For a few years in the early 1990s - when the embers of a violent agitation for Gorkhaland were slowly dying down - Parimal Bhattacharya taught at the Government College in Darjeeling. No Path in Darjeeling Is Straight is a memoir of his time in the iconic town, and one of the finest works of Indian non-fiction in recent years. As Parimal tramped its roads and winding footpaths, Darjeeling slowly grew on him. He sought out its history: a land of incomparable beauty originally inhabited by the Lepchas and other tribes; the British who took it for themselves in the mid-1800s so they could remember home; the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway - once a vital artery, now a quaint toy train; and the vast tea gardens with which the British replaced verdant forests to produce the fabled Orange Pekoe. And in the enmeshed lives of the small town's inhabitants, Parimal discovered a richly cosmopolitan society which endured even under threat from cynical politics and haphazard urbanization. Written with empathy, and in shimmering prose, No Path in Darjeeling Is Straight effortlessly merges travel, history, literature, memory, politics, and the pleasures of ennui into an unforgettable portrait of a place and its people.

In the late 2000s, when the three-decade-long Left Front rule in West Bengal was crumbling, Parimal Bhattacharya began to travel outside the well-trodden urban centres to different parts of the region - from the Sundarbans to tribal Jangalmahal, from the outskirts of Kolkata to villages on the Bangladesh border, from the floodplains of the Hooghly to the forests of Simlipal in neighbouring Odisha. There, he encountered: a woman who was branded a witch because she was listed in the census as literate; an island that vanished famously, only to resurface; a paralysed communist who dreams about the death of a river; a forest community who believe they are descendants of the Harappans; an old millworker and his wife who fight the ghosts of a dead industrial town with laughter; a fisherman uprooted by a river eleven times in twenty years; and many more. This book documents the missing narratives of these 'other' Bengalis, the largely invisible majority beyond the bhadralok that the rest of India knows. Moving between the personal and the political, and between travelogue, journal and memoir, Field Notes from a Waterborne Land takes the reader on a journey across a fascinating land peopled with unforgettable characters.

Almost all of the Himalayas had been mapped by the time the Great Game - in which the British and Russian empires fought for control of Central and Southern Asia - reached its zenith in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Only Tibet remained unknown and unexplored, zealously guarded and closed off to everyone. Britain sent a number of spies into this forbidden land, disguised as pilgrims and wanderers, outfitted with secret survey equipment and tasked with collecting topographical knowledge, and information about the culture and customs of Tibet. Among them was Kinthup, a tailor who went as a monk's companion to confirm that the Tsangpo and the Brahmaputra were the same river. Sarat Chandra Das, a schoolmaster, was also sent on a clandestine mission, and came back with extensive data and a trove of ancient manuscripts and documents. Bells of Shangri-La brings to vivid life the journeys and adventures of Kinthup, Sarat Chandra Das and others, including Eric Bailey, an officer who was part of the British invasion of Tibet in 1903. Weaving biography with history, and the memories of his own treks through the region, Parimal Bhattacharya writes in the great tradition of Peter Hopkirk and Peter Matthiessen to create a sparkling, unprecedented work of non-fiction.

Katrell Christie was a thirty-something former hippie-turned-roller-derby-rebel with an eclectic little tea shop, Dr. Bombay's Underwater Tea Party, in suburban Atlanta.Katrell had no idea on earth that justtwo years after opening her doors, herordinary American life would make a drastic change and so would the lives of women half a world away. I chose the name of my tea shop--Dr. Bombay's Underwater Tea Party --because it sounded whimsical.India wasn't a part of the equation. Not even remotely. I didn't do yoga. I had no deep yearning to see the Taj Mahal or tour Hindu temples. I was not harboring some spiritual desire to follow the path of the Buddha. Indian food? I could take it or leave it. But a regular customer, Cate Powell, raved about a trip she'd taken there as a Rotary Club scholar. Cate was planning to go again to work with a women's handicraft exchange. Her enthusiasm was infectious.'You should come, ' she said after breezing into the shop one day. I didn't give it much thought. It seemed about as likely of happening as me suddenly deciding to mount abid forMiss Georgia Peach.I was a new business owner with work stretching for as far as I could see . . . But Katrell did go. She toured the tea fields of Darjeeling, witnessed the Hindu throngs at the Ganges, and learned to string pearls in the Muslim town of Hyderabad where Cate was working to help market the jewelry. As we work I watch. Some shed their Muslim coverings when they enter the workroom but others remain fully covered, only a glimpse of eyes visible. It's disconcerting. I'm a Southern girl. My mother taught me to throw out a big friendly smile to the world. But with these womentheir faces cloakedI get nothing back. I can't connect. Even worse, I couldn't get my mind off the idea that no matter what these women did they would nev

