India & Cambridge - Cambridge University Press India

GENERAL/ FORTHCOMINGlove that have developed in South Asia, those words,conceptual clusters, images and stories which haveinterlocked and grown into repertoires. Including essays byliterary scholars, historians, anthropologists, film historiansand political theorists, the collection unravels theinterconnecting strands in the history of the concept(shringara,‘ishq, prem and “love”) and maps theirsignificance in literary, oral and visual traditions. Each essayexamines a particular configuration and meaning of love onthe basis of genre, tellers and audiences, and the substantialintroduction sets out the main repertoires.Francesca Orsini is Lecturer in Hindi at the University ofCambridge.9788175964334 380pp HB ` 645.00Story of the Delhi IronPillarR. BalasubramaniamStory of The Delhi Iron Pillar tracesthe history of the pillar located inthe Qutab Complex and describesits structure in detail. It unravelsthe mystery behind the resistanceof the pillar to corrosion for morethan sixteen centuries. It alsodiscusses the amazing processesby which the pillar wasmanufactured using the technicalknow-how available at the time.R. Balasubramaniam has been teaching and conductingresearch at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur since1990.9788175962781 140pp PB ` 245.00FORTHCOMINGUrbanization in SouthAsia: Focus on Mega CitiesR. P. MisraThe focus of the book is on megacities, often called engines ofeconomic growth. Mega citiesconstitute major assets of thecountries, at the same time theyare also centres of majorconvulsions. The book containschapters on South Asia’s ninemega cities - Mumbai, Kolkata,Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore andHyderabad (in India), Karachi, and Lahore (in Pakistan), andDhaka (in Bangladesh). In addition, five capital cities of theregion, i.e., Kabul (Afghanistan), Kathmandu (Nepal),Thimphu (Bhutan), Colombo (Sri Lanka), and Male (Maldives)also constitute the subject matter of the book.The volume consists of twenty chapters; four chapters(three in the beginning and eighteen at the end) cover thegeneral themes that cut across all the countries of theRegion; and the remaining fourteen chapters focus on eachof the nine mega cities and five capital cities of the Region.Each chapter is an original research work of well-knownspecialists from fields like urban geography, urban planning,urban management, architecture, and social science.Professor R. P. Misra was the Vice-Chancellor of AllahabadUniversity.9788175966369 c. 515pp HBR. K. Narayan: An Introduction (ContemporaryIndian Writers in English)Mohan G. RamananThis book presents multifarious critical perspectives onR. K. Narayan, and attempts to evaluate Narayan in the lightof contemporary concerns, without ignoring his essential,rootedness in his Indian inheritance. R. K. Narayan: AnIntroduction, seeks to explore the central motif’s of Narayan’sworks, such as• his relation to reality and his engagement with it• his recurring themes of myth-making and mythologicalparallelisms• the political and social angles which inform his work• the religious and spiritual dimensions which act as abroad framework• his examination of the eternal transcendental principle,shaping and directing lifeThe book evaluates Narayan’s narratives in Bakhtinian termsand presents a post-colonial/ post-modern outlook toNarayan’s works which would appeal both to the critic aswell as the informed reader.Professor Mohan G. Ramanan teaches at the Departmentof English, University of Hyderabad, India.The Court Chronicle of theKings of Manipur: TheCheitharon Kumpapa,Volume 3Saroj Nalini Arambam ParrattThe Cheitharon Kumpapa is thecourt chronicle of the kings ofManipur, a small formerlyindependent state situated on theIndian border with Myanmar. TheCheitharon Kumpapa recordsevents from the founding of theruling dynasty in 33 CE until theabolition of the monarchy and subsequent merger of thestate with India in 1949. The document is probably theoldest chronicle in the region, written on handmade Meetei(Manipuri) paper made from bark of trees, in locally madeink, with a quill or a bamboo pen. All in all it comprises morethan 1,000 leaves.The Cheitharon Kumpapa Vol. 1 covered the period from33–1763 CE, and Vol. 2 from 1764–1843 CE. This final volumecontinues the translation until the legitimate kingship cameto an end as a result of conflict with the British in 1891. Aswith the previous volumes a facsimile of the original text inMeetei Mayek, the archaic Manipuri script, is included. Thiswork will be of interest to researchers on East and SouthAsia in the fields of history, social anthropology, andlinguistics.50 order online at www.cambridgeindia.org