayer / 29
Prescription / 30
Sights from the City of Joy / 31
This Unending / 32
Untitled-I / 33
Untitled-II / 34
Control / 35
Manic / 36
Release / 37

Author: Tuhin Sanyal
Pages: 70
Year of Publication: 2004
Price: HB Rs 100, FB Rs 80
ISBN:
HB 81-8157-164-9 (8181571649)
FB 81-8157-165-7 (8181571657)

About the Author:
Tuhin Sanyal's love-affair with poetry dates back to his school days. Himself a student of English literature, he takes pleasure in reading W. B. Yeats, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes and T. S. Eliot. Sheer passion led him to take up Yeats as a dissertation topic for his M. Phil course under the University of Calcutta. He has taught English at St. Xavier's School, Bokaro, for quite some time, worked as a freelancer for The Times of India, and is presently a post-graduate English teacher appointed by the West Bengal School Service Commission.

Teaser

White

There are more shades in white than you can imagine;
Long shades, short shades, tart shades,
Shades oblong and curt shades.
Yet all combine so simply to make it white.
They all merge, vault, mix and clap
And present to you a screen
Thereon you find yourself
Joining hands
For prayer or love,
Or rubbing off yesterday's filth due to sheer hygiene.
You can be there on the screen surely,
But not as a shade...
You are a speck rather, or a blob,
Waiting to be 'seen,'
Not as a part but standing out
Of that over populous white.

Contents:
White / 9
Dust / 10
A Short-Short-Story / 11
...beyond territorial waters / 12
A Late-September Observation on Sparrows / 13
A Glowing Fish / 14
Drowned Roads / 15
The Artist / 16
Of Craters / 17
Anti-Matter or a Shady Nursery Rhyme / 18
Araby Revisited / 19
Water / 20
The Seasonal Nurse / 21
Two Stray Packets / 23
Ashramas Revisited / 24
A Warm Image of an Ink-begotten Tune / 25
Smuggled Emotions / 27
The Orgy / 28
Were I Born in Bethlehem / 29
The Lost Photo-copies / 30
Soiled / 31
Acting 'Life' / 32
Ther'-w'z-a Junk-house / 33
Laboratory / 34
A Plain Love-Poem / 35
Subtle Horseplay and a Solar Portrait / 37
All That's Spent / 38
Hawk Resting / 39
Like Dry Wood / 40
A Rhyme on Hunger / 41
Do Not Throw Much Light / 42
A Song in Pete's Manner! / 43
The Voice of Drought / 44
In a Sleazy Dream / 45
Like the Refugee Cliffs / 46
What You Cannot Be / 48
One Day the Newspapers Woke up with Conjunctivitis / 49
The Varsity Story / 50
A Cold Poem / 51
Constable's Snow / 53
Defending Donne / 54
Of Contra-posed Images / 55
My Grave-yard Experience and My Grave-yard Experience II / 55
For Those Who Feel Bugged by My Presence at Gatherings / 56
About Us / 57
Mr. President / 58
Judas Files Reopened / 60
Our Lettered Leave-talking / 63
Tiresias / 66
Cross-border Twins / 68
Blue / 69

Author: Soma Dutta
Pages: 110
Year of Publication: 2009
Price: HB Rs 200, FB Rs 100
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-863-1 (9788181578631)
FB 978-81-8157-864-8 (9788181578648)

About the Author:
Dr. Soma Dutta is the Vice Principal and Head of the Department of English of Krishna Public School Bhilai. She has won many prizes for her literary works at the state and national level. She has received letters of appreciation from the former President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam for a poem written by her in 2004 and from Buckingham Palace in 2005. Her poems have been published in several journals and her first collection of poetry, Ripples, was brought out by Jijnasa Publishing House, Kolkata. Dr. Dutta's first book of short stories, Spectrum, was published by Best Books, Kolkata. She is an Associate Life Member of the Poetry Society of India.

Teaser:

Isolated

No visitor, no letter, not a single phone call
All bonds have been snapped with the world
Ignored and forgotten by all.
Abandoned by family and friends
He feels twilight has appeared
Memory is still alive
Though his days are now numbered.
His home appears to be a haunted house
All are afraid to meet him
Social stigma as well as fear
Has made his existence grim.
What a shame! He is a patient of AIDS.
His nearest ones have turned their faces away from him.
They refused to listen that it was due to hospitalization
When a bottle of blood was given to him.

The looks of contempt, doubt and anger
Were more painful than his disease
Hiding his face, alone, unattended
He has been seeking for his ultimate peace.

Contents:
76 poems