For long, aravanis or hijras have been the invisible yet hypervisible subjects of a societal gaze -- looked at, talked about, feared, revered, cursed, and imagined. They have largely stood as metaphors, refused individual histories, lives, identities and selves by a society that reduces them to corporeal bodies, stereotypes and objects of disdain. Yet this gaze has been challenged and subverted time and time again by a community that refuses to be ashamed or see itself as the victim. Some of the greatest victories in recent history in this battle for rights have been won in Tamil Nadu - the first state in India where the government recognised many of the rights of the hijra community. The stories in this volume chronicle many of the aravanis who were part of this groundbreaking change. Indeed, in Tamil, these stories were some of the first narratives of hijra lives told to, written by and produced entirely by the members of the community themselves. Appearing in English for the first time, these landmark narratives still retain the authenticity, simplicity and rawness of life stories of courage, pain, searching, and both triumph and despair, told without agenda.

Extent:c.100pp.
Price: c. Rs 150
Size: Demy Octavo
Binding: Paperback
Forthcoming in April 2010
Sexualities Series
Rights: Available

Set between 1989 and 1994, the film traces the life of Nikhil Kapoor: the state all-round swimming champion. A committed sportsman, Nikhil’s life changes radically when he finds out that he is HIV-positive. Even as he faces harassment from authorities and heartbreaking rejection from his parents, the only two people who stand by him in his fight for justice, life, love and dignity are his sister Anamika and his boyfriend Nigel. Published for the first time, the screenplay of this powerful yet poignant film, brings Nikhil’s story back for its fans with the same intensity as the motion picture. The text of the film is supported by behind-the-scenes visuals and stills from the film, as well as testimonials from the cast and crew about how this film changed them in small but critical ways.

Extent: c. 200pp.
Price: c. Rs 295

Size: Royal
Binding: Paperback
Forthcoming in August 2010
Rights: Available

 

An unusual and engrossing effort by a career academic, this book tells the life story of the Italian Capuchin friar, Padre Marco della Tomba (1726–1803. Padre Marco worked in Bettiah, near Patna, as a missionary of the Tibet-Hindustan Mission sponsored by the Congregation of Propaganda Fide in Rome, and during his time there, he recorded and commented on a number of critical events of the late eighteenth century in the subcontinent's history. The fascinating account is told in the first person since more than half the book is translated directly from essays and letters written in Italian by Padre Marco, while the remaining parts have been written by David Lorenzen mostly on the basis of Marco's letters and essays and those of some of his colleagues in the Mission. For long we have read volumes on the tumultuous eighteenth century by South Asian historians. This unusual effort places an important source directly in the hands of interested readers.

David N. Lorenzen is Professor of South Asian History at the Center for Asian and African Studies, El Colegio de Mexico.

Extent: c. 200pp.
Price: c. Rs 425
Binding: Hardback
Size: Demy Octavo
ISBN: 978-81-906668-8-6
Forthcoming in 2009
For sale in South Asia only

 

Ragi by any other name would be called Ragi, Nachani, Nagli, Kelvaragu, Mutthari, Coracano, finger millet or perhaps a much neglected wonder food; an indigenous grain that has been grown and consumed in India’s rural areas for centuries. This is a collection of ragi recipes; some are traditional, others are variations of the traditional and some are entirely new innovations. The recipes are accompanied by a sparkling little tale about Aji, the author's genius grandmother, the author herself as a little girl, and the transcendental ragi grain. Transcendental because, as the author believes, it has the potential to take a weak and ailing body and lead it towards health, wisdom and self realisation. Adorning this unusual book are sketches by the author of the traditional implements used to cook with ragi.   

Extent: c.150pp.
Price: Rs 425
Binding: Paperback
Size: 8.75”x 6.75”
Forthcoming in April 2010

In 1939, young Joan Falkiner’s spirited flight from South Yarra to princely India and her marriage to the Muslim ruler of a small state in Gujarat sent shockwaves through the Melbourne society. Political reverberations were felt throughout the Raj and – as the kingdoms were about to disappear forever in the maelstrom of Indian Independence – as high as the British throne. How did it all come about? Through conversations about Melbourne, Mumbai and the South of France, research in the India Official Library in London, and the author’s personal journey while travelling in modern India, Suzanne Falkiner traces the course of a most unusual love story.

With the landmark Delhi High Court victory in July 2009, sexuality and the law entered mainstream, legal and public discourse in India inviting both celebration and resistance. How do we understand this conversation? The July judgement stands on the shoulders of a much longer history, argue the writers in this contemporary and critical volume on queering the law. A longer history that shapes, unsettles and challenges both legal and queer histories and begins new conversations on the intersections between bodies, politics, activism, sexuality, identity and law. Some playful, some critical and others reflective and irreverent, this unique collection of pieces brings the life, structures and institutions of law alive and shine with relevance in the contemporary moment.

