Preeti was barely six years old when doctors diagnosed her deteriorating vision as a condition due to optic atrophy. Those were difficult days but with the support and encouragement of her parents she learnt to get the best out of her disability. She looked for possibilities, focused on every positive she could dream of, always playing her best shot at facing challenges and failures with dignity and without shame. Sprinkled liberally with failures and obstacles, her story is a journey through a fairly difficult life with lots of courage and never-say-die attitude. In her memoirs she shares all the fun she had living life queen size and on her own terms. For she firmly believes, ‘When life gets cloudy, the trick is to look at the silver lining.’

The classic, heart-touching story of unrequited love of a man's fall from grace and his tragic end offers an insightful and compassionate portral of men and women in love. Devdas, written in early decades of the twentieth century, still captivates readers, and has been filmed several times - a testament to endurance and class. One of Sarat Chandra Chatterjee's finest novels, it reveals the best there is in Indian romantic literature. The abridged translation of Devdas, Srikanta and six of Sarat Chandra's short stories brings to English readers a careful selection of writer's best.

A 2012 McKinsey study found that women hold a mere 5 per cent of boardroom positions in Indian firms. If India has to emerge as a real economic superpower in the 21st century, she has to harness the growing women power, grant them a greater role in the nation-building process and chalk out a clear ballot-to-boardroom path for them. However, there are a few women who have fought against all odds to occupy the corner rooms in Indian companies. Women with Vision profiles successful businesswomen from diverse backgrounds: (1) World-class managers (Chanda Kochhar and Naina Lal Kidwai); (2) First-generation entrepreneurs (Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Zia Mody and Ekta Kapoor) and (3) Inheritors (Anu Aga, Shobhana Bhartia, Priya Paul and Priti Paul). In a face-to-face interview with the author, each icon shares her journey of how she battled male-dominated hierarchies to shatter the glass ceiling and set up successful business empires through grit, determination, hard work and merit. Their stories, also narrated by their family members and colleagues, highlight their conflicts, challenges, perils and promises. These personalities can truly inspire a whole generation of women to fight their way through the corridors of corporate power while juggling their many responsibilities at home.

Praful is a Professor, a dyed-in-the-wool academic who is shaped by the life-denying philosophy of Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta. Parul, on the other hand, is a sensual, earthy woman who believes in the veracity of love and the reality of the many beautiful things that life offers. A chance meeting between the two leads not only to a romantic relationship spread over eleven purnimas, but becomes a dialogue between two philosophical systems, the Advaita of Shankara and the Madhurya of the Bhagvata Purana. As romantic moments between the two unfold, intellectuality interacts with sensuality, questioning the validity of each, and as Chaitra moves to Magh, a transformation takes place. As Harsha Dehejia weaves this romantic story, where meetings by the Parijataka and conversations underneath the Champa, are not only moments of shringara but introspections on the meaning of life, we hear and feel the sensuality of love as it merges seamlessly with the intellectuality of a philosophic discourse. In this heart-throbbing romantic relationship, there is the spiritual quest of ultimate reality along with the pleasures of the sound of the wind and the song of a bird. Metaphysical thoughts and tender feelings, evocative colours and resonant sounds, intoxicating aromas and patterned textures, myths and metaphors, intermingle in the hushed conversations of two people in love.

The Story of Tea traces the history, myths and rituals of growing and drinking tea from the tea gardens of China to the roadside dhabas of India. Thomas Garraway's first public sale of tea in England in 1657 was of historic importance. For this he published and distributed a poster... "The leaf of such known virtues ... that it is sold for twice its weight in silver. It maketh the body active and lusty. It helpth the headache, giddiness and heaviness and thereof. It is very good against stone and gravel, cleaning the kidneys and ureter. It is good against crudities, strengthening the weakness of the Ventricle or Stomack, causing good appetite and Deigestion and particularly for men of a corpulent body and such as are great eaters of flesh... It prevents and cures ague, surefeits...and fevers, by infusing a fit quantity of the leaf, thereby provoking a most gentle vomit...It drives away all pains in the Collick proceeding from wind and purgeth safety the Gall..." So said Thomas Garraway and indeed, many belived him!