with fun short stories. ‘Ved and Friends Celebrate Dussehra and Diwali’ is the first book of the series, which was officially launched by Consul General of India, Toronto Dinesh Bhatia on September 25. In this book one can find fun short stories about Navratri, Durga Puja,  Ram, Sita and Ravana, Pandavas, King Mahabali, Kali Puja, Diwali and much more. The book also helps kids experience the rich and vibrant South Asian festivals. It is surely a tailor-made experience for both children and their parents.
Talking about her role and responsibilities as an author, Diksha, told IJ, “I loved writing `Ved and Friends,’ because with it I would like to believe I have taught all children including mine, world- unity. We all come from different regions and religions from South Asia, I hope that with this book your child will get to know more about his Bengali friends or South Indian friends’ celebrations. It’s a book that’s inclusive of everyone’s traditions and legends. It tells us it’s fine to be different and fun to explore others’ traditions too. Isn’t that what we truly want to teach our kids?”
Insisting on  ways to reach out to the next generation, she mentioned, “I aim to repackage all our “good stuff” or teachings for the new generation who has so many distractions in their lives now, and educate them about their roots. My dream is to make our culture fun for our kids born in North America. There will come a time when they would like to know more about their identity and to be at a good place to explore their roots and be confident of where they come from, learning of the stories that we grew up with will be a unifying thing.” ‘But, what motivated her to try this genre?’ Diksha replied, “I love to read books in my spare time; ever since I had my son I tried to bring fun in all of his activities. Although my husband Karthik and I are both from the same country (him from south India and her  from up the north), our festivities, culture and languages are completely different. So when we decided to give a glimpse of our childhood to our son, I felt there was some literature available but nothing that quenched my journalistic appetite for details.”
As a mother of a young child, she always wanted him to know and be in tune with his roots. “This doesn’t necessarily mean he needs to know all of his ‘slokas or mantras’, but the more deeper and more meaningful aspects of the culture that we have come from.”
Interestingly, ‘Like mother, like child’ stands true in her case! Narayan’s journey and her complete experience is the result of a powerful inspiration from her mother. “She is a writer and teacher. As long as I can remember she used to pen down poetry and short stories. In some of the stories I would like to change the outcome of the stories and my mother would ask me to make up my own story, which I would eventually do.”
She also credits her creativity to the shuttling life between beautiful lush green hills of Nainital, India and the equally beautiful yet barren sands of the country Oman, where her father worked.
Also a TV journalist, Narayan desires to meet new people, learn new things, get insights into the lives and careers, achievements and struggles of others and then garner the responsibility to fairly tell their stories to the world. Notably, television producer and columnist Narayan has also made her mark in the Canadian and Indian television industries as a producer of shows for the South Asian community. She has also contributed to a collection of short stories called `Canadian Voices.’ Significantly, in 2013, she and her husband won the Marty’s Jury Choice Award in the Emerging Artists Category. For more details: www.dikshapnarayan.com

​Pia Padukone garnered praise for her debut novel, Where Earth Meets Water, which was published in twelve countries and translated into seven languages. Now, with her lyrical second novel, ‘The Faces of Strangers’ the writer once again explores the cultural divide in our global village. Set largely in New York City and Tallinn, the capital of the small former Soviet satellite republic of Estonia, the story centers on four young people and...

Kirâtârjunîya, or Arjuna and the Hunter, is one of the great court epics of the Sanskrit literary canon. Written by the sixth-century poet Bharavi, it is also the first and most remarkable reinterpretation of a pivotal episode in the Mahâbhârata, India’s ancient epic. The warrior Arjuna travels to the Himalayas to perform penance and win a boon from the god Shiva that will help his brothers, the Pandavas, overcome their enemies in...

At one time or another, Dr Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi, M.A. Jinnah, Sardar Patel and many other top leaders strongly opposed India s adoption of the parliamentary system. History has proven them right. Given its diversity, size, and communal and community divisions, the country needed a truly federal setup not the centralized unitary control that the parliamentary system offers. Why India Needs the Presidential System tells the...

