Penguin Books India is Twenty-Five

Follow the Penguin and celebrate the joy of reading on Penguin India’s 25th anniversary year! Get creative and upload your wish for Penguin at www.penguinindia25.com

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Make your favourite Penguin a part of the Wall of books! 

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Thinking of the very adorable  Penguin birthday cake. It was an orange flavoured cake layered with dark chocolate--very delectable! 

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Author Shobhaa De on the literature that has shaped her. 

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A book and some coffee for your soul!

Have you tried the exclusive Sethji coffee at Barista yet?

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For those who haven't watched this yet: here are the 25 reasons to read on our 25th anniversary!

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Guest Blogger: Vasudha Rao on her Penguin Collection!

So many favourite Penguins!!!!

I am confused- I have so many favourites that I find it unfair to single out one Penguin . So here are some amongst my many, many favourites! 

The Secrets by Ruskin Bond -one of the latest Penguin acquisition. It is full of ghost stories--it gave me scary thoughts & I love it !  Two volumes (Volume I & II )by Satyajit Ray titled Feluda. These two books contain many stories starring Feluda--the detective, created by Satyajit Ray. I particularly like these adventures because the tales are all set in the Indian sub continent & the characters eat dal moth & all things look & sound familiar. This, after I read English detective books, where they would gorge on scones,cakes,bread etc made the Feluda series very homely. Leila Seth’s autobiography On balance impressed me for the portrayal of her struggle to achieve the top in legal field. It is lighthearted in its tone  though the incident where she loses her daughter Ira, is very poignantly stated. Wise & Otherwise by Sudha Moorthy, is another favourite in my Penguin Collection. The stories are short & sweet -of people in numerous circumstances & their behaviour. I loved this book ,as it made me very empathetic to some characters, sketched by the author. One can identify with many people in the tales. My family & other animals  by  Gerald Durrell is a book which mesmerises us by its account of the insects,birds,animals that inhabit this earth.The author compares the family members to the animals, which makes the book very humorous ! Durrell has penned  vivid description of insects like spiders,scorpions ,etc. A reading of this book will surely make us appreciate the beauty of all insects,worms, crabs et al ! May you be the mother of a thousand sons  authored by Elisabeth Bumiller is another personal favourite. This book is a collection of the author’s interaction with the Indian women during her stay  in India.It deals with various topics like dowry,female infanticide,Indian feminists,the nuclear family,population control etc.This book gives a foreigners’ perspective about current issues. Hence ,it makes for an interesting & compelling read. I could go on & on -I have many more Penguins -The Animal Farm by George Orwell , Delhi is not far by Ruskin Bond,The Penguin Book of Indian Cartoons and so many more. I love and treasure my Penguin collection and can read them many times over!

Vasudha Rao is a wannabe lawyer who worked in a PSU for nearly 16 years before calling it quits. She is presently a home maker,an avid blogger, an upcoming baker & a book worm! 

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Guest Blogger: Aditya Deuskar

For the love of Cricket

Cricket is a religion in our country. People’s lives stop when  Tendulkar or  Dhoni are batting, but for a cricket crazy nation like India the paucity of good cricket writers and good cricket writing is surprising. We have very few truly good cricket writers in India, the two names that  pop immediately into my mind are Harsha Bhogle and Mukul Kesavan.

                                                    Harsha Bhogle has earned accolades as a cricket broadcaster, but anybody who has read his articles or books would agree with me when I say that he is possibly the best cricket writer in India by some distance.  I was very excited when I found that Penguin is publishing a collection of his articles, and the book did not disappoint. The book contains articles pertaining to very possible aspect of the game be the IPL, test cricket, the players or the laws of the game, Mr. Bhogle displays a remarkable knowledge and understanding of the game while airing his views about the game. Like his commentary his writing has a beautiful ebb and flow to it. It was an absolute delight to read this book.

Mukul Kesavan is well known as political writer and commentator, but he is also a very profound thinker and commentator on cricket. He only writes sporadically on the game but when he does it’s a pleasure to read it. It was a cause of celebration when I stumbled upon this book in a bookstore.  Each article in the book illustrates his profound understanding of the game and most importantly his balanced thinking when it comes to controversial issues.

