Harpercollins India imprint: 59 books

The story of India, over the past seven decades, has been one of development and social and political change, which has often been forgotten, pushed to the recesses of our memories. Ankur, Seema and Sushant refresh those memories in Note by Note, linking the events of each year to a significant film...

In The Zero-Cost Mission, India's relations with Bangladesh are undermined by the activities of the Jamaat-e-Islami, whose camps and facilities are being used to help Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, which sends its agents to carry out acts of terror in India. Vijay Shukla, in charge of Bangladesh...

While 'Indian popular cinema', as if by default, has come to mean Bollywood, there are other cinemas in India which are at least as rewarding to study, the largest and perhaps most intriguing among them coming from South India. Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada cinemas have their own colourful...

The very last work of Jnanpith award winner and pre-eminent writer U.R. Ananthamurthy is a timely reading, and trenchant critique, of the rise of Hindutva nationalism in India. Juxtaposing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh founder V.D. Savarkar's idea of Hindutva with M.K. Gandhi's concept of Hind Swaraj,...

What does it mean to be Muslim in India? What does it mean to look like one's religion? Does one's faith determine how one is perceived? Is there a secular ideal one is supposed to live up to? Can people of different faiths have a shared culture, a shared identity? India has, since time immemorial,...

On 3 July 1943, Subhas Chandra Bose stepped off a Japanese military plane in Singapore, pledged to finally free India from British rule, and created what was perhaps the first female infantry fighting unit in military history, the Rani of Jhansi Regiment (RJR). His young recruits were from Indian...

How different is Pakistan's culture from that of India? Exploring various aspects of the arts, literature and heritage of Pakistan, Raza Rumi argues that culture in Pakistan is not particularly unique to the nation, but rather a part of the cultural identities shared by South Asians. From the songs...

Salman Rushdie once described Pakistan as a 'poorly imagined country'. Indeed, Pakistan has meant different things to different people since its birth seventy years ago. Armed with nuclear weapons and dominated by the military and militants, it is variously described around the world as 'dangerous',...

In his unusual and extraordinary life, Pran Nevile has donned several hats - journalist, researcher, diplomat, Soviet bloc expert, United Nations adviser and writer. On short notice, he even turned pandit to perform the wedding ceremony of a close friend's daughter. Carefree Days is the story of his...

'Doc has delivered my two greatest joys, Ranbir and Riddhima,' says actress Neetu Singh. 'I am most comfortable with him and will not go to any other doctor.' Thousands of women feel the same way. For Dr R.P. Soonawala is the doctor extraordinaire - an expert gynaecologist, a skilled surgeon and the...

On 8 November, when the clock strikes 12, your money will be no good. Somewhere on the India - Nepal Border, a car full of passengers swerves off a highway and plunges into a valley, its trunk full of cash. In the UK, a Bollywood starlet wins Big Survivor, the most popular reality TV show in the country....

Hindi cinema was trapped in formulaic cliches for decades: lost-and-found themes, sacrificing mothers, brothers on opposite sides of the law, villains lording over their dens, colourful molls, six songs, the use of rape as a plot pivot, and cops who always arrived too late. It hit an all-time low...

Satyajit Ray was a master of science fiction writing. Through his Professor Shonku stories and other fiction and non-fiction pieces, he explored the genre from various angles. In the 1960s, Ray wrote a screenplay for what would have been the first-of-its-kind sci-fi film to be made in India. It was...

Soumitra Chatterjee became internationally famous with his debut in Satyajit Ray's Apur Sansar. In an era when Uttam Kumar ruled the minds and hearts of Bengali film audiences, Chatterjee carved a niche for himself, emerging as one of the finest actors, not only in India, but also in the world. Beyond...