A Gujarat Here, a Gujarat There


Book Description

Delhi, 1947. The city surges with Partition refugees. Eager to escape the welter of pain and confusion that surrounds her, young Krishna applies on a whim to a position at a preschool in the princely state of Sirohi, itself on the cusp of transitioning into the republic of India. She is greeted on arrival with condescension for her refugee status, and treated with sexist disdain by Zutshi Sahib, the man charged with hiring for the position. Undaunted, Krishna fights back. But when an opportunity to become governess to the child maharaja Tej Singh Bahadur presents itself-and with it a chance to make Sirohi her new home once and for all-there is no telling how long this idyll will last. Part novel, part memoir, part feminist anthem, A Gujarat Here, A Gujarat There is not only a powerful tale of Partition loss and dislocation but also charts the odyssey of a spirited young woman determined to build a new identity for herself on her own terms.




Gujarat, the Making of a Tragedy


Book Description

This book is intended to be a permanent public archive of the communal violence in Gujarat in early 2002. Drawing upon eyewitness reports from the English, Hindi and regional media, citizens and official articles by leading public figures and intellectuals, it provides an account of how and why the state was allowed to burn.




India Guide Gujarat


Book Description

Guidebook to Gujarat state, arranged by region.




Eighteenth-Century Gujarat


Book Description

The eighteenth century in South Asian history is a period of great dynamism and a critical phase in the historical trajectory of the subcontinent. This book focuses on the merchants and manufacturers of Gujarat, who amidst complex political developments succeeded in preserving their autonomy and freedom in the market place. By spotting economic growth in the late eighteenth century, this study rejects the constructed dualism between a seventeenth century of great progress and an eighteenth century of chaos and decline.




Flavorful India


Book Description

The cuisine of Gujarat, a state in western India, is famed for its delicately flavoured vegetarian dishes. This collection of over 80 family recipes introduces readers to some of India's often overlooked culinary offerings. Also included are an introduction to Gujarati culture and cuisine, a section on spices, ingredients and utensils, and a chapter on non-vegetarian specialities. Each recipes is presented in an easy-to-follow format and adapted for the western kitchen. Enchanted drawings throughout the book the flavours of India alive.




Narrative Pasts


Book Description

This book explores the narrative power of texts in creating communities. Through an investigation of genealogical, historical, and biographical texts, it retrieves the social history of the Muslim community in Gujarat, a region with one of the earliest records of Muslim presence in the Indian subcontinent. By reconstructing the literary, social, and historical world of Sufi preceptors, disciples, and descendants from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, Jyoti Gulati Balachandran highlights the role of learned Muslim men in imparting a prominent regional and historical identity to Gujarat. The book reveals how distinct forms of community and association were created and shaped over time through architecture, shrine veneration, and most importantly, textual redefinition. Narrative Pasts demonstrates that Gujarat was not only an important hub of maritime Indian Ocean trade, but also an integral part of the historical and narrative processes that shaped medieval and early modern South Asia. Employing new and rarely used literary materials in Persian and Arabic, this book brings new life and vitality to the history of the region by integrating Gujarat’s sultanate and Mughal past with the larger socio-cultural histories of Islamic South Asia.




Gujarat Files


Book Description

Gujarat Files is the account of an eight-month long undercover investigation by journalist Rana Ayyub into the Gujarat riots, fake encounters and the murder of state Home Minister Haren Pandya that brings to the fore startling revelations. Posing as Maithili Tyagi, a filmmaker from the American Film Institute Conservatory, Rana met bureaucrats and top cops in Gujarat who held pivotal positions in the state between 2001 and 2010. The transcripts of the sting operation reveal the complicity of the state and its officials in crimes against humanity. With sensational disclosures about cases that run parallel to Narendra Modi and Amit Shah's ascent to power and their journey from Gujarat to New Delhi, the book tells you the hushed truth of the state in the words of those who developed amnesia while speaking before commissions of enquiry, but held nothing back in the secretly taped videos which form the basis of this remarkable read.




Textiles and Dress of Gujarat


Book Description

The textiles and dress of Gujarat in northwestern India are acclaimed for their design and craftsmanship. The sophisticated weaves, dyeing techniques, intricate embroideries, vibrant motifs and embellished garments, and the communities to which many of these are unique, have all been the subjects of extensive documentation. Textiles and dress play a central role in the construction of a visual identity of Gujarat and its people. This book examines the 'social life' of Gujarat's textiles, tracing the historical journey of cloth and dress up to the present day. It looks closely at dyed and painted textiles, and embroidery, and locates their place in culture, trade and commerce, and the role of entrepreneurship in the survival of these handmade textiles.




No One Had a Tongue to Speak


Book Description

On August 11, 1979, after a week of extraordinary monsoon rains in the Indian state of Gujarat, the two mile-long Machhu Dam-II disintegrated. The waters released from the dam’s massive reservoir rushed through the heavily populated downstream area, devastating the industrial city of Morbi and its surrounding agricultural villages. As the torrent’s thirty-foot-tall leading edge cut its way through the Machhu River valley, massive bridges gave way, factories crumbled, and thousands of houses collapsed. While no firm figure has ever been set on the disaster’s final death count, estimates in the flood’s wake ran as high as 25,000. Despite the enormous scale of the devastation, few people today have ever heard of this terrible event. This book tells, for the first time, the suspenseful and multifaceted story of the Machhu dam disaster. Based on over 130 interviews and extensive archival research, the authors recount the disaster and its aftermath in vivid firsthand detail. The book presents important findings culled from formerly classified government documents that reveal the long-hidden failures that culminated in one of the deadliest floods in history. The authors follow characters whose lives were interrupted and forever altered by the flood; provide vivid first-hand descriptions of the disaster and its aftermath; and shed light on the never-completed judicial investigation into the dam’s collapse.




Em and the Big Hoom


Book Description

The devastatingly original debut novel from a winner of the Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction. “Profoundly moving . . . I cannot remember when I last read something as touching as this.” —Amitav Ghosh, author of The Glass Palace First published by a small press in India, Jerry Pinto’s debut novel has already taken the literary world by storm. Suffused with compassion, humor, and hard-won wisdom, Em and the Big Hoom is a modern masterpiece, and its American publication is certain to be one of the major literary events of the season. Meet Imelda and Augustine, or—as our young narrator calls his unusual parents—Em and the Big Hoom. Most of the time, Em smokes endless beedis and sings her way through life. She is the sun around which everyone else orbits. But as enchanting and high-spirited as she can be, when Em’s bipolar disorder seizes her she becomes monstrous, sometimes with calamitous consequences for herself and others. This accomplished debut is graceful and urgent, with a one-of-a-kind voice that will stay with readers long after the last page.