Anita Desai, born Anita Mazumdar, is an Indian novelist and the Emerita John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a writer she has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times. She received a Sahitya Akademi Award in 1978 for her novel Fire on the Mountain, from the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters. She won the British Guardian Prize for The Village by the Sea (1983). Her other works include The Peacock, Voices in the City, Fire on the Mountain and an anthology of short stories, Games at Twilight. She is on the advisory board of the Lalit Kala Akademi and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, London.
Kiran Desai is an Indian author. Her novel The Inheritance of Loss won the 2006 Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award. In January 2015, The Economic Times listed her as one of 20 "most influential" global Indian women.
Babyji is a novel by Abha Dawesar first published in 2005. Set in 1980s Delhi, India, it recounts the coming of age and the sexual adventures and fantasies of a 16-year-old bespectacled schoolgirl, the only child of a Brahmin family. The three simultaneous "affairs" she has in the course of the novel are all secret, and all with members of her own gender: two with older women and one with a classmate.
A Suitable Boy is a novel by Vikram Seth, published in 1993. With 1,349 pages, the English-language book is one of the longest novels published in a single volume.
The Inheritance of Loss is the second novel by Indian author Kiran Desai. It was first published in 2006. It won a number of awards, including the Booker Prize for that year, the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award in 2007, and the 2006 Vodafone Crossword Book Award.
Kasamh Se is an Indian soap opera produced by Ekta Kapoor of Balaji Telefilms. The show aired on Zee TV from 16 January 2006 to 12 March 2009. The story is about three sisters: Bani, Piya and Rano.
The Optimist's Daughter is a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction-winning short novel by Eudora Welty. It was first published as a long story in The New Yorker in March 1969 and was subsequently revised and published in book form in 1972. It concerns a woman named Laurel, who travels to New Orleans to take care of her father, Judge McKelva, after he has surgery for a detached retina. Judge McKelva fails to recover from this surgery, and as he dies slowly in the hospital, Laurel visits and reads to him from Dickens. Her father's second wife, Fay, who is younger than Laurel, is a shrewish outsider from Texas. Her shrill response to the Judge's illness appears to accelerate his demise. Laurel and Fay are thrown together when they return the Judge to his hometown, Mount Salus, Mississippi, where he will be buried. There, Laurel is immersed in the good neighborliness of the friends and family she knew before marrying and moving away to Chicago. Fay, though, has always been unwelcome and leaves for a long weekend, leaving Laurel in the big house full of memories. Laurel encounters her mother's memory, her father's life after he lost his first wife, and the complex emotions surrounding her loss as well as the many memories. She comes to a place of understanding that Fay can never share, and she leaves small town Mississippi with the memories she can carry with her.
Anupama (transl. Incomparable) is a 1966 Hindi film directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. The movie stars Dharmendra, Sharmila Tagore, Shashikala, Deven Verma and Surekha Pandit. The music was composed by Hemant Kumar. At the 1966 National Film Awards it won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi.
Hasratein (Desires) is an Indian television soap opera that was telecast on Zee TV in the mid 1990s. It is based on the Marathi novel "Adhantari" by Late Shri Jaywant Dalvi. Hasratein focuses around successes of extra marital relationships. One of the main story is of Savi, a woman who leaves her husband and maintains an extra-marital relationship with another married man, with both their spouses being aware of the situation. Her actions were due to the fact that years ago, during her childhood, her mother left her father for a young man. The show emphasizes the societal strain placed on marriages in Indian culture, especially roles given to the female spouse resulting in boredom felt by the male spouse. Hasratein was one of the most popular television shows of the mid and late 1990s. According to Shubhra Gupta, film and television critic, the popularity of the serial "had made it a catalyst for the discussion of issues of marital discord, in spite of the embarrassment the serial generated for many people."
Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug, was an Indian nurse who was at the centre of attention in a court case on euthanasia after spending over 41 years in a vegetative state as a result of sexual assault.
Clear Light of Day is a novel published in 1980 by Indian novelist and three-time Booker Prize finalist Anita Desai. Set primarily in Old Delhi, the story describes the tensions in a post-partition Indian family, starting with the characters as adults and moving back into their lives throughout the course of the novel. While the primary theme is the importance of family, other predominant themes include the importance of forgiveness, the power of childhood, and the status of women, particularly their role as mothers and caretakers, in modern-day India.
Kishwar Desai is an Indian author and columnist. Her first novel, Witness the Night, won the Costa Book Award in 2010 for Best First Novel and has been translated into over 25 languages. It was also shortlisted for the Author's Club First Novel Award and longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. Her novel Origins of Love, published in June 2012, was critically acclaimed. The Sea of Innocence, published in 2014 in India as well as in the UK and Australia, was widely discussed as it dealt with the issue of gang rape. Desai also has a biography, Darlingji: The True Love Story of Nargis and Sunil Dutt, to her credit. She wrote her latest book in 2020, released on 28 December, titled, The Longest Kiss.
The Clothes on Their Backs is a novel by Linda Grant that was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008 and recipient of an Orange Prize. It was first published in 2008.
Ghar Ghar Ki Kahani is a 1988 Bollywood drama film directed by Kalpataru. The film stars Rishi Kapoor, Jaya Prada, Govinda, Farah Naaz in lead roles. The film performed well on box office and declared hit. This film was a remake of Telugu film Shanthi Nivasam.
Do Not Say We Have Nothing is a novel by Madeleine Thien published in 2016 in Canada. It follows a 10-year-old girl and her mother who invite a Chinese refugee into their home. Critically acclaimed, in 2016 the author was awarded both the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award for this novel. It was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize as well as the Women's Prize for Fiction.
Ninnu Kori is a 2017 Indian Telugu-language romantic comedy drama film directed by debutant Shiva Nirvana from a screenplay written by Kona Venkat. Produced by DVV Danayya under DVV Entertainments, the film stars Nani, Nivetha Thomas and Aadhi Pinisetty while Murali Sharma and Tanikella Bharani play supporting roles. Gopi Sunder composed the music. Prawin Pudi and Karthik Ghattamaneni are the editor and cinematographer of the film respectively.
Journey to Ithaca is a novel written by Anita Desai, published in 1995. The novel takes its name from a poem by Constantine P. Cavafy. The novel describes a pilgrimage to India by a young couple, Italian Matteo and German Sophie, and the life of a mysterious woman, Laila who runs the ashram where they live and is known there as "The Mother". The novel further develops a theme that Desai explored in an early short story, Scholar and Gypsy; the difference between the character who feels the world is all we need and the character for whom the world is limited.
Girl, Woman, Other is the eighth novel by Bernardine Evaristo. Published in 2019 by Hamish Hamilton, it follows the lives of 12 characters in the United Kingdom over the course of several decades. The book was the co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize, alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments.
Lakshmi Ghar Aayi is an Indian television social drama that aired from 5 July 2021 to 17 September 2021 on Star Bharat. The show dealt with the issue of dowry system still prevailing in India. Produced by Shakuntalam Telefilms, it starred Simran Pareenja, Akshit Sukhija and Ananya Khare.
Amudhavum Annalakshmiyum is a 2022-2024 Indian Tamil-language soap opera starring Kanmani Manoharan and Rajashree, both are in the titular roles with Arun Padmanabhan.