The emergence of the queer struggle which insistently questions the normative understanding of gender and sexuality has broadened our very understanding of what we mean by the 'political'. If previously it was taken for granted that those born as women dress as 'women' and fall in love with and marry men , today this norm is being questioned. There are women and men who choose to fall in love with others of the same gender and there are women and men who choose to transit from their gender at birth to the other gender. Equally there are questions being raised about whether children at birth should be made to conform to a gender through surgical intervention without their consent. This questioning about some of the fundamental norms of society is emerging from the perspective of the queer movement which encompasses a multiplicity of desires and identities, each and all of which question the naturalness, the rightness and the inevitability of heterosexuality. By proudly calling themselves queer, homosexual people are not only re-appropriating a word historically used as part of a language of oppression, they are also rejecting the power of the oppressor to judge them in the first place.

However, much remains to be done in terms of activism within the medical profession so that both attitudes to homosexuality, inter-sexuality and transsexualism change while the terms within which treatment is proffered are radically revised. A good point to start is the writing both within the medical profession as well as from within the field of emerging queer activism which is beginning to question heteronormativity in the field of medicine. This book attempts to put together some of the initial writings in one place as a comprehensive resource guide for activists, NGOs, doctors, medical professionals, and all those interested to know about this phenomenon which might prove to be the very lynchpin for the success of the queer movement in India.

Extent: 350pp.
Price: Rs 425
Binding: Paperback
Size: Crown Quarto
Forthcoming: July 2009
Rights: Available

 

 

In this impressive new work, Benjamin Zachariah questions the tendency to regard nationalism as a necessary, inevitable and natural basis upon which to organise the world. In doing so, he embarks on a series of reflections on a longstanding project in Indian historiography which has till today not reached successful resolution: that of ‘decentring’ the nation as the central focus of history-writing in and about India. This outstanding collection presents essays held together with one common thread: a concern with writing histories of India that cannot be subsumed within a bland and obligatory history of Indian nationalism, and a concern with not writing histories of nationalism while writing histories of absolutely anything or everything. Claiming to speak from the perspective of internationalism and celebrating the rootless cosmopolitanism of the merely human, Benjamin Zachariah urges historians to begin the completion of this incomplete yet necessary ‘decentring’ project by placing their own histories, politics, and ‘interests’ before a readership and leaving these open for scrutiny and comment.

Benjamin Zachariah’s research interests centre on the social and intellectual history of South Asia, in particular on interactions between metropolitan and Indian ideas, and on political culture, political rhetoric and standards of political legitimacy in colonial and postcolonial India. He studied history at Presidency College, Calcutta, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, and now teaches international history at the University of Sheffield.

This collection of essays honours the contributions of Thoma R. Trautmann by pursuing themes that have been persistently raised in his work. One set of essays looks at modes of conceptualizinf and classifying traditional South Asian society, beginning with the Orientalist codification and mapping of languages. Differing perceptions of the precolonial past in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are the focus of another group essays, ranging from issues regarding the authentication of documents to varying catalogues of Indian sects and religions. The last set of essays deal directly with precolonial India, probing the existence of historical writing, among other questions. Contributors to this book- representing the most recent research in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, history, religios studies- include Madhav Deshpande, Kenneth Hall, David Lorenzen, Carla Sinopoli, Romila Thapar, and Sylvia Vatuk.

Recording his encounters with people and places while travelling along the west coast of India, Anil Purohit strings together an engaging collection of essays which effortlessly yet determinedly busts the myth about travel writing only being about exotic locales. The text is effectively supported by photographs taken by the author on his travels.

Extent: c. 150pp.
Size: 7.75”x 5”
Binding: Paperback
Price: c. Rs 225
Forthcoming in September 2010
Rights: Available

 

'The six years I spent in India in the late 1970s and early 1980s as an international volunteer turned my life inside out... India helped me discover something I had managed to keep hidden for more than 30 years - my deep attraction to persons of my own sex.' This memoir depicts John Burbidge's love affair with India, as well as his passion for its young men. Written nearly 25 years after the fact, it shows that when we let go of the traditions and mores of our upbringing and dare to embrace those of a different ilk, we open ourselves up to discovering new aspects of our humanity and extend ourselves in ways we might never have imagined. After taking the initial plunge with amateur masseurs on a Bombay beach, Burbidge found himself on a roller-coaster ride of sexual adventuring that went from abstinence to addiction in two short years. A complicating factor in this journey of self-discovery was the tightly knit community in which he lived and worked. Its highly regimented schedule and minimal privacy forced him to live a double life. When John first wrote about these experiences in the late 1980s, he did so as a ‘coming out’ story set against the backdrop of India. More than 20 years later, he has come to see it almost as the opposite. The intervening years have allowed him to explore new dimensions of his experience - in regard to his professional work, the community of which he was a part of, and his relationship with his mother.

