Bose Creative Publishers

This book is a memoir stitched from the author's journeys across India, China and Southeast Asia. It carries the reader from the Bay of Bengal to Yangtze River to the straits of Malacca. It explores quest and connections: The giant wild goose pagoda in Xian to the grottoes of Longmen, the temples of Shaolin to the shrines of Bali. Along the way appear house helpers and local markets, lion and tiger dancers, ancestor worship and ghost appeasement, masks and kites, pets and puppets. Some stories move between grief and laughter as the author encounters food and language issues which she sorts out over a period, thus making the everyday life luminous. Her visits to various museums across Asia not only provides a sincere source of information about a country's cultural past, it ferments the tapestry of history in it's true sense while a personal loss propels her to embark on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash which teaches her a few life lessons. Living in India and China and discovering the two countries in Malaysia emerge as the memoir's beating heart. Shanghai's riverfront glitters with neon, yet alleyways still carry the smell of steamed buns and whisper of karma chants. In Kuala Lumpur, red lanterns hang beside flower rangoli and the rhythm of Indian and Chinese festivals pulse through local streets and malls. For the author, these are not just images of travel but layered encounters-fragments of history, migration and celebration that speak to the ways cultures echo and entwine. At its heart, Colours Red, Green and Everything In-between is about migration and adaptation, about carrying pieces of India into China and Malaysia, and recognising the essence of home in unfamiliar places.

This sketchbook is my travelogue from May 15-26, 2025, to Japan-a country I have always wanted to visit with pen and paper. This travel sketchbook is divided into two parts: contemporary sketches from Tokyo and classical sketches from Kyoto. In Tokyo, I witnessed an annual festival at the Senso-ji temple in Tokyo, crossed the famously crowded Shibuya pedestrian crossing, saw a 360-degree panoramic view from dusk to night from Tokyo Tower, travelled with the Tokyo subway with a Swica card, ate with chopsticks, the secret to longevity'-Natto beans with local Japanese men. In Kyoto, I travelled on the hop-on-hop-off bus for almost ten hours each day, trying to soak in the history. And then on a bright day in May, I saw Mount Fuji, smoking white clouds from its crater, with its lips apart. I have tried to place these experiences in this book, like in a bento box. A bento box offers a variety of Japanese food, arranged in a packed box, ready for fresh consumption. This book is similar, with fresh sketches and anecdotes packed together; it is ready for you to read and experience Japan. I hope you will enjoy reading this book. The sketches are not my best work, as they were created on the go, but they do convey the time and temperament of an urban sketch. Perhaps one day this book will inspire you to jot down your travelogue or pick up the long-forgotten wooden pencil to sketch or write, or inspire someone else to do the same. Thank you for joining me in this journey.

This gripping memoir narrates the journey of Rajah Banerjee, a fourth-generation Darjeeling tea grower who became a tree planter after a riding accident. Rajah pioneered biodynamics, global tea organics, and tropical agriculture because of his calling, which changed how tea is grown in India and how it can impact the community. His ancestral tea estate, Makaibari, transformed from colonial, hierarchical management techniques into a premier hub for the holistic improvement of rural communities. When the entire region, including the tea estates, closed down during the violent Gorkhaland uprising in the 1980s, these synergies were crucial in keeping Makaibari safe. That was the power of holistic, sustainable synergy. Rajah became a celebrity vagrant, when his 160-year-old ancestral home was destroyed by a terrible fire in 2017. This didn't discourage him from mentoring five abandoned Darjeeling hamlets. All 17 Sustainable Development Goals have been met by the low-cost, self-funded, carbon-neutral, regenerative farming methods known as the Rimpocha programs. This book can be read by entrepreneurs, tea-lovers, tea-planters, business school students, historians and those who love to read fascinating tales of real life about freshly brewed Darjeeling tea.