A number one bestseller in India and a shortlisted nomination for the Dylan Thomas Prize, The Gurkha's Daughter is a distinctive debut from a rising star in South Asian literature. This collection of stories captures the textures and sounds of the Nepalese diaspora through eight intimate, nuanced portraits, taking us from the hillside city of Darjeeling, India to a tucked away Nepalese restaurant in New York City. The daily struggles of Parajuly's characters reveal histories of war, colonial occupation, religious division, systemized oppression, and dispossession in the diverse geographical intersection of India, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, and China. In a cruel remark by a wealthy doctor to her tenant shopkeeper, we hear the persistent injustice of the caste system; in the contentious relationship between a wealthy widow and her sister-in-law, we glimpse the restricted lives and submissive social roles of Nepalese women; and in a daughter's relationship with her father, we find a dissonance between modernity and tradition that has echoed through the generations in unexpected ways. Across different ethnicities, religions, and other social distinctions, the characters in these share a universal yearning, not just for survival but for a better life; one with love, dignity, and community. In The Gurkha's Daughter, Parajuly reveals the small acts of bravery--the sustaining, driving hope--that bind together the human experience.

In the tradition of celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell. The recipient of extraordinary acclaim from critics and the bookselling community, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell and has garnered comparisons to celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene. Set during the tumult of World War II, on the lush Malayan island of Penang, The Gift of Rain tells a riveting and poignant tale about a young man caught in the tangle of wartime loyalties and deceits. In 1939, sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton-the half-Chinese, half-English youngest child of the head of one of Penang's great trading families-feels alienated from both the Chinese and British communities. He at last discovers a sense of belonging in his unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip proudly shows his new friend around his adored island, and in return Endo teaches him about Japanese language and culture and trains him in the art and discipline of aikido. But such knowledge comes at a terrible price. When the Japanese savagely invade Malaya, Philip realizes that his mentor and sensei-to whom he owes absolute loyalty-is a Japanese spy. Young Philip has been an unwitting traitor, and must now work in secret to save as many lives as possible, even as his own family is brought to its knees.

Author's travel impressions of Uttar Khand Region and Hindu shrines in the region.

A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS ORIGINAL Mavis Gallant is a contemporary legend, a frequent contributor to The New Yorkerfor close to fifty years who has, in the words of The New York Times, "radically reshaped the short story for decade after decade." Michael Ondaatje's new selection of Gallant's work gathers some of the most memorable of her stories set in Europe and Paris, where Gallant has long lived. Mysterious, funny, insightful, and heartbreaking, these are tales of expatriates and exiles, wise children and straying saints. Together they compose a secret history, at once intimate and panoramic, of modern times.

This book is about cultural politics and the quest for identity of two marginal communities of Sikkim and Darjeeling – the Lepcha and the Mangar. Sharing insights into the knowledge, aesthetics, aspirations and dreams of two marginal communities who have been innovatively and differentially appropriating ‘culture’ to exploit the politics of difference, it is a narrative about their ethno-cultural consciousness, notions of identity and anxieties over being minority communities in a pluralistic democracy. The narrative is essentially presented in the form of a field-trip diary, with observations and comments which try to situate the issues within a larger perspective. Based on two years of intensive field study, the book chronicles the endeavour of these two communities to reclaim their cultural past, and forge an identity that would ensure material security, self-esteem, dignity and also the fruits of ‘modernity’. The book will be useful to scholars and students of anthropology, sociology, politics and history, especially those engaged in the study of culture and ethnicity in the Eastern Himalayan region.

A possible serial killer on the loose sends tea maven Theodosia Browning into a whirlwind of investigation in this latest installment of the New York Times bestselling series. It was a dark and stormy night, but that was the least of Theodosia Browning's troubles. As she approaches St. Philips Graveyard, Theodosia sees two figures locked in a strange embrace. Wiping rain from her eyes, Theodosia realizes she has just witnessed a brutal murder and sees a dark-hooded figure slip away into the fog. In the throes of alerting police, Theodosia recognizes the victim—it is the daughter of her friend, Lois, who owns the Antiquarian Bookshop next door to her own Indigo Tea Shop. Even though this appears to be the work of a serial killer who is stalking the back alleys of Charleston, Lois begs Theodosia for help. Against the advice of her boyfriend, Detective Pete Riley, and the sage words of Drayton, her tea sommelier, amateur-sleuth Theodosia launches her own shadow investigation. And quickly discovers that suspects abound with the dead girl’s boyfriend, nefarious real estate developer, private-security man, bumbling reporter, and her own neighbor who is writing a true-crime book and searching for a big ending. INCLUDES DELICIOUS RECIPES AND TEA TIME TIPS!