Deep Ties

I find it difficult to breathe today... I have been trying to stem the anguish within my heart over the past twenty-four hours ever since I heard of the Chennai horror story of a tiny little girl having been brutalized and gang-raped by twenty-two monsters. To call them animals would be doing animals an injustice, for they could never stoop to these levels of degradation. My heart aches because, till November 19 th , 2017, I lived in the same apartment in Chennai, a space which I considered a haven of peace, where children of all age groups played and lived in perfect harmony. We would smile in pride when we watched children playing basketball and cycling in the evenings. Mothers would hold their toddlers by the hand and walk around the building, often sitting in the children’s park when out of breath. It was assumed that the building had all the facilities required for a life of ease – well-maintained lifts, electricians and plumbers on call, an office that looked into eve...

Dear Friends, Kiran Manral is a well-known Indian author who has written a number of books that have captured the pulse of readers everywhere. Her latest book, Missing, Presumed Dead, is a psychological thriller. The cover and the title speak for themselves.                                                                    PRESS RELEASE                                                                          Amaryllis                                                an imprint of       ...

The quaint cover of ‘When Padma Bani Paula’ gives a whiff of the story that unfolds within the book, with a pack of interesting characters that lead the story on to its not-so-inevitable conclusion. Padma Luxmi, the unabashed heroine, moves on from her South Indian roots replete with conservative ‘pavdas’ and jasmine strands to an exciting life that she considers her due. Having always hated her name, she is elated when her boss, Saugata Bose, gives her the trendy moniker of ‘Paula’. The book traces the growth of Padma to Paula, as she traverses along a path, at times thorny, at others pleasurable. Padma grows up in an atmosphere where Nanna and Amma, her parents, enjoy a “comforting silence after a shared laugh over the silliness of their children.” She has a bitter-sweet relationship with them and her mother sums her up rather aptly when she calls her “a rebel without a cause” always hankering after what she cannot have. Her younger brother, Krishna, is, as most of his ...