Ravan and Eddie are the unlikeliest of companions. For one thing, Ravan is Hindu, while Eddie is Catholic. For another, when Ravan was a baby and fell from a balcony, that fall had a dramatic, and very literal, impact on Eddie’s family. But Ravan and Eddie both live in Central Works Department Chawl No. 17—and if you grow up in the crowded Mumbai chawls, you get to participate in your neighbors' lives, whether you like it or not. As we watch the two unlikely heroes of Kiran Nagarkar's acclaimed novel rocket out of the starting blocks of their lives, leaving earth-mothers and absentee fathers, cataclysms and rock ’n’ roll in their wake, we're compelled to sit up and take notice. Recently selected by The Guardian as one of the ten best novels about Mumbai, Ravan and Eddie is a comic masterpiece about two larger- and truer-than-life characters and their bawdy, Rabelaisian adventures in postcolonial India. It is also a timeless journey of self-discovery, a quest for the meaning of guilt and responsibility, sin and sex, crime and punishment.

An extremely funny novel about two larger-than-life heroes and their bawdy, Rabelaisian adventures in post-colonial urban India. 'Nagarkar is a genuine experimentalist: he combines in his writing a tremendous instinct for storytelling with a rare openness of imagination. He is willing to go where it takes him, express it in whatever form and through whichever language. What remains constant is his subversive pleasure in fiction for its own sake. It makes him one of our most precious writers.' - AnjumHasan, The Caravan Nagarkar's second novel (is) insouciant, savage, disarming and profound... (His) imagery has the quality of switch-blades flickering in the dark alley of the narrative. (His) humour is dark, but passionate. - ManjulaPadmanabhan, The Asian Age 'Ravan and Eddie remains one of the finest books written with Mumbai as a backdrop. It's uproariously funny, outrageously irreverent ... (and) reveals the city as a character, an actor, a living being.' - PankajUpadhyaya, Mumbai Mirror 'It's bawdy, it's wicked and it's irreverent. (Ravan and Eddie) is a wild romp through a quintessential Indian institution: the chawl.' - Business World

It s a complex universe that Kiran Nagarkar leads us into. Seven Sixes are Forty Three explores the dimensions of relationships in terms of an empty physicality and loneliness as an inherent element in modern lives. Translated by Subha Slee, the novel s quest for compatibility is inspiring.

Mumbai? Bombay? How do we explain this city and ourselves within it? How do the city and the city dweller together allow for representations of urban life to arise in literature and the fine arts? This book is an understanding of Mumbai, both as an architectural and literary space, through the lens of spatial criticism and the technique of flânerie. As an icon of experiences, Mumbai is felt through the simultaneous acts of walking, observing, remembering and articulating. In analyzing four novels, namely Baumgartner’s Bombay, Ravan and Eddie, Shantaram and Baluta, the book claims that the characters and their authors offer an alternative vision of the city, as they also construct a transient place for themselves. This act of flânerie is an act of transgression as it turns the outside into the inside, changing public space into private space. As the characters serve to disrupt meaning, uncover hidden histories and expose power relations involved in the representation of place, they actualize many possibilities and meanings. Using the novel as a literary device, the authors have told stories, not only of the protagonist-flâneur, but also of people around them; sometimes in detail, sometimes in passing. In contesting, claiming and owning the lives, the stories, and the city, the humane aspect is never forgotten.

The time is early 16th century. The Rajput kingdom of Mewar is at the height of its power. It is locked in war with the Sultanates of Delhi, Gujarat and Malwa. But there is another deadly battle being waged within Mewar itself. who will inherit the throne after the death of the Maharana? The course of history, not just of Mewar but of the whole of India, is about to be changed forever.At the centre of Cuckold is the narrator, heir apparent of Mewar, who questions the codes, conventions and underlying assumptions of the feudal world of which he is a part, a world in which political and personal conduct are dictated by values of courage, valour and courtesy; and death is preferable to dishonour.A quintessentially Indian story, Cuckold has an immediacy and appeal that are truely universal.

The third and last part of the Ravan and Eddie trilogy Belt up and hold on tight. Ravan and Eddie are back in another zany ride that takes them from anonymity to fame. Yes, R&E or E&R, as they are known in Bollywood, have made it to the top as music directors. But they have neither lost sight of the big dream, nor forgotten their past struggles. Ravan and Eddie are determined to become superstars even if they have to produce the damn film themselves. From the glitz and glamour of Bollywood to the badlands of Chambal, from the high-rises of tony Pali Hill to Indian literature's most famous chawl address, CWD Chawl No. 17, from air-kissing high society to gun-wielding mafia bosses, Ravan and Eddie muddle along from one catastrophe to another, without ever losing their trademark sangfroid. Poverty and life have taught them to reinvent themselves every time there's a crisis. Keeping them company through it all are old friends like Granna, Parvatibai, Violet, Pieta, Belle and Asmaan, and new ones like Mrs Venkatraman, the dacoit Maan Singh, and Jagannath, the son of Three Point One. As bawdy and entertaining as Ravan and Eddie, as exuberant and over-the-top as The Extras, yet possessing a hard, cold edge, Rest in Peace is a fitting finale to the trilogy featuring Indian fiction's most epic characters.