She Achieves is the sixth book of short stories published by 16 women authors of Indian origin worldwide. Hailing from different professional backgrounds, the SHE project's primary goal is to provide a creative platform for women's voices and their reflections on daily lives. None of the authors come from a 'purely literary' background, and yet, as scientists, bankers, academics, engineers, managers and homemakers, they all have a story to share. The books in the SHE series revolve around a specific theme or genre. In the past, the themes have included stories woven around women's voices (She Speaks 2019), Indian festivals (She Celebrates 2020; relaunched in 2021), stories of women belonging to marginal groups (She Shines 2022), mystery and nostalgia (She Seeks 2023). Flash fiction was the genre of choice in (She Reflects 2021). She Achieves is a varied collection of short stories and flash fiction addressing women and work. The short stories in this book offer a glimpse into how women have navigated their everyday lives and work. They appear in distinct roles, sometimes as trailblazers and at other times as innovators and facilitators. They are vulnerable, resilient, fragile, resourceful, sensitive, and determined individuals. Sheila, Durga and Aparajita (I Am, Immortal Durga, Aparajita) are pioneers who dared to break the social mould at a time when very few women entered the professional fields, paving the way for future generations. In sharp contrast for the Daughter of the Desert, Reyan, and Rani (The Artist, Rani, Tears of Sand), work is about survival in a world of relentless challenges rather than choice. Rini, Sonali, Bella, Memsahib, Darshana and Meera (The Urban Cocoon, Crossroads, The Woman in the Shadows, Memsahib, Victory and A Dream Deferred) are courageous enough to reinvent and reimagine their career paths later in life in response to monumental odds and changing circum-stances. For women in pursuit of professional excellence, it boils down to hard choices about motherhood. Is it possible to balance both? The corporate lady, Nayantara and Tina (Renata, The Constellational Odds and All in a Day) have quite different answers to this question. Amrit and Minisha (The Decision and Firedance) are determined to fight discrimination in the workplace by acts of revolt that shatter the status quo. The collective strength of women is revealed as Uma, Durga and Maneka (The Giving Well) fight prejudice in their village to realise their dream of becoming entrepreneurs. Ranya (It Takes a Village) a single parent in a foreign land, leans on another woman when she finds herself in a predicament. To what extent should the work women do define and shape their identity? For Ofelia (The Women We Leave Behind) it's not a simple answer whereas for Mrs. Mehta (A Fitting Farewell) it surprisingly is.

She Seeks The stories in She Seeks essentially revolve around how humans have used their minds to navigate a complex world. The mind, in constant interaction with a dynamic environment, is perpetually seeking answers. Sometimes this takes the form of a yearning for or a desire to connect with the past--often termed as nostalgia. The journey down the memory lane can shed a light on a present predicament or a problem or lead to new self-realizations. In other situations, the mind works like a laser beam; honing in on an enigma or mystery with a singular objective of solving it. The mind prescribes what action is required to be taken in times of imminent danger or threats. Such actions can take the form of fight or flight, adrenalin-fueled adventures, or outmanoeuvring the adversary by deploying--to paraphrase the famous detective Hercule Poirot--one's 'gray cells.'Women have relied on their minds--their best asset--to challenge the status quo of power, privilege, and corruption in society. The stories in this volume portray women using their minds in ingenious ways, often leveraging their experiences to address a situation. Munni Masi's morality tales crafted from family lore is meant to arouse the curiosity and imagination of young minds (The Summer House); while a chance meeting with a little girl in a park makes a middle-aged lady reconnect to her younger, happier and most authentic self (The Girl With the Mismatched Rubber Bands). Akriti and Suchishree both lean heavily on the past to find a way out of faltering relationships (Yesterday Once More; L'Ange Protecteur). But their tryst with nostalgia could not be more different. Asha's search for a simple family recipe from her home country leads to an unexpected yet heart-warming reve-lation about her great grandmother's entrepreneurial abilities (The Nostalgic Garden). A sophisticated urbanite's assumptions are challenged by a village detective who is determined to prove that she possesses clairvoyant powers (Mataji Knows Best). The story of the rescue of another city dweller from the clutches of bandits in the badlands of Uttar Pradesh is a jaw dropping thriller (Kidnapped). Two savvy women manage to outwit a corrupt business magnate and an obdurate bureaucrat by their sheer chutzpah (The Showdown and A Tale of Mystery and Intrigue). A teenager and a young woman take on the role of avenging angels in classic tales of good versus evil (The Purple Star and Godhuli). Then there are possibilities that lie beyond the realm of human consciousness. Radha, Sasha and Jezzie take enormous risks by immersing themselves in other worldly adventures in their single-minded quest for truth and love (Turiya; Yatra and The Other Her). SHE Writers Group completes 5 years The She Writers Group believes in creative activism and has 45 women of Indian origin from around the world. Coming from diverse professional backgrounds, these women have come together to write and give a creative platform to the female voice by publishing five books of short stories, and one of poetry. Books published include: She Speaks (short stories, 2018), She Reflects (flash fiction, 2021), She Celebrates (short stories, 2021), Emotions in Rhythm (poems, 2021), and She Shines (short stories, 2022). With She Seeks (short stories, 2023) based on mystery and nostalgia; the She Writers group is celebrating their fifth anniversary

Foreword'Wanderlust--Travel Stories' is our publishing house's first travel stories collection. We consider this project very special since we embarked on this project during the pandemic when borders were still closed, and travelling was highly restricted. It is during this time that many of us started recollecting our travel stories, talking about trips that we had undertaken just a few years before--as if it was a distant memory we dearly wanted to hold on