Dhoni's magic, parenting woes and Hinduism (Books This Weekend)

With the Indian team riding high after registering their first win in the 2015 World Cup against arch-rivals Pakistan, we have a book on the struggles and triumphs of Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni; a mother's struggle to bring up her child in an Indian way in China and a critique of Hinduphobia in today's academia, media and popular culture - the IANS book stack this week has gems that are relevant for today's time. Take a look.

1. Book: The Man, The Leader MSD; Author: Biswadeep Ghosh; Publisher: Rupa; Price: Rs.195; Pages: 245

Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni will be remembered for hitting the winning six for India in the final match of the 2011 World Cup against Sri Lanka and also for the hope he ignited in the hearts of many aspiring cricketers across the nation for generations to come.

The book highlights the cricketer's struggles during his growing up years, while also analysing his career.

Replete with images, the book is an inspirational read.

2. Book: Visa, Stickers and Other Matters of the Soul; Author Lom Harshni Chauhan; Publisher: Pan Macmillan; Pages: 294; Price: Rs. 299

One of the major concerns of Indian parents is how best to pass on to their children the time-honoured traditions of Indian culture and spirituality, even as they try to raise global citizens. This novel is an endearing account of a young mother's experiments with raising her daughter in the Indian spiritual way while living in atheist China. As she begins to educate her daughter, she is surprised by the child's sense of understanding and realises that parenting is her biggest life lesson, with her daughter as her teacher.

3. Book: Rearming Hinduism: Nature, Hinduphobia and the Return of Indian Intelligence; Author: Vamsee Juluri; Publisher: Westland; Pages: 230; Price: Rs. 250

This is a handbook for intellectual resistance. Through an astute and devastating critique of Hinduphobia in today's academia, media and popular culture, the author shows us that what the Hinduphobia worldview denies virulently is not only the truth and elegance of Hindu thought but the very integrity and sanctity of the natural world itself.

By boldly challenging some of the media age's most popular beliefs about nature, history and pre-history along with the usual Hinduphobic myths about Aryans, invasions and blood-sacrifices, the book links
Hinduphobia and its hubris to a predatory and self-destructive culture that perhaps only a renewed Hindu sensibility can effectively oppose.

4. Book: The Patna Manual of Style: Author: Siddharth Chowdhury; Publisher: Aleph; Pages: 144; Price: Rs. 295

In these nine interlinked stories we meet the not-so-quintessential Patna man - Hriday Thakur, literature junkie, aspiring writer, inveterate lover of women and rain; Jishnu da, his acquaintance from Delhi University; who is now an "importer of blondes"; Samuel Crown, the fastidious proofreader who mentors Hriday and instils in him an irrevocable love for the art of "book-making"; the parade of women in Hriday's life: austere, doe-eyed Charulata, love of his youth, the one who got away; Chitrangada, his wife, who works hard to be accepted in his world of books, art, politics and activism; the beautiful Anjali Singh Nalwa, an ex-flame who is now a fiery, controversial novelist; Imogen Burns, the intrepid chronicler of graveyards; Sadaf Khan Abdali, who loves the smell of Listerine early in the morning; and "Sophia Loren", a dream girl of many schoolboys, now a mother of two.

These stories deal with relationships that are intimate and sensuous and sometimes hard to define.