A dainty aperitif presented by veteran hotelier Jaideep Gupta in his book 'Short & Curly'. An anthology of nine anecdotal, sometimes funny, sometimes deeply moving stories from his erstwhile hospitality days. And four fictional short stories, some touching history, some a bit supernatural wraps up this small book. Without going onto individual stories, it suffices to say each story reveals author's humorous but keen observation of human nature. Be it his encounter with a hawker in train, or the celebrity writer La Pierre. Every story is sure to bring a speck of smile on the lips of reader. This curly stories range from episodes from Maratha warrior king Shivaji to somewhat ghostly offering from a departed lover. Jaideep's style of writing is never boring, it's bubbly in style and full of joi vivre.

Do you know that 4500-year-old Indus script signs were in use much after the Harappan era, when Indus civilization is believed to have been ended ?Are you aware of the use of Royal monograms of Indus in Maurya, Kushan and Gupta Era and also outside India e.g. Greece?
In this book writer used a different technique to decipher Indus script via phonetic values of basic Indus signs, vowel diacritics ,letters used to mention quantity (number, volume and weight) etc. He has gone through the pottery inscriptions first and tablets thereafter and then discussed about the names and other words found in Indus seals and inscribed on other items.
Out of 4000 inscriptions found so far , of which 2000 are still readable, Rajat was able to read 1,296 Sarasvati Scripts, it took 15 years .
Now all his methods and the journey to decipher the Script has been put into this book.

This volume compiles 10 adventures of Sexton Blake, originally published between1908 and 1909, unfortunately it was not possible to get the names of the authors who might have written these stories with surety, so we are not able to add any writer names.

The character of Sexton Blake was built in England during the late 19th century.
This was elaborated in the first part of this book published by us. This volume compiles 15 adventures of Sexton Blake, originally published between1908 and 1925, unfortunately it was not possible to get the names of the authors who might have written these stories with surety, so we are not able to add any writer names.

Our father’s blood-drenched face and faltering words were a forewarning to us. It was a signal to us to make our future bright through formal education. His broken words were a real eye-opener. Education is essential for dignity, social respect and emancipation from lifelong exploitation. Penury has been his close companion. He blessed us to follow a safer path.
The Struggle of a Bonsai is a humble endeavour to fulfil his last wish, minutes before his death on the Janmashtami festival at Mathura in 1951. Look at the coincidence! The first draft of this story was completed on the Janmashtami Day in 2024, exactly 73 years after his final departure. Had he been formally educated, his life might have been qualitatively different. I can visualize his blood-mixed tears peeping lovingly at me. Inaudible, feeble and incoherent! Each letter of this narrative is a tribute to him. He suffered all his life, but he wanted us to live a respectable life.
I have tried to commune with his spirit that we are a faithful band. If he were to see us, his tears of regret would have been wiped by our sincere efforts. I have failed to procure his photograph, and I don’t know how to draw him. Alive he is in our innermost heart chambers! The story has drawn his superb vision. Dear father, be no more despondent. May you rest in peace!

Literature challenges one not only to think about ethical conundrums but also makes one sensitive and compassionate. When it blends with euphoria and nostalgia, the integral parts of human mind, it toughens and becomes sturdy. Man loves to live in his past memories to be happy. The experiences form a part of human personality and shape their behaviour pattern.
Nostalgia stores for us our memories which we relish lifelong. Even the lamentable days of past become pleasant. Though we might have ignored some not too pleasant incidents in our bygone days yet somewhat bitter experiences appear to be impressive and attractive. It is aptly said that the panorama of mountains appear beautiful and splendid from a distance. The bitterness of nearness is intolerable. The more we grow in years, the more our past recedes. Distance from the life lived long ago makes it sweet and desirable. Strain and stress of the present becomes frivolous when we slipand relapse into euphoric nostalgia.
The instincts of euphoria and nostalgia have been vividly handled by the legendry writers of all times. They have given various dimensions and definitions to the readers to redeem these human aspects yet many more stones are still unturned. These two instincts in the oeuvre of the legendry writer Ruskin Bond are the anchor points that suggest the scope of study. I have chosen to put forward the very idea about how a man’s body, mind and soul blend with traces of his past memories and support the holistic growth.

This book is dedicated to all the deprived, underprivileged and aimless people who wants to do improvement in their life.

As written by the writer himself : "In my Peasant Life in Bengal I make the peasant boy Govinda spend some hours every evening in listening to stories told by an old woman, who was called Sambhu’s mother, and who was the best story-teller in the village. On reading that passage, Captain R. C. Temple, of the Bengal Staff Corps, son of the distinguished Indian administrator Sir Richard Temple, wrote to me to say how interesting it would be to get a collection of those unwritten stories which old women in India recite to little children in the evenings, and to ask whether I could not make such a collection.
So I did that, all the stories were in Bengali, and I translated them into English. "

A description of old India in the eye of a foreign woman, the writer herself, Emily Churchill Thompson Sheets. She described tales of Kalighat and other worship places of Goddes Kali in her time in 20th century.

This remarkable book was written for the parents of the Italian poor. But it is about poor everywhere: their anger is the anger of every worker and peasant who sees middle-class children absorbed effortlessly into schools as teacher’s favorites.
Eight young Italian boys from the mountains outside Florence wrote this passionate and eloquent book. It took them a year. Simple and clearly, with some devastating statistical analysis of the Italian education system, they set out to show the ways in which attitudes towards class, behavior, language and subject-matter militates against the poor. They describe too, the reforms they propose, and the methods they use in their own school - the School of Barbiana, started under the guidance of a parish priest and now run entirely by the children.
Letter to a Teacher was a best seller in Italy and has been published subsequently in many languages.