Interesting History of Mumbai aka Bombay Word Origin of Mumbai:

Based on his own extraordinary life, Gregory David Roberts’ Shantaram is a mesmerizing novel about a man on the run who becomes entangled within the underworld of contemporary Bombay—the basis for the Apple + TV series starring Charlie Hunnam. “It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.” An escaped convict with a false passport, Lin flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of Bombay, where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter the city’s hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere. As a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city’s poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals. The keys to unlock the mysteries and intrigues that bind Lin are held by two people. The first is Khader Khan: mafia godfather, criminal-philosopher-saint, and mentor to Lin in the underworld of the Golden City. The second is Karla: elusive, dangerous, and beautiful, whose passions are driven by secrets that torment her and yet give her a terrible power. Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujaheddin guerrillas—this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach, and a passionate love for India at its heart.

Explore the Surprising and Sometimes Dark Origins of Beloved Holiday Bakes Spice up your season by rolling, molding, and kneading your way through some of the world's most iconic Christmas recipes. Interspersed with tales of sailors, saints, tomb raiders, and artisans, The Secret History of Christmas Baking proves that even the humblest holiday treat has a global backstory. Did you know that the ancient Egyptians had their own version of gingerbread or that marzipan was once considered a pharmaceutical? Linda Raedisch dispels some long-standing culinary myths and delves into the darker chapters of the West's centuries-long romance?with sugar and spices. In addition to more than forty recipes for modern bakers, you'll find illustrated instructions for dressing up your cakes and cookie plates with paper stars, angels, and witches. From Linzer tartlets to Christstollen, you can turn your kitchen into an Old World Christmas market stall.

Mumbai and its surrounding hills, forests, lakes an8185026602

33000 years back, humans turned one of their bitter enemies into a loyal friend. Who was this enemy? And how did this 'enemy' help Homo sapiens to get to the top of the food chain? A ball of dung rolled by a beetle transformed humanity. How did that happen? A human being riding a bicycle is the second most efficient locomotive on Earth. What is the first? How did humans survive the Toba Super-Volcano eruption 70,000 years ago? What's the connection between a prehistoric hominid fossil to the music band Beatles? Why has no one been able to find the tomb of Alexander the Great? Was it really Columbus who discovered the Americas? Who is the 'loneliest man and the 'oldest surviving human tribe’? When a playful tweenage daughter asked umpteen, incessant questions to her dad, the only way to answer was to embark on an adventurous journey across continents and millennia to put the pieces of human civilization and rediscovering oneself. From a one-million-year-old fireplace to treks through jungles and caves, from being hunted to becoming the hunter; the journey of knowing nothing to questioning everything and then back to knowing nothing. Would the father-daughter duo get their answers? Can she find her place in history and the universe?

Interesting History of Kolkata aka Calcutta

As a child, Biddu dreamt of going west and making it big as a composer. At the age of sixteen, he formed a band and started playing in a cafe in Bangalore, his home town, At eighteen, he was part of a popular act at Trinca's, a nightclub in Calcutta devoted to food, wine and music, At nineteen, he had college students in Bombay dancing to his music. In his early twenties, he left the country and ended up hitchhiking across the Middle East before arriving in London with only the clothes on his back and his trusty guitar. What followed were years of hardship and struggle but also great music and gathering fame. From the nine million selling "Kung Fu Fighting" to the iconic youth anthem of "Made in India" and the numerous hits in between. Biddu's music made him a household name in India and elsewhere. In this first public account of all that came his way: the people, the events,the music tours and companies Biddu writes with a gripping sense of humor about his remarkable journey with its fairy tale ending. Charming, witty, and entirely likable, Biddu is a man you are going to enjoy getting to know.

The astonishing story of the Sassoons, one of the nineteenth century's preeminent commercial families and 'the Rothschilds of the East' The Sassoons were one of the great business dynasties of the nineteenth century, as eminent as traders as the Rothschilds were bankers. This book reveals the secrets behind the family's phenomenal success: how a handful of Jewish exiles from Ottoman Baghdad forged a mercantile juggernaut from their new home in colonial Bombay, the vast network of agents, informants and politicians they built, and the way they came to bridge East and West, culturally as well as commercially. As one competitor remarked, 'silver and gold, silks, gums and spices, opium and cotton, wool and wheat - whatever moves over sea or land feels the hand or bears the mark of Sassoon & Co.' Drawing for the first time on the vast family archives, Joseph Sassoon brings vividly to life a succession of remarkable characters. From a single generation: Flora, the first woman to steer a major global business, Siegfried, the poet, and Victor, the tycoon who drew the stars of Hollywood's silent era to his skyscraper in Shanghai. Through the lives these ambitious figures built for themselves in London, Bombay and beyond, the reader is drawn into a captivating world of politics and power, innovation and intrigue, high society and empire. The Global Merchants is thus at once an intimate portrait of a single family and a panorama of the hundred and thirty years of their prominence: from the Opium Wars and opening of China to the American Civil War, the establishment of the British Raj to India's independence. Together these give a fresh perspective on the evolution of one of the defining forces of their age and the present: globalization. The Sassoons were variously its agents, advocates and casualties, and watching them moving through the world, we perceive the making of our own.

The Mumbai drugs mafia worked; thanks to the Commissioner’s mercy. Ayesha was the only one who knew about this secret information. The Commissioner had blurted all his secrets to her when he had downed a few pegs and was lost in her beauty. He found peace in Ayesha’s arms, and they spent many nights together. This was also one of the many reasons to not put up a camera inside the house. The next day Vakil Saab’s statement was printed on the front page of all the Gujarati newspapers. The Gujarat Government took this statement very seriously and asked the Home Minister to initiate an enquiry. Gujarat police wanted to save their prestige. They gathered all the informants and started the search. The next day, the Gulf News carried the headline, “Zakir dies of an overdose.” The crime world was shaken by this news. It was unbelievable that a horrible man like Zakir would end his existence by simply an overdose of the same drug he was selling. The Dubai police stated that Zakir died in the bathtub consuming alcohol. The post-mortem report also said that Zakir died due to alcohol and drugs.

A Plan of Economic Development for India', aka the Bombay Plan, written in two parts and published in 1944 and 1945, generated widespread interest in India and abroad at the time of its publication. Its authors were none other than J.R.D Tata, G.D Birla, Purushottamdas Thakurdas, Kasturbhai Lalbhai, Ardeshir Dala, Lala Sri Ram, John Mathai and A.D