Extent: c. 200pp.
Price: c. Rs 395
Size: Royal
Binding: Paperback
Rights: Available
Forthcoming in January 2011

 

Sixty-some years after its emergence as an independent nation, controversy over the meaning and causes of the creation of Pakistan remains vibrant. Part of the controversy lies in conflicting interpretations of what happened in the run-up to the partition of India in 1947. For some the Pakistan movement was in fact neither nationalist nor religious. Perhaps the most powerful exponent of such a view of the Pakistan movement was Jawaharlal Nehru. The history of colonialism is indeed critical to Pakistan’s story. But so is the relationship of Pakistan to the larger--and longer—universalizing history of Islam. The particular locality for the present volume is colonial Punjab: the history of Punjab’s role in the coming of Pakistan continues to be a matter of dispute—and illustrates dramatically the critical intersection between local structures of power and narratives of identity and the larger, civilizational ideals, whether modern/scientific or Islamic, out of which the demand for Pakistan was fashioned. This story also provides perspective in trying to locate the creation of Pakistan not only in the larger narrative of Muslim history, but also in the narrative of South Asia’s distinctive encounter with modernity.

David Gilmartin is Professor of History, North Carolina University, Raleigh, NC, USA.

Extent: c. 300pp.
Price: c. Rs 395
Size: Demy Octavo
Binding: Paperback
Forthcoming in January 2011
Rights: Available

 

The volume therefore seeks to bring together a group of individuals from varying fields: art historians, visual anthropologists, critics, practitioners, theorists and students with original and rigorous contributions the on the history and practices within photography in India. The first section of the Reader called Photography: Invention and Practice seeks to discuss the birth of photography in India, its ideological and conceptual basis. The second section called the The Desire for Modernism will relate mainly to how the camera was a more democratized medium during the early part of the 20th Century, which led to the rise of studio photography, freely available and circulated mediums such as oleographs, chromolithographs, painted photographs, among other hybrid and mobile formats. The following section, The Independence Movement and Beyond will concentrate on the rise of photography during the national movement, and its subsequent usage after. The section called Figuring the Cityscape: From Professional to Casual Photography would introduce how photograph in the present is perceived and utilized to represent the predicament of a generation influenced by the digital medium. The section Interviews talks to practitioners about their inspirations and reasons for practice, while the final section, Enduring Portraits, discusses eminent photographers like Amrita Sher-Gil, Satyajit Ray, and Ram Kinkar Baij.

Rahaab Allana is Curator, Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New Delhi.

Extent: c. 300 pp.
Price: c. Rs 595
Size: Demy Quarto
Binding: Hardback
Rights: Available
Forthcoming in December 2010

The second volume to the now iconic Because I have a Voice: Queer Politics in India, a collection of queer writing, continues to foreground the best and most critical queer writing from India. The book brings together writing in English and Indian languages on a range of themes related to the lives of same sex desiring people, transgenders and all others who are challenging the sexual and gender stereotypes imposed by society, its political and cultural structures. The writers are of different sexualities and genders and the book will include poetry, short stories, graphic strips, photographs, and personal narratives. This collection aims to present a range of queer experiences in India today.

Extent:c.250pp.
Price: c. Rs 225
Size: Demy Octavo
Binding: Paperback
Rights: Available
Forthcoming in July 2010

The 1947 Partition of India resulted in the death of two million people and the displacement of sixteen million more. It continues to haunt contemporary life in India— not only for discourses that debate the place of religion in India, but also for the historical interpretation of justice and minority belonging, and for the tension-ridden struggle over the production of secular national culture in the subcontinent.
Violent Belongings is about the relation between culture and violence in the modern world, exploring contemporary ethnic and gendered violence, and the questions about belonging that trouble nations and nationalisms today. Kavita Daiya examines South Asian ethnic violence and related mass migration in and after 1947 through its representation in postcolonial Indian and, more broadly, global South Asian literature and culture. By investigating such texts as Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan with Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown and Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Interpreter of Maladies, alongside the writings of Mahatma Gandhi and Bollywood cinema--diasporic films like Deepa Mehta’s Earth-- Daiya illuminates the cultural and political negotiation of postcolonial migration, nationality, and violence in transnational public spheres.

Kavita Daiya is Associate Professor of English at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Extent 280pp.
Price c. Rs 350
Size Royal
Binding Paperback
Forthcoming February 2011
Only for sale in South Asia