Gods in Print: The Krishna Poster Collection 
Mandala Publishing  $24.99 April 2015. The collection features a stunning selection of forty full-color removable posters selected from Gods in Print: Masterpieces of India’s Mythological Art. This spiritual collection contains 12x16 prints and lithographs of the beautiful and inspirational sacred imagery of Krishna, gathered from all corners of India.

 In the late nineteenth century, India experienced a revival of Hindu spiritual art with the introduction of the lithograph. The original Gods in Print was the first comprehensive collection of these early hand-colored lithographs, multiple-block chromolithographs, and offset print images that featured India’s rich pantheon of gods and goddesses.
 Gods in Print: The Krishna Poster Collection brings forty of the most iconic images of Krishna from Gods in Print into a new removable and frameable format, allowing for greater appreciation of all the details and thought put into each piece. Featuring images of Krishna as the child Gopal, with Radha, battling Kaliya, and many more, this divine gallery is the ultimate poster collection of historical Krishna prints and lithographs for anyone interested in Hinduism, spirituality, mythology, or art.

Mascot Books has released the children’s book ‘Ari Loves the Holidays’, written by Reetu Dua.  The book is a magical world of ‘Ari Loves the Holidays’, where each holiday takes on a new meaning. Young readers can join Ari as he celebrates with fireworks and presents, goes on an Easter egg hunt, passes out a valentine, puts on his favorite costume, enjoys Hanukkah and Thanksgiving and many more! 

Each holiday is filled with love, color, family, and cheer. Reetu Dua has published the book through the Mascot Books Author Program which allows prospective authors to publish their books in a way that combines the freedom of self-published with all the support a publishing industry leader has to offer. To purchase ‘Ari Loves the Holidays’: www.mascotbooks.com. 

In the volatile interior of Old Hyderabad, where the majestic tops of its extraordinary mosques stick out into the serene skies, lives a south Indian family, steadily descending into ruin. Passionate and ambitious Anasuya dreams of bettering her education, but when she discovers her husband’s affair, she is consumed by a desire to exact revenge. Bright and joyful Rushi, brimming with resolutions and desires, 