                                  Both these books are very special to me for the simple reason that it’s difficult to find quality sport writing in India. We have some good cricket writers but they restrict themselves to the occasional article in a magazine or on the internet. I hope Harsha Bhogle and Mukul Kesavan find time to write some books on cricket but until such time I am satisfied that I possess an anthology of their finest writings.  

I would recommend these books to every cricket lover not just in India but around the world.  

Aditya Deuskar is from Pune. He is a software engineer by profession and is passionate about movies, music, books, cricket and the internet.

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Meet the Author: Pankaj Mishra

Meet the author Pankaj Mishra today at the launch of his much-awaited and incisive non-fiction book From The Ruins Of Empire in at the India International Centre, Delhi at 7pm!  He will be in conversation with Jonathan Shainin, the Senior Editor of The Caravan magazine.

  Here’s a bit about From The Ruins of Empire:

Pankaj Mishra's fascinating, highly entertaining new book tells the story of a remarkable group of men from across the continent who met the challenge of the West. Incessantly travelling, questioning and agonising, they both hated the West and recognised that an Asian renaissance needed to be fuelled in part by engagement with the enemy. Through many setbacks and wrong turns, a powerful, contradictory and ultimately unstoppable series of ideas were created that now lie behind everything from the Chinese Communist Party to Al Qaeda, from Indian nationalism to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Mishra allows the reader to see the events of two centuries anew, through the eyes of the journalists, poets, radicals and charismatics who criss-crossed Europe and Asia. Sitting in the midst of ruins of the old empires which now seemed doomed to permanent partition by predatory foreigners, these thinkers created the ideas which in turn were to doom the new empires, and which lie behind the powerful Asian nations of the twenty-first century.

  Get your copy of From the Ruins of Empire here

  Know more about Pankaj Mishra

Pankaj Mishra’s first book was Butter Chicken in Ludhiana and he has subsequently written many books that include The Romantics and An End to Suffering and Temptations of the West. Mishra writes literary and political essays for the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, The Guardian, the New Yorker, London Review of Books, Bloomberg View, among other American, British, and Indian publications. His work has also appeared in Times Literary Supplement, Financial Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Time, The Independent, Granta, The Nation, N+1, Poetry, Common Knowledge, Outlook, and Harper’s. He lives in London, Shimla and New York.

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All you book-lovers must have guessed the place by now!

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Don't you think its time? by our guest blogger: Ashraf Husain

“Don’t you think it’s time?” , he softly suggested as he towered over the 9 year old.

Sometimes just one line can change a person’s world. My post is about the kid whose life was changed with just a line. The kid in question had always felt a deep affection for the written word. He was a great fan of comics. Archies, Asterix, Tintin and the homegrown Chacha-Chowdhry and Nagraj would fascinate him to no end. However that was the age when books without pictures seemed to be intimidating so he stuck only to comics.

Two years prior his father who was in the army had got posted to a mid-sized town and along with everything the kid got access to the unit library. Suddenly there was this huge hall with thousands of books including hundreds of comics. It took him one and a half years to blaze through the two huge racks of comics and then he started rereading the old ones.

That is when the magical sentence was uttered. The librarian had seen this kid borrow books on a regular basis and one evening as the kid returned his books to borrow new ones, the librarian said, “Don’t you think it’s time? Read a book that the older kids do.” The spell had been cast and that day the kid returned home with a Hardy Boys novel. More racks brought in Nancy Drew, Famous Five and Secret Seven etc. One and half years down the line it was time to move on to voluminous and more serious novels.

Some habits never die. That kid had been bitten by the reading bug and he kept on reading indiscriminately. If the book was interesting, he would pick up. Years passed and one day the kid woke up and realized reading was a big part of who he was. It had of course all begun with that one line.

So you never know when a line can change the world.

However this is not why I told this story. I narrated this story as whenever I imagine that kid gazing at those all those books, I find myself staring back at myself. 

Ashraf Husain is an MBA student at FMS Delhi. He is also an avid reader who pens prose and poetry apart from his love to travel, meet new people and try different cuisines.

If you would like to contribute to the Penguin Anniversary blog, leave your email id as a comment.

