Lakshmis Secret Diary

Seeking to escape captivity, Lakshmi the temple elephant sets out on a stirring journey toward freedom. On her way, she briefly experiences life as a film star and encounters a colorful cast including a three-legged dog named Tripod Dog Baba, other elephants in the Bandipur Forest, a chameleon facing an existential crisis, a moon who dances with an elephant, and a flying fish called Alphonse. Lakshmi’s Secret Diary is a remarkable Indian Francophone novel set in Pondicherry, the former capital of French India. Blending philosophical meditations, retellings of Sanskrit mythology, and social critique, Ari Gautier tells the story of Lakshmi’s attempt to escape her fate. From the point of view of animals, the novel explores concepts of destiny, freedom, and identity. It illuminates the paradoxes of animal-human relations in India, where animals are both abused and worshiped, and provides an imaginative critique of the caste system. Gautier’s vivid portrait of Pondicherry brings to life the religious, cultural, culinary, and visual diversity of the city’s districts and sheds light on the little-known history of French colonialism in India. An afterword explores issues such as reincarnation and Indian translation traditions in relation to the novel. At once tragic and comic, satirical and surreal, Lakshmi’s Secret Diary is a surprising, compelling, and moving novel from a gifted storyteller.

"The novel straddles multiple genres and modes of writing, including novel, diary, fantasy, surrealism, mythology, historical writing, and philosophy. It is primarily set in Pondicherry, the former capital of the French Empire in India, and is narrated through an anthropomorphic perspective, from the point of view of a temple elephant, Lakshmi, and a three-legged stray dog named Tripod Dog Baba. The various animals of the novel embody human experiences and provide insight into the Indian caste system and its oppression. The novel constitutes a powerful and moving philosophical narrative with moments of both tragedy and comedy, revealing vivid human and animal interactions and their psychology. Interwoven into the fabric of the narrative are also Dalit (oppressed caste) reinterpretations of the ancient Sanskrit epic The Mahabaratha; the work casts light on the suffering of oppressed castes in India, but additionally asserts and liberates their culture"--

This book explores the uses of translation, translators, and interpreters in fiction as a gateway to introduce issues related to Translation Studies. The volume follows recent scholarship on Transfiction, a term used to describe the portrayal of translation (both a topic and a motif), as well as translators and interpreters in fiction and film. It expands on the research by Kalus Kaindl, Karleheinz Splitzl, Michael Cronin, and Rosemary Arrojo, among others. Although the volume reflects the preoccupation with translator visibility, it concentrates on the importance of power struggles within the translatorial task. The volume could be an invaluable tool to be used for pedagogical purposes to discuss theoretical aspects within Translation and Interpreting Studies.

A postman struggles to deliver the last letter on his last day of work. A prostitute elopes with the auto rickshaw driver who arranged clients for her. An inspector discovers the dead body of the boy he had an altercation with the previous evening. In seven riveting stories, Ari Gautier peels back the layers of human emotions until glimpses of greed, anger and lust can finally reveal themselves. Unsettling and irresistible, Nocturne Pondicherry is an all too realistic collection where mundane situations - featuring common people, ill-fated street dwellers and hapless immigrants - pull readers in and fling them into the abyss.

If there was anything our neighbours envied us, it was our thinnais. The working-class district of Kurusukuppam is not the Pondicherry of tourist brochures. Here, residents are a bewildering mix of Creoles, colonial war veterans, proud communists and French citizens who have never left India's shores. It is a place of everyday tragedies, melodramatic occurrences and stubborn, absurd hope. But life in Kurusukuppam is upturned by the arrival of a curious tramp, Gilbert Thaata, a wizened Frenchman who has clearly seen hard times. Settling down on the narrator's verandah, his thinnai, Gilbert Thaata begins to earn his keep by recounting the tale of the rise and fall of his family's fortunes as the custodians of a mysterious diamond, the Stone of Sita. The fanciful story that unfolds is one that stretches across centuries and encompasses the history of France's colonial legacy in India. As entranced as they are by the raconteur, his listeners cannot help but ask - just who is this old man and how did he fall on such misfortune? Masterfully translated from the French original by Blake Smith, Ari Gautier's The Thinnai offers a panoramic view of Pondicherry's past, the whimsical eccentricities of its present and shines a light on the quirks of history that come to define us.

