Twenty-two-year-old Wendy Doniger arrived in Calcutta in August 1963 on a scholarship to study Sanskrit and Bengali. It was her first visit to the country. Over the coming year—a lot of it spent in Tagore’s Shantiniketan—she would fall completely in love with the place she had, until then, known only through books. The India she describes in her letters back home to her parents is young, like her, still finding its feet and learning to come to terms with the violence of Partition. But it is also a mature civilization that allows Vishnu to be depicted on the walls in a temple to Shiva; a culture of contradictions where extreme eroticism is tied to extreme chastity; and a land of the absurd where sociable station masters don’t let train schedules stand in the way of hospitality. The country comes alive though her vivid prose—introspective and yet playful—and her excitement is on full display whether she is telling of the paradoxes of Indian life, the picturesque countryside, the peculiarities of Indian languages, or simply the mechanics of a temple ritual that she doesn’t understand. Those who have read and admired Wendy Doniger will be delighted to find much of her later work anticipated in these letters, and the few who haven't will get to see, through her keen eyes and able pen, India as they have never seen it before.

The brave and moving memoir of a woman's journey of transformation: from a sheltered Indian upbringing to success and academic eminence in America. Padma Desai grew up in the 1930s in the provincial world of Surat, India, where she had a sheltered and strict upbringing in a traditional Gujarati Anavil Brahmin family. Her academic brilliance won her a scholarship to Bombay University, where the first heady taste of freedom in the big city led to tragic consequences—seduction by a fellow student whom she was then compelled to marry. In a failed attempt to end this disastrous first marriage, she converted to Christianity. A scholarship to America in 1955 launched her on her long journey to liberation from the burdens and constraints of her life in India. With a growing self-awareness and transformation at many levels, she made a new life for herself, met and married the celebrated economist Jagdish Bhagwati, became a mother, and rose to academic eminence at Harvard and Columbia. How did she navigate the tumultuous road to assimilation in American society and culture? And what did she retain of her Indian upbringing in the process? This brave and moving memoir—written with a novelist's skill at evoking personalities, places, and atmosphere, and a scholar's insights into culture and society, community, and family—tells a compelling and thought-provoking human story that will resonate with readers everywhere.

In 1939, twelve-year-old Neela meets a young freedom fighter at her sister's wedding and soon after must rely on his help when her father fails to return home from a march in Calcutta against British occupation.

Excerpt from An American Girl in India: A Novel Now owing to the fundamental laws of the British Constitution this was true, and therefore more especially annoying. I don't at all mind confessing that I should dearly love to be the Honourable if I can't get anything better. I am not often, how ever, provoked into a retort when Tony refers to this, but that morning I had been. You forget the proverb Handsome is as handsome does, I said impressively, though feeling that the saying was rather trite. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

"This ghost story gave me chill after chill. It will haunt you." -- R.L. Stine, author of Goosebumps "Do you know what it feels like to be forgotten?"On a cold winter night, Iris and her best friend, Daniel, sneak into a clearing in the woods to play in the freshly fallen snow. There, Iris carefully makes a perfect snow angel -- only to find the crumbling gravestone of a young girl, Avery Moore, right beneath her.Immediately, strange things start to happen to Iris: She begins having vivid nightmares. She wakes up to find her bedroom window wide open, letting in the snow. She thinks she sees the shadow of a girl lurking in the woods. And she feels the pull of the abandoned grave, calling her back to the clearing...Obsessed with figuring out what's going on, Iris and Daniel start to research the area for a school project. They discover that Avery's grave is actually part of a neglected and forgotten Black cemetery, dating back to a time when White and Black people were kept separate in life -- and in death. As Iris and Daniel learn more about their town's past, they become determined to restore Avery's grave and finally have proper respect paid to Avery and the others buried there.But they have awakened a jealous and demanding ghost, one that's not satisfied with their plans for getting recognition. One that is searching for a best friend forever -- no matter what the cost.The Forgotten Girl is both a spooky original ghost story and a timely and important storyline about reclaiming an abandoned segregated cemetery."A harrowing yet empowering tale reminding us that the past is connected to the present, that every place and every person has a story, and that those stories deserve to be told." -- Renee Watson, New York Times bestselling author of Piecing Me Together