Punjabi Fiction

Nikki lives in cosmopolitan West London, where she tends bar at the local pub. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she's spent most of her 20-odd years distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community of her childhood, preferring a more independent (that is, Western) life. When her father's death leaves the family financially strapped, Nikki, a law school dropout, impulsively takes a job teaching a "creative writing" course at the community center in the beating heart of London's close-knit Punjabi community.

When Nikki takes a creative writing job at her local temple, with visions of emancipating the women of the community she left behind as a self-important teenager, she's shocked to discover a group of barely literate women who have no interest in her ideals. Yet to her surprise, the white dupatta of the widow hides more than just their modesty....

Twenty-nine-year-old Niki Randhawa has always made practical decisions. Despite her love for music and art, she became an analyst for the stability. She's always stuck close to home, in case her family needed her. And she's always dated guys that seem good on paper, rather than the ones who give her butterflies. When she's laid off, Niki realizes that practical hasn't exactly paid off for her. So for the first time ever, she throws caution to the wind and books a last-minute flight for her friend Diya’s wedding.

Capturing the beauty of a mother-daughter relationship, Divya Dutta, in this moving memoir, celebrates her mother’s struggles to turn her into the woman she is today. Divya walks us through the most intimate memories of her life, those that strengthened her relationship with her mother. The incredible bond she forged with her mother helped her through tragedies and difficulties, discouragements and failures, and led her to become an award-winning actor of stature, both in the Hindi as well as the Punjabi film industry.

Humza Khan—a.k.a. Little Badman, Eggington's greatest rapper—might have finally met his match. Evil teacher geniuses and giant killer hamsters (see previous Little Badman adventures for details) are nothing compared to starting a new school. He's already been out rap-battled by the school bully, laughed at by his classmates. Oh, and we haven't even mentioned the ancient magical orb causing havoc and very possibly leading to world destruction. At least Humza has found someone to help with his homework. It's just a shame this friend isn't exactly...alive.

When his father dies, Prince Jauna Khan succeeds to the throne of Delhi as Muhammad bin Tughlaq. His reign will prove to be epic and bloody but unsurpassed in splendor, innovation, and defeat. A formidable strategist and remarkable scholar, the sultan will go down in history for his brutality as well as his brilliance, unfairly remembered only as a cruel tyrant who might have been raving mad. His high-flown aspirations and grandiose ambitions may have met with crushing failure, but even so, Tughlaq was a great hero of the 14th century, albeit a tragic and fatally flawed one.