Kirjahaku

Just as the invasion begins, an ambitious and vicious Japanese officer orders the massacre of a village of the Ao Naga tribe. Among those killed is Uti, grandson of the eldest Ao chief.Gojen is his best friend, and on hearing the news of Uti's death he is unable to stay in school in Calcutta and so returns to the ancestral home, where he embarks on a gruelling journey of revenge.As the war unfolds and Gojen finds himself ever more embroiled in the battles and struggles for survival, it soon becomes clear that he is fighting for more than his homeland and the memory of his dead friend.

This title is by the winner of the 2009 Vodafone Crossword Award! In the spring of 2008, Siddhartha Sarma (who never fails to remind everyone how awesome he is) went on a land trip across east Assam. Nagaland and Manipur, into western Myanmar. This is his account about travelling over a part of the country it takes a great deal of convincing to cross alone, but is totally worth visiting. Peppered with anecdotes, accounts from history and about the people of these lands, "East of the Sun" talks, at a breakneck quirky pace, about what to do and what to avoid doing while on the road here, how the people here came to be what they are, and why there is more to India's eastern frontier than just what you read in the newspapers. Sarma exhorts us to be circumspect in trusting his account. And yet the story of this road is enough to make us hang up our disbelief.As you discover which language you must not speak in Imphal, what Dimapur's City Sport is, why Assam's national hero wears a tremendous frown on his face, how to become an 'international body' and why tea and conspiracy with a Myanmar army officer could be a bad idea, you'll see how travel can be unending entertainment, if you are kooky enough.