believes in loving all humanity. But in a moment of frenzy he nearly kills his wife. Growing up in this oppressive midst is their son, the spirited, sensitive Arya, unwavering in his love for them, but who from early on develops disturbing tendencies.  
And when Arya, having left for America as a young man filled with shame, returns home in a troubled state, everyone’s lives are changed forever. Immersing the reader in cultural and moral dilemmas of modern India, ‘All Things Unforgiven’ by Raj Karamchedu is an unsettling debut novel that depicts the whole of this South Indian family and charts their descent into oppression and violence - and their strivings for forgiveness and love. Here is what he had to say: 
Q: Much of All Things Unforgiven takes place in Old Hyderabad. And Hyderabad itself is emerging as an important tech city. What is it like there? 
A: The old city, as it is usually called, is worlds apart from the “high-tech city” that emerged in a different part of Hyderabad. In the old city a strong blend of Muslim and Hindu cultures exists, with mosques, temples, great bazaars, and narrow, congested streets. Birds and color and Irani cafes are everywhere in the old city. I used to walk everyday through these streets, from my house to a bus stop at Charminar to go to school. I never thought too much of it when I was growing up there, but a great and glorious tradition and culture pervades all over the old city: Iranian cafes that serve a special Hyderabad tea, shops that sell jewelry, gold, perfume (old city is famous for it) colorful textiles, a mindboggling variety of spices. Two major languages spoken are Urdu (a variant of it actually, mixed with Hindi) and Telugu. 
Q: What was your childhood and family life like there? 
A: Loud, noisy, emotional, intense, boisterous, the house always full of people: that’s how I remember growing up. Ours was a middle-class family, or maybe lower middle-class even. The radio was always on. My mother was a strong, loud and passionate woman. Dad liked Urdu classical music, and qawwali (Sufi traditional music). Interesting thing about my father was, I don’t remember him being a particularly strong, always-there-for-you father, but somehow he always inspired me by the way his friends and colleagues talked about him. He was a civil engineer. Ours was a very traditional Hindu family, but my parents weren’t strict. Dad worked and mom stayed home. Large families, on both sides. In many ways my early years were similar to how and what I describe in the book. 
Q: How are gender roles described in All Things Unforgiven? How common are these roles right now in Indian society?
A. These roles are quite common now. Indian society doesn’t evolve much - though the cities will make you think it is evolving. Caste-based discrimination, deeply rooted violence on women and on children and on other caste people, are still the norms. 
In the novel, I wanted to show how judgments, both explicit and subtle, on women are made in a Telugu family; and how the seeds of violence in such a family are rooted in such judgments. In Telugu culture, I know this to be true of other Indian cultures as well, everyone behaves as though only lower-caste families, not them, treated women as second-class souls. But, looking back at how life was in such a family, it occurred to me that there was something odd about how we (we, as in the privileged Brahmin-caste folks) treated our mothers, our wives, and our women. 
As I became more self-aware, it became clear to me that in such families we boys and men were no different from the so-called lower-caste families. We too routinely pronounced women in our lives guilty, disapproved their expression, and behaved as though they were in a compartment of their own. We drew and guarded the boundary lines of their existence. All this while we loved them deeply, felt for them, and felt the intense pain of separation from them. 
Q: A few years ago you launched Saaranga Books. What inspired you? What is Saaranga’s mission? 
A. Five years ago I accidentally discovered a Telugu blog and that revived the memory of all my Telugu reading days. I used to read Telugu literature a lot when I was in India. I was depressed to see that nothing had changed in most Telugu literature; it is the same absence of quality literary criticism, the same dominance of pulp fiction. I wanted to change that. Hence Saaranga. 
Q: You’re also the translator of some Telugu poetry for a forthcoming collection, The Oxford Anthology of Telugu Dalit Poems (Oxford University Press, 2015). To what does “Telugu Dalit” refer?
A: Dalit refers to a certain identity of millions of people in India. Dalits are treated as untouchables, the lowest caste people. Dalits are not specific to Telugu, but this collection deals specifically with Telugu Dalits. Due to tradition and history and rigid caste system, they have always been discriminated by the upper caste people across India, especially the upper caste Brahmin people. Violence is perpetrated on them on a routine basis. 

MUMBAI - Celebrated author Chetan Bagat says his next book is quite challenging, as it is a love story of a rural boy and an urban girl. His new novella will hit the stands in October. "My next novel is out and out love story. It's about a rural boy and an urban girl. First time I am trying to explore a semi-rural setting in India. It is quite a challenge to write a novel in English about a rural boy," Bhagat, who has so far set his novels....

in educational institutes and cities, said. He has published five novels so far and most of his bestsellers have been adapted into movies such as "3 Idiots" ("Five Point Someone"), "Kai Po Che!" ("The 3 Mistakes of My Life") and "2 States" ("2 States: The Story of My Marriage"). Except for "Hello", an adaptation of "One Night @ The Call Centre", all the above were box office hits. Now filmmakers are eyeing his "Revolution 2020", but the author says he has set some rules for the adaptation of his books.
He said: "I have become very particular about the film adaptation after the success of '2 States', '3 Idiots' and 'Kai Po Che!'. Until I get the absolute right team, I won't mind delaying the film or if the film doesn't get made, it's okay," he said. An alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi and Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Bhagat, who has written the screenplay for Salman Khan's forthcoming actioner "Kick", will think about "Revolution 2020" adaptation after October. "It has to be a good team for 'Revolution 2020'. I will take some time till 'Kick' releases and my new book gets launched in October. So, maybe after that we will put things in place for 'Revolution 2020'. I do believe it will be another blockbuster," added the 40-year-old.

