Showing results by narrator "Sanjiv Jhaveri" in All Categories

On November 1, 1984, a day after the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, a nineteen-year-old student travels back from a class trip with his mentor and chemistry teacher, Professor Singh. As the group disembarks at Delhi station a mob surrounds the professor, throwing a tire over him, dousing him in gasoline, and setting him alight. Years later the student, Raj, is compelled to find his professor's widow, the beautiful Nelly.

Bombay's communal riots of 1992 - in which Hindus were alleged to be the primary perpetrators - were followed by retaliatory bomb blasts in 1993, masterminded by the Muslim-dominated underworld. Over a thousand citizens lost their lives in these internecine bouts of violence and thousands more became refugees in their own city. In a matter of months, Bombay ceased to be the cosmopolitan, wholesome, and middle-class bastion it had been for decades.

Delhi exists in a kind of quantum state: In Delhi, all things are true at once. When the Big Apple no longer felt big enough, Dave and Jenny moved to a city of 16 million people and, seemingly, twice that many horns honking at once. Delirious Delhi depicts India's capital as the two experienced it, from office life in the rising tech hubs to the traffic jam philosophy that keeps people sane in the gridlock leading to them. With only their sense of humour as their guide, Dave and Jenny set out to explore a city in which ancient stone monuments compete with glass-clad shopping malls to define the landscape.

When Jill McCorkle feels a short story coming on, she goes right ahead and "wastes" wonderful ideas instead of hoarding them for a novel. The result is another extraordinary collection of stories and characters. In "It's a Funeral! RSVP," the storyteller is a woman who takes up self-styled "careers" that suit her circumstances. Now she's stumbled onto one that's so successful that she just can't quit. It's planning funerals, what she calls Going Out Parties, in which the clients are the soon-to-be-deceased themselves.

When Vikram invites three of his college friends to his son’s graduation from MIT, they accept out of obligation and curiosity, viewing the party as a 25th reunion of sorts. Village genius Vikram, now the founder of a lucrative computer company, is having the party against his son’s wishes. Frances and Jay regret accepting: Frances, a real estate agent, hasn't sold a house in a year; Jay’s middle-management job isn't bragworthy; and their daughter is failing the eleventh grade. Lali plans to hide the fact that her once-happy marriage is crumbling because her American husband is discovering his Jewish roots.

Journeys are always meant for destinations. But what if, when they are not.... The Journey to Nowhere is the story of a young couple, fighting against all odds for their love. Aditya, an aspiring medical student, is on a journey to his hometown to meet his love, Pooja, most probably for the last time. On the journey, the various conditions force Aditya to go into a journey amidst the shallow grooves of memories.

Diagnosed as severely autistic at the age of three, Tito, nearly nonverbal, was brought up by his loving mother Soma, who taught him to read English and challenged him to write his own stories. The initial result was The Mind Tree, published in 2003, which Tito wrote between the ages of eight and 11. The Gold of the Sunbeams is an equally impressive, beautiful collection of stories, each prefaced by a charming note from Tito explaining how the story came into being.

Confessions of a Thug is an English novel written by Philip Meadows Taylor in 1839 based on the Thuggee cult in British India.This book is a tale of crime and retribution. Set in 1832 in India, the story lays bare the practices of the Thugs, or deceivers as they were called, who lived in boats and used to murder those passengers whom they were able to entice into their company in their voyages up and down the rivers.

In an unnamed Middle Eastern security state, a young Arab-Indian hacker shields his clients - dissidents, outlaws, Islamists, and other watched groups - from surveillance and tries to stay out of trouble. He goes by Alif - the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, and a convenient handle to hide behind. The aristocratic woman Alif loves has jilted him for a prince chosen by her parents, and his computer has just been breached by the state’s electronic security force, putting his clients and his own neck on the line.

India Rising is a collection of anecdotes and observations of the significant events that marked the decade of Congress Party rule under Manmohan Singh, culminating in the rise of Modi. It is built around the access the writer enjoyed with some of the key decision makers of the time.

In 1991 India faced its 'Greece moment': an unprecedented financial crisis against the backdrop of political uncertainty and crumbling investor confidence. On 21 June 1991, P. V. Narasimha Rao became prime minister and appointed Dr Manmohan Singh as finance minister. In less than 35 days, the Rao-Singh duo ushered in momentous changes in economic policy - those that transformed the country.

Once, Jayachand toiled in the vertical farms of India. Now, he finds himself searching for a lost data cache in the forbidding Amazon rainforest. Can he stay one step ahead of a shadowy corporation whose interests may not be what they seem? This story was first published in METAtropolis: Green Space, the third entry in Audible's original series.

Ever since local boy Lester Ward got drafted by the University of Iowa Hawkeyes and football fever hit Goodhue, Iowa, scrawny Ned Button can think of nothing but the game. Sure, Lester’s younger bully of a brother is determined to keep Ned and his gang from ever getting near a real pickup game. But Ned has a few tricks up his sleeve: he can catch and sometimes even throw, much to his surprise. And he’s got his eccentric grandpa Ike, who has less get-up-and-go these days, but no shortage of down-home wisdom.

The sleepy Himalayan hill station of Mussoorie, near India's border with Tibet, is home to an eclectic mix of residents including Tibetan refugees and former guerrilla fighters, foreign missionaries, Indian military, tourists, and spies. Here, in a top-secret facility facing the snow-clad Himalayas, India's legendary spymaster, Colonel Imtiaz Afridi, keeps a watchful eye on sensitive high-altitude borders.

Shruti and Aman were once inseparable. Theirs was a love that would last forever and more. Then, out of the blue, Shruti left Aman. A devastated Aman moved abroad in the hope of forgetting Shruti and to heal. Shruti married Rishabh. Now Aman is back in India and looking for a fresh start. But he is still haunted by memories of his love. Can he ever break free from it? His head tells him to move on, to find love with Anjali, but his heart won't listen. No matter what he does, Shruti's shadow looms large. Can there be a happily ever after for any of them?

Rosalba is a nine-year-old Mayan girl living in rural Mexico. Like her mother and grandmother, she weaves stories of her people onto blouses, ensuring that the age-old traditions continue. But new influences are entering her life. A ladina girl from the city, visiting with her scientist father, passes on the astonishing news that the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world in 2012. Rosalba knows nothing about that, but her village is faced with a bulldozer tearing through the forest, dying wildlife, and cornfields in danger.

Hill Mansion wasn't really a mansion; it was just a ramshackle hut on a small hill. But for Robert Pereira, it was better than any place he had seen in his village, Golvada. His chaddi buddies Anand and Baloo lived there with their elder brother Dattya - his hero and the village cricket team captain. Robert had named their hut Hill Mansion, moved by love for his buddies. It didn't matter to him that they were the sons of a domestic help.

When the superstar diva of the past decade doesn't want to play the hero's mother on screen, she insists that she be reshaped into the most beautiful woman in the world...by any means. This is just one of the many odd situations which plastic surgeon Dr. Dhruv faces in Mumbai. He dealt with tyrannical bosses and finicky patients while undergoing his training, during which he also won over a stunning doctor as his life partner. But satisfying the movie stars is a different ball game.

Most human beings hunger after riches and success. There are any number of management books which provide theories and techniques on how to become rich and successful. All of them advise us to chase Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, in order to make her our own. But the Indian approach to prosperity and fulfilment warns against the relentless pursuit of the goddess, writes noted thinker and mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik, as it will result in conflict. Rather, we have to give in order to get; we have to satisfy the hunger of others in order to satisfy our own.