Lakshmi is one of the most common deities found in India. To Hindus she's known as the goddess of wealth and fortune. Lakshmi is known by several different names as she has incarnated in many different forms, including Sri, Padma, Vaishnavi, Ambika, Indira, Vani, Sita and many others. Lakshmi is the focal point for prayers and dedication on Diwali, the festival of lights and one of the largest festivals on the Indian subcontinent. This journal features: 150 lined pages (75 sheets) 5.25 x 8 inches 60 pound (90 gsm) white-colored paper Perfect bound glossy softcover (10 pt stock) Ten percent of book sales go towards enabling youth in developing countries to access better educational opportunities. This money is being donated to Build to Learn, an initiative started by The Mindful Word.

Incorporating the Hugo & Nebula award–nominated novella “Identity Theft” The name’s Lomax—Alex Lomax. I’m the one and only private eye working the mean streets of New Klondike, the Martian frontier town that sprang up forty years ago after Simon Weingarten and Denny O’Reilly discovered fossils on the Red Planet. Back on Earth, where anything can be synthesized, the remains of alien life are the most valuable of all collectibles, so shiploads of desperate treasure hunters stampeded here in the Great Martian Fossil Rush. I’m trying to make an honest buck in a dishonest world, tracking down killers and kidnappers among the failed prospectors, the corrupt cops, and a growing population of transfers—lucky stiffs who, after striking paleontological gold, upload their minds into immortal android bodies. But when I uncover clues to solving the decades-old murders of Weingarten and O’Reilly, along with a journal that may lead to their legendary mother lode of Martian fossils, God only knows what I’ll dig up...

What should have been a simple employment interview for Aadhya Mhann, a middle-class Punjabi lady in her early twenties, turned into a gruesome gang rape by 6 men, 4 of them being part of the most influential circles in Mumbai. Aadhya had the opportunity to seek for legal help and she had enough evidence to make sure all 6 men were locked up for years, but she chose to do things her own way. The justice system always had a soft spot for rich and influential people and even when it didn't, the culprits of the crime enjoyed minimal sentences compared to the torture and trauma they put their victims through. Aadhya didn't want her rapists to be let off that easy. She had to make all of them suffer… But she couldn't do it alone. Aadhya finds and recruits 5 other girls that have been raped at some points in their lives. Manju, Sudesha, Palakh, Sathya and Lakshmi. They all came from different backgrounds, castes, and social classes, but they all had the same objective: To make the fuckers that had raped them regret ever having dicks! They were willing to step out of the restrictions of the law and make sure that these vile men get the punishment they deserve for their atrocities. Creating an elaborate, covert operation with Aadhya at the helm, they combine their resources and talents and go on a revenge rampage. One by one, the girls target the 10 men that had raped any one of them, and kill them off in the most gruesome and blood-curling way possible. They leave the most psychologically draining death for Akash Rathore, the biggest and richest pervert of them all. The murders and the elaborate ways in which they are carried out shakes the core of Mumbai. What is more mysterious is that no one has any idea who the killers are as the girls are always careful to keep their identities secret. As time goes by, the painful pasts of the girls are revealed and they create the most unlikely of bonds with each other. They become pillars for each other, and the deaths of their rapists becomes the glue that brings them together.

8 victims, 8 days and a case that was closed 5 years ago — Anna Cadel, a 16 year old girl’s investigation, to prove her teacher, Mr.Bardot’s innocence, had ceased 5 years ago after he was convicted. However, a recent murder of a 43 year old, in Apex Grove and its eerie similarity with the homicides 5 years ago reignite a will and curiosity in Anna to reopen the case and regain her trust in Mr. Bardot. A chance encounter, misleading evidence and deceiving alibis define Anna’s journey in unveiling the truth behind the murders.

“‘Utthisht Bharat,’ he said, and in that magical moment I felt that the river, the trees, and the sky…were saying, ‘Utthisht Bharat.’ I got up, never to look back or have doubts again.” Just as the Bharata of yore responded to the Lord’s call to rise up from dejection, to fulfill his glorious destiny, this modern day Bharat too rises up from the pits of despair and defeat, to set out steadily on his appointed path of duty. Bharat, an IITian, with a management degree from IIM, had a ‘successful’ innings in the corporate world, with overseas postings too. Having acquired a substantial bank balance, he has the urge to set up a business in rural India, which will bring greater profits to the farmers. Predictably, he is ruthlessly pushed out, and systematically ruined by the vested interests that feel threatened. Deep in despair, he gets help from a most unexpected quarter, a poor tribal snake charmer, known as Nagbaba… A gripping tale of how he comes out from the mires of debt and ruin, to rise up again, wiser but undeterred from his chosen path… A story of modern India, the two Indias of the cities and the villages… the urban, educated, elite youth with modern knowledge from science and technology, and the illiterate people of the forests, who have the wealth of wisdom passed down from centuries… the development of cities, which takes place at the cost of the proliferation of slums… the two different cultures that coexist in mutual wariness and mistrust…