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Code name God by our Guest Blogger: Aditya Pranav

My journey in terms of reading books has been nothing less than fascinating. It is like taking a plunge into an ocean and diving as deep as one could to pick up invaluable pearls of knowledge and wisdom. Books are my friend, philosopher and guide. I quote Charles William Eliot below:

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”

A tinge of nostalgia grips me whenever I think of my reading habits in childhood days. I used to be so very fond of reading children monthly magazines and comic books. Even though the comic books were a taboo in school it didn’t stop us from exchanging them secretly by devising new ways of avoiding confiscation. In breaks, we would assemble to have a quick round of competition that challenged our reading speed. Moreover, I would spend a considerable amount of time fantasizing about me being one of my favorite comic superheroes in order to keep villains at bay and playing a savior. I had even gone on to create my own superhero (pretty much combining various powers of many superheroes I admired). However, reading books in its current form took shape when I moved out of my home town owing to better career prospects and has been at its peak for the last 7-8 years.

This has also been a period where my intellectual quest to understand life closely has gradually come to the fore. This has definitely led to spiritual enrichment and yet there’s so much more to fathom. So I have been trying to become a sincere student of the Existence. As a part of this journey, I have tried to venture into the subject of ‘GOD’. A penguin book titled “Code Name God” by Mani Bhaumik has had a profound impact on me.

I feel immensely proud to share that this book has been authored by a Global Indian, born on a mud floor in Bengal.  He valiantly fought multitude of hardships to achieve international recognition as a co-inventor of the technology that made Lasik eye surgery possible. This spiritual Odyssey of a man of Science has been dedicated to Seekers of Truth of All Times and is truly enlightening. He very delicately takes us through topics like faith, religion, science, spirituality, cosmos and consciousness in order to de-code the term ‘GOD’ that has been a matter of subjective outlook. I recommend it highly.

On that note, I extend my heartiest congratulations to Penguin India for completing 25 glorious years.

Aditya Pranav has taken a break from his profession to pursue his music and writing interests. He loves reading, watching television and spending quality time with friends and family.

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The Book Watcher is back! (Guest Blogger: Ankon Mitra)

The Book Watcher (Part II)

Most publishers rue the fact that there are many book watchers, but hardly any buyers. This is of course the lament – ‘You look, but you rarely touch (our sales figures)!’ In the pre-internet days, the book watcher would loiter in book shops and libraries, lovingly looking at book spines, drooling over new editions, feeling (up?) the texture of good quality book paper, try to distinguish between paper types - wood free uncoated and machine coated fine; run fingers caressingly across the paper edges (and sometimes get cut – I have a few times), pass judgment on the fonts employed and their sizes in different books, and, enjoy the thrill of quickly unclothing a hard-bound book to check out the fabric on the binding or the embossing of the book name, before quickly putting the jacket back on, all in the blink of an eye. It was all thrilling, assuredly, the simple and unadulterated pleasures of a book watcher.

These pleasures were not very different from those of adenoidal teenaged boys hanging on outside girls’ hostels or colleges, ‘checking out’ the fair folk as it were. Unfortunately, their activities were perforce restricted to watching and watching only. I promise I never indulged in such nefarious activities; I was always too busy watching and feeling up books. The book watcher has a distinct advantage in that sense. Hugging a book that is not yours is not criminal behaviour, thankfully. While I would never ever dream of objectifying women in any way, the parallels in this metaphor ring so juicy (and sublime) in my male chauvinistic head, that I bow to being guilty as charged - of being a man, and for dragging this metaphor into my writing.

Now, we come to the internet age, the age where book adultery and molestation are slowly becoming a thing of the past. This is the age of virtual book-porn. You order a book on Flipkart or Amazon or any number of such online sites. You can ‘look-inside’ most books on Amazon, read reviews of these books on numerous other sites, even know the size, height and other attributes of a  book, without even once meeting the book face-to-face. You can pay for the book by credit card or cash-on-delivery. The doubly and triply clothed parcel arrives. Your first physical engagement with the book begins, is only once you have paid for it whole and soul. The parallels are so trite and obvious, I feel ashamed to say it feels like an arranged marriage from my great grandfather’s time. You get to meet the bride face-to-face only on the wedding night. There is no furtive love-making behind the last bookshelf in the bookstore before saying yes, no sly eye-contact to check out the spine (or gesturing naughtily), no cuddling or hugging the book while admiring its thickness and voluminous attributes, and definitely no illicit romance for free (well, not the buying the book in the end is not an option, you have already bought it online, stupid).