Grew up in India between the 1960s and 1980s? Chances are that you, if you were fond of reading, had your first brush with English books through a magnificently inventive author whose oeuvre stretched from a range of mysteries solved by an adventurous group of pre-teenage siblings and their friends, or trips to magical lands with all manners of fantastic beings, or the exploits of a group of girl students in a boarding school.

Children - the reading ones - will have a special cause to be thankful to women. J.K. Rowling may have been most recent to create a world relished by children - and their elders too - but a more abiding influence has been another English woman, blessed with a vivid imagination and indefatigable ability to translate it into words, whose over 700 works have sold over 600 million copies and are still popular. For a long time, Enid Blyton (1897-1968), responsible for the varied fare set out in the beginning, was the definitive author of children's books. She was, by no means, the first woman to write for children - having quite a few distinguished predecessors like Anna Sewell ("Black Beauty"), Edith Nesbit and Beatrix Potter - but the hold she had on the minds of her audience, both in her country and around the world, can never be overestimated, despite all the criticism.
Blyton's output includes at least four series of mysteries with a group of pre-teenage children as protagonists, three school series - two of them in girls boarding schools, and at least two series involving siblings coming in contact with magical places and items.
Then there are story arcs starring brownies and pixies (and featuring goblins, fairies, giants, goblins and other fantastic beings from English folklore), a half-pixie determined to set right the wrongs he sees around him, a forgettable old fogey who can be counted to confuse his wife's instructions and cause mayhem, children in a circus, about life on a farm, a host of short stories , adaptions of the stories from the Bible, Greek and Roman mythology, Arthurian and Robin Hood traditions and much more.
Blyton's most known stories are about the exploits of Famous Five, the Secret Seven, the Five Find-Outers, the Malory Towers and St Clares' school stories, the Brer Rabbit series as well as the adventures on the Magic Faraway Tree and the Wishing Chair, and of course, Noddy, but, as mentioned, there is a lot more that will still overwhelm your senses.
Among my favourites were the 15 books of Five Find-Outers, (Larry, Daisy, Pip, Bets and Frederick Algeron Trotteville, or Fatty as he came to be known, and his Scotch terrier Buster) as they solve various mysteries in their village of Peterswood despite the opposition of local policeman, the obnoxious P.C. Goon and their strict patients. But they have support in Inspector (later Superintendent) Jenks, after their fortuitous meeting with the downcast group (following a scolding by parents and being told not to meddle any longer), disturb him fishing. He is first unsure of what they are :"The Fine Doubters? What do you doubt?" when they introduce himself but comes to know he has come across a most gifted band and backs them to the hilt.
Another that I can still remember in detail despite reading it nearly three decades back is the "Book of Brownies", three of which get into trouble when they inadvertently become accomplices in the abduction of a princess and have to undergo a long and hazardous quest to rescue her. Then there was Adventures of Pip, about a pixie, who encounters (and is occasionally confused by) various manifestations of nature, as well as the Sunshine Book, was it?, a compendium of tales, adventure as well as fantasy, which included two accounts of a walk in the countryside in different seasons and the flora and fauna you may expect to see.
Blyton however faced continuous criticism - in her heyday, the BBC dismissed her work as "devoid of literary merit" to the 1960s accusations of much simplicity and recycling of plots, not to mention sexism, racism, elitism, and the like, and that a number of short-sighted libraries banned her works.
The critics may have their reasons but the issue raises a pertinent question: can any literary work be relevant for all times? Obviously not, it is a rare work that can resist reflecting the norms of the time. Books and other social manifestations have to be viewed through the prism of relativism, or assessing anything against the backdrop of its particular milieu. Or in other words, just read the story and worry about the subtext later. Happily, millions of readers seem to have followed this sensible course and her books are still in print despite some revisions for political correctness, especially in the Enchanted Woods series - a most ludicrous example which raises more doubts as to what the PC brigade thinks regularly than the effect on impressionable minds.