Combo Pack (Set Of 4 Books) : Empires of the Indus | Temple Tales: Secrets and Stories from India’s Sacred Places | Another India | The Dismantling Of India

1. Empires of the Indus :-

One of the largest rivers in the world, the Indus rises in the Tibetan mountains, flows west across northern India and south through Pakistan. For millennia it has been worshipped as a god; for centuries used as a tool of imperial expansion; today it is the cement of Pakistans fractious union.

Five thousand years ago, a string of sophisticated cities grew and traded on its banks. In the ruins of these elaborate metropolises, Sanskrit-speaking nomads explored the river, extolling its virtues in Indias most ancient text, the Rig-Veda. During the past two thousand years a series of invaders – Alexander the Great, Afghan Sultans, the British Raj – made conquering the Indus valley their quixotic mission. For the people of the river, meanwhile, the Indus valley became a nodal point on the Silk Road, a centre of Sufi pilgrimage and the birthplace of Sikhism.

Empires of the Indus follows the river upstream and back in time, taking the reader on a voyage through two thousand miles of geography and more than five millennia of history redolent with contemporary importance

2. Temple Tales: Secrets and Stories from India’s Sacred Places :-

Which temple in India has the secrets of the universe locked away in an icy cave? Where in the country would you find a shrine for a divine doctor? Which goddess likes to be offered veggies as prasad? Temples in India are not just spaces for worship — they are also living museums of architectural wonders, mind-boggling sculptures, graceful dances, colourful crafts, and many other cultural traditions. Most of all, they are treasure troves of lore and legend, teeming with tales of gods and goddesses, demons and devotees, plants and beasts, the magical and the mundane. In this unique, unputdownable book, Sudha G. Tilak takes you on a whirlwind tour of the fascinating world of India’s temples, where stories come alive, and the lines between fact and faith are blurred.

3. Another India :-

“Ram is the perfection of the limited personality, Krishna of the exuberant personality and Siva of the nondimensional personality.” Lohia’s elaboration of these “categories of perfection” is an absolute delight. During his entire career, Sir M Visversvaraya carried two pens on him, one of which belonged to the government and the other to him. He always used the former pen for office work and the latter for personal work. After possessing a devotee, a deity called Doddaswamy would start whistling with his fingers in his mouth. His devotees are to address him only through whistles. Another deity from Gulbarga district, Gajalakshmi, expected her devotees to bare all their teeth in her presence. Free ranging, delightful and erudite, Another India opens up the varied dimension of the past, discloses the subtle facets of religious experiences, and diversifies our imagination of tradition and suggests ways of reengaging it. It shares exciting stories about lesser-known and well-known figures in our country, from Bhimavva and Mastani Maa to Gandhi and Tagore. This book brings to you the many events, thoughts, people, who have been waylaid in our frequent quests for single, mainstream narratives. It brings to you the intricate cultural universe of India, where creative dissent has shaped the ethos, where rich visions and values of living together continue to hold sway in our constant striving to be a better, more just polity and society.

4. The Dismantling Of India :-

In October 1947, two months after Independence, TJS George arrived in Bombay. He was nineteen years old, with a degree in English Literature. He sent out job applications––to the Air Force and to the city’s English-language newspapers. Only one organization cared to reply, The Free Press Journal. The editor was known to hire anyone who asked for a job, but most new hires were sacked in a fortnight. George was put on the news desk as a sub-editor and eventually became an assistant editor. In Patna, as editor of The Searchlight, he was arrested by the chief minister for sedition. He spent three weeks in Hazaribagh Central Jail. In Hong Kong, he worked for the Far Eastern Economic Review as regional editor; in New York he was a writer for the United Nations population division; and, back in Hong Kong, in 1975, he founded Asiaweek. Six years later, he returned to India and settled in Bangalore. He began a column for Indian Express that ran without a break for twenty-five years, until 2022. His seventy-five years of journalism, concurrent with India’s development as an independent nation, make for a unique understanding of events and personalities. Acclaimed for his widely historical, pan-Asian vision, George brings this far-flung experience to a compulsively readable new book, The Dismantling of India. It is the story of India told in 35 concise biographies, beginning with Jamsetji Tata and ending with Narendra Modi.