You may however return the book if you are not satisfied with it. But a book-buyer will usually not dream of such a thing. A book lover can be in a relationship with hundreds of Penguins at once. He may be polygamous and amorous, but a deserter he is not.

Well, just such are the terrible travails for the book watcher in this day and age of ‘virtual everythingness’. While more and more physical bookstores down their shutters, physical books become e-books and ‘Kindle’ editions, the spice and surreptitious joys of book watching seem doomed for an inevitable sunset. But hold it. All is not lost. There is blooming hope yet. More on that in the Book Watcher (Part III).            

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Truth, Love and a little Coffee by our guest blogger: Latha R

The morning storm abated. The three hours between 5 and 8 are always a flurry of planned, routine, daily chores taking mammoth proportions in haphazard mess, predominantly a cacophony of voices ranging from forgotten lunch boxes to car keys. With the children and husband gone to their respective abodes of knowledge or workdom, I sit down with my time honoured remedy of steaming hot cup of fresh filter coffee, my third cup, for the day that’s just begun.

Like the hungry caterpillar, I am a thirsty bibliophile. I read a lot, suffer deep withdrawal symptoms if don’t read at least 100 pages a day, I write a bit and delete most of them. I am still peddling with my words, finding my niche, and am not proud of it most times. But the coffee mug in front of me inspires me. From the day I saw the orange and white porcelain creation sitting quietly on the rack of the bookstore while I walked slowly from book to book, touching, smelling, reading the back page and adding to the billable pile, it stood patiently waiting. It was a purchase that was meant to be.

A Penguin Coffee Mug that read – “Truth, Love and a little Coffee”.

It was like a celebration of the ordinary things in my life. My extra cups of coffee, my incurable addiction to reading, my preference to silence over any form of music, my simple attempts at writing. It was like the first time I read the book Truth, Love and a little Malice. Kushwant Singh’s book inspired my way of thinking then and this mug brings back that memory every day.

Like the book itself, a coagulation of nostalgia, experiments, observation and learnings, my mug in its simple porcelain logic urges me to enjoy the moment. To have a beautiful and long relationship with my life, not a secret affair.

Now for inspiration to write like Vikram Seth, I think I’ll purchase that “Suitable Bag”.

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Guest Blogger: Richa Mohan

The Scent of a Book 

Have you ever smelt a book? Yes, the smell. Do you know what your favourite book smells like?

I grew up in a world, surrounded by books. My mother, a writer, introduced me to the world of fiction and my father, a voracious reader, to the world of non-fiction. I was always surrounded by debates on ideas, of great authors and classics. As is commonplace in the house of any book lover, most of our books would be stored in specially made shelves. The ones that were recent would occupy pride of place in the living room and then there were the favourites, stored in a small nook. This nook would be “cleaned” around New Year’s, every year, and the first thing that would hit you would be the smell. Heavy and intoxicating, of old books, which smelt of dust and age; or even of books destroyed by the eternal enemy of print, the fungi.

My all time favourite book is Jane Eyre. I have an old edition that my mother had bought when she was young, from a sort of flea market. It is a hardcover. I can still feel the rough pages that comforted and reassured me in difficult times, but above all I remember the smell of paper - distinctive, papery, like that of an old library, filling you up till you could feel lonely no more.

Few days ago, I wandered into my favourite bookstore in Delhi. It was the Midland in Aurobindo Market, for those of you familiar with the city. I was feeling a little out of sorts that day, but the moment I entered the shop, it was as if an old friend had reached out to me. I was instantly hit by the smell of books, of paper, of print and suddenly I felt uplifted. It was like being embraced by your Grandmother and being surrounded by her scent.

One hour later, and lighter by a couple of hundreds, I could feel my soul smiling. Small wonder I am who I am today - an editor. The moment a new book comes fresh off the press, the first thing I do is to pick it up and smell it. Much to the astonishment to those around me. But there are others who know, just like me, who have spent a lifetime with their noses buried in books – literally!

