Widows of Vidarbha

by Kota Neelima
Widows of Vidarbha
Author: Kota Neelima
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2018-01-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0199093636
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Vidarbha—the parched heartland of central India—has become the foremost site of farmer suicides in the country. These suicides are the most striking indictment of the neglect of agriculture by the state. But the story of the farmers’ distress does not end with their death—it lives on in the experience of their widows who struggle to survive in the shadows. Widows of Vidarbha tells the story of 16 such widows who have been invisible to the state, the community, and even their families, and talks of their lost dreams, their diminished worldviews, and their helpless surrender to the conveniences of patriarchy. These narratives throw light on the dark and desperate corners of their invisible world, one that reflects the state of farm widows across the country.

Landscapes of Loss

by Kavitha Iyer
Landscapes of Loss
Author: Kavitha Iyer
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2021-02-10
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9390327474
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WINNER OF THE TATA LITERATURE LIVE FIRST BOOK AWARD (NON-FICTION) 2021 Maharashtra, India's richest state by GDP, has its eyes set on becoming the country's first trillion-dollar economy by 2025. At the same time, Marathwada - a historically backward part of the state adjoining the distressed Vidarbha region - has seen a surge in farmer suicides. At the heart of the crisis is a cyclical drought that has persisted for almost a decade. Relief packages and loan waivers have not reversed the trend. On the contrary, the stories of dystopia grow more tragic every year as thousands of farmer families flee to the big cities, while those who stay back are plagued by bad credit and crop loss. Landscapes of Loss tells the story of Marathwada through the accounts of its people: marginal farmers, Dalits, landless labourers, farm widows and children. It lays bare the complex factors that have brought the region to this pass - a story representative, in many ways, of the agrarian unrest in large parts of rural India.

Shoes of the Dead

by Kota Neelima
Shoes of the Dead
Author: Kota Neelima
Publisher: Rupa Publications India
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2013
Genre: Indic fiction (English)
ISBN: 9788129123961
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Crushed by successive crop failures and the burden of debt, Sudhakar Bhadra kills himself. The powerful district committee of Mityala routinely dismisses the suicide and refuses compensation to his widow. Gangiri, his brother, makes it his life's mission to bring justice to the dead by influencing the committee to validate similar farmer suicides. Keyur Kashinath of the Democratic Party-first-time member of Parliament from Mityala, and son of Vaishnav Kashinath, the party's general secretary-is the heir to his father's power in Delhi politics. He faces his first crisis; every suicide in his constituency certified by the committee as debt-related is a blot on the party's image, and his competence. The brilliant farmer battles his inheritance of despair, the arrogant politician fights for the power he has received as legacy. Their two worlds collide in a conflict that pushes both to the limits of morality from where there is no turning back. At stake is the truth about 'inherited' democratic power. And at the end, there can only be one winner. Passionate and startlingly insightful, Shoes of the Dead is a chilling parable of modern-day India.

Death of a Moneylender

by Kota Neelima
Death of a Moneylender
Author: Kota Neelima
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2016-05-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9386057301
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Falak, a young journalist from Delhi, is assigned to a remote village in south-central India where a moneylender is found dead, hung from a lamppost in front of his house by an entire village united against injustice. Falak coldly hunts the story for a page one byline, unconcerned with corrective conscience, an attitude that cost him his relationship with Vani, a rival newspaper journalist. Within hours of reaching the village, his story is ready; a villainous moneylender killed by long-suffering villagers. But Falak has also unearths a disconcerting fact, that the moneylender was a kind-hearted, generous man whose death was being used to intimidate other moneylenders. Outstanding loans are written off to buy peace with villagers, but the politically well-connected and dangerous moneylenders plan a brutal retribution.

The Honest Season

by Kota Neelima
The Honest Season
Author: Kota Neelima
Publisher: Random House India
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2015-12-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 8184007663
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2 political rivals fighting for power 1 journalist caught in the battle 6 tapes secretly recorded in Parliament 1 government with a lot to hide Sikander Bansi, an unlikely political heir in Delhi, secretly records politicians in Parliament as they haggle to become cabinet ministers, bag defence contracts, dodge criminal charges and collect corporate largesse. Among them is a rising leader of the People’s Party, Nalan Malik, whose success has come through unscrupulous means. When Sikander suddenly disappears, Mira Mouli, a newspaper journalist with an unusual gift for knowing people’s thoughts, receives the controversial Parliament tapes along with clues to find him. She is attracted to Sikander’s principles and is wary of Nalan’s deceit. But her powers of knowing tell her a different story, one that she can unravel only at the cost of her life. From the bestselling author of Shoes of the Dead, this is a disturbing political fiction that reveals why Parliament functions behind gates closed to the public.

Riverstones

by Kota Neelima
Riverstones
Author: Kota Neelima
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2016-04-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9386057298
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What happens when a journalist makes the journey from stories on the page to reality? Living with a carefully cultivated nonchalance amidst the rough and tumble of Delhi’s journalistic world, Ari occasionally grapples with a desire to do more than just flirt with ideas and flog the words. But he leads his life away from fights big and small, professional and ideological. He awaits fate, surrendering to the force of the flow of life, like a riverstone—supine in the riverbed, always facilitating persistent currents, never contesting them. When a strange challenge thrown by his former professor and mentor hurts Ari deeply, he knows it is the pain of his futility, the knowledge of his own wasted existence. Just when the latent fear of a meaningless life threatens to convince him of its reality, he finds himself caught in a tragic situation—the violent death of a friend fighting for the cause of farmers. As the dust settles, Ari discovers that for the first time in his life he is more than a mere spectator of events.

Afsaneh

by Kaveh Basmenji
Afsaneh
Author: Kaveh Basmenji
Publisher: Saqi
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2013-11-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0863565557
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Whether negotiating often-treacherous paths through political and religious upheavals or threading their way through dreams and fantasies, the characters in these stories are vivid and compelling enough to challenge and surprise anyone unfamiliar with Iranian life and literature. From the oppressive atmosphere before the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Simin Daneshvar's Whom Shall I Greet? to Shahrnoosh Parsipour's mesmerising story of women who blur distinctions between reality and dreams in Crystal Pendants, these tales brim with the inner lives, attitudes and outlooks of women in Iran. 'There is great talent in these stories as well as great courage.' -- Elaine Showalter, Literary Review

Ramrao

by Jaideep Hardikar
Ramrao
Author: Jaideep Hardikar
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2021-08-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9354223095
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One morning in 2014, Ramrao Panchleniwar, an ordinary cotton grower in Maharashtra's infamous Vidarbha region, consumed two bottles of pesticide in a bid to commit suicide. But he miraculously survived. In Ramrao, rural journalist Jaideep Hardikar attempts to put a face to India's unending farm crisis with his story. He takes the reader on a journey of the everyday life of an Indian farmer, his daily struggles, his desperation to come out of his situation, his inability and many failings, the quagmire of issues he faces, and how he comes to a pass where he chooses to put an end to it all. The result of years of committed reportage, this is an evocative read that rescues an ordinary life from obscurity and turns it into an essential biography for our times.