Hello, readers! It is Monday again! As it is Monday, welcome to another #5OnMyTBR update. The rule is relatively simple. I must pick five books from my to-be-read piles that fit the week’s theme.

This week’s theme: No Prompt

Because there is still no prompt this week, I decided to feature works of Indian writers which is in line with my ongoing foray into the works of Asian writers. But why Indian literature? A quick search on what is being celebrated today showed three events that are connected to India. First, today Ambedkar Jayanti is being celebrated to honor B. R. Ambedkar, the father of the Indian constitution who was born on this day in 1891. Today is also the Tamil New Year and Vaisakhi, an observation of major events in the history of Sikhism and the Indian subcontinent that happened in the Punjab region. So there, today is quite a significant day in the Indian subcontinent. Without ado, here are some works by Indian writers I am looking forward to.

5OnMyTBR is a bookish meme hosted by E. @ Local Bee Hunter’s Nook where you chose five books from your to-be-read pile that fit that week’s theme. If you’d like more info, head over to the announcement post!

Title: Chemmeen
Author: Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai
Translator (from Malayalam): Anita Nair
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Publishing Date: 2011
No. of Pages: 238

Synopsis: 

First published in 1956, Chemmeen was adapted into a film of the same name, and won critical acclaim as well as unprecedented commercial success. A deeply affecting story of love and loss set amidst a fishing community in Kerala, the novel transports us into the lives and minds of its characters, Karuthamma and Pareekutty, whose love remains outside the bounds of religion, caste, and marriage. Then, one night, Karuthamma and Pareekutty meet and their love is rekindled while Palani, Karuthamma’s husband, is at sea, baiting a shark.

Title: One Part Woman
Author: Perumal Murugan
Translator (from Tamil): Aniruddhan Vasudevan
Publisher: Penguin Books
Publishing Date: 2014
No. of Pages: 240

Synopsis: 

Kali and Ponna’s efforts to conceive a child have been in vain. Hounded by the taunts and insinuations of others, all their hopes come to converge on the chariot festival in the temple of Maadhorubaagan, the half-female god. Everything hinges on the one night when rules are relaxed and consensual union between any man and woman is sanctioned. This night could end the couple’s suffering and humiliation. But it will also put their marriage to the ultimate test.

Title: Grimus
Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: Overlook Press
Publishing Date: 1982
No. of Pages: 319

Synopsis: 

’A mixture of science fiction and folktale, past and future, primitive and present-day . . . Thunderous and touching.’
Financial Times

After drinking an elixir that bestows immortality upon him, a young Indian named Flapping Eagle spends the next seven hundred years sailing the seas with the blessing — and ultimately the burden — of living forever. Eventually, weary of the sameness of life, he journeys to the mountainous Calf Island to regain his mortality. There he meets other immortals obsessed with their own stasis and sets out to scale the island’s peak, from which the mysterious and corrosive Grimus Effect emits. Through a series of thrilling quests and encounters, Flapping Eagle comes face-to-face with the island’s creator and unwinds the mysteries of his own humanity. Salman Rushdie’s celebrated debut novel remains as powerful and as haunting as when it was first published more than thirty years ago.

‘A book to be read twice . . . [Grimus] is literate, it is fun, it is meaningful, and perhaps most important, it pushes the boundaries of the form outward.’
Los Angeles Times (Source: Goodreads)

Title: Water
Author: Ashokamitran
Translator (from Tamil): Lakshmi Homstrom
Publisher: Heinemann Educational
Publishing Date: 1993
No. of Pages: 95

Synopsis: 

Ashokamitran was born in Andhra Pradesh, India, in 1931. One of the country’s most highly regarded writers in Tamil, he is the author of numerous short stories, novellas and several novels.

It is the summer of 1969. In the middle of the worst drought seen in Madras in many years, Jamuna is struggling to hold together the threads of a life on the point of crumbling. Seemingly friendless, manipulated by her love, scorned by her sister Chaya for her emotional weakness, Jamuna soon finds herself in the depths of despair. Water is a modern classic, a curiously cool reflection on the chaos of life in the city.

Title: Rich Like Us
Author: Nayantara Sahgal
Publisher: Sceptre
Publishing Date: 1987
No. of Pages: 266

Synopsis: 

A story of India: the recent India of Mrs Gandhi’s Emergency when power became arbitrary once more, when – as always in such times -the corrupt, the opportunists, and the bully flourished.

A story of an older India, of a generation who remember the British Raj and Partition, of the continuities and the ties of family and caste and religion that stretch back and back.

But above all, and memorably, it is a story of people: of Rose, the Cockney memsahib, of Western-educated Sonali and traditionally brought-up Mona, of Ravi, Marxist turned placeman, and Kishori Lal, the old idealist who finds that once again a man can be imprisoned just for what he thinks.

Title: The Guide
Author: R.K. Narayan
Publisher: Penguin Books
Publishing Date: 1985
No. of Pages: 220
Synopsis: 

Release from jail, Raju – once India’s most corrupt tourist-guide – takes refuge in an abandoned temple. A peasant mistakes him for a holy man, and gradually, reluctantly, Raju begins to play the part. Villagers bring him offerings; he even grows a magnificent beard. Then God Himself decides to put Raju’s new holiness to the test. . . .