Richa Mohan is an editor by profession. She loves to travel, read, write. 

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Penguins on a Wall by Ankon Mitra

Penguins on a Wall

The Penguin Goody bag arrived. Everything’s rather fine, definitely nerdy. Besides the definite (and desirable) embarrassment of carrying a notebook to client meetings and discussions, which proudly proclaims – ‘A Suitable Boy’ (whipping it out with a slow flourish so that everyone can see the cover), the other magnificent thing was the fuchsia pink jholā which read – ‘Maximum Bag’, quite a fabulous pun on the book, I thought. Well worth taking to those music classes and intellectual soirees – definitely a point of discussion, also a worthy object when wanting to break the ice with that pretty (but nonetheless nerdy) stranger at the Āddā.

The box of Penguin postcards is of course the pièce-de-résistance. Beautiful thick art card postcards, emblazoned with some of the most gorgeous Penguin India book covers ever, the box itself doing a splendid job of looking like a hardback itself. A friend sees the postcards and immediately pipes up – frame them! So I try to pick my favourite 25 from the set of 50 and then realize I don’t have wall space enough at home or at the studio, to give these lovelies the canvas that is their due. How about 16, my ever enthusiastic chum pipes up again. Hmmm…

In the end, I settle for 9 (it is the toughest job in the world whittling down the 25 to 9, each postcard is as beautiful as the next). And why 25, 16 or 9, you may well ask? It’s a grid composition only a 5X5 or 4X4 or 3X3 would work that’s why. With some sadness, I bring down a László Moholy-Nagy poster, making way for the framed postcards. It takes the framers 2 weeks, but when the lot arrives, Moholy-Nagy is forgotten without even the slightest modicum of regret. Creamy white frames find their place on a brushed dark grey wall. I stand and stare at the – ‘Penguins on a Wall’!

Ankon Mitra is a landscape architect on weekdays and an origamist on weekends. He likes the geometry of everyday things; the voice of Bombay Jayashree; the Études of Chopin, and the hills in the monsoons. And, The Collected Short Stories by Roald Dahl is his most cherished Penguin till date.

The Penguin India merchandise is available at all leading bookstores. You can also view  the range here http://www.penguinindia25.com/about/merch.html

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Guest Blogger: Aditi Gaur

The Full Circle 

I remember summer school holidays as one long spell of settling down with my favourite book, eager to move on to the next. There would be occasional stretches spent with relatives who stayed in other cities. But taking precedence over everything would be the reading. Fortunately, my cousins were likeminded and I guess we looked like a mini library, each of us engrossed in our own genre, oblivious to the call of the adults.

I can identify my love for reading with the extensive storytelling that my father performed for me from early childhood. Every night was replete with a new story apart from a couple of favourites that demanded repetition probably as and when I needed assurance that the world had not changed. To come up with a new and enthralling story every night was not a challenge, but a work of love for my father. I think he was always the child, a fate I have not been able to escape from, thankfully.

College days were no different. More assertive, I could lock myself in till I finished the book at hand- sans bath, sans meal, sans interruption. I think my mother gradually learnt to give up on me during this phase. Friends ruled high in my life then, book choices influenced by what the other was reading. Waiting to exchange books, to suggest new ones which had excited, brought a novel reading camaraderie. A late return to the local library under the baleful eyes of the librarian did not seem a sin, but pleasurable guilt.

With motherhood, work, and years of illness in the family, time flew out of the window. The storyteller, who had turned my adult life into evening readings from Shakespeare, was ill and effectively silenced. Something lost out, something that brought boundless joy--that intrinsic part of my life which was ‘reading.’

Finally, I have all the time in the world. Time has turned full circle. Work has been denounced. Months I hug my Murakami, unread, revelling in the joy that it is still to be explored. I read Candace Bushnell while my son reads Richard Llewellyn; I read “Rebecca” while he reads “The Da Vinci Code.” And genetically we still believe the semicolon exists.

Aditi is surprised to be 60. A retired banker transformed into a writer who loves dogs, she is waiting to discover what more can she do for life has just begun.

You too can contribute and be a part of our 25th anniversary celebrations and spread the joy of reading. Leave your email id on the comments section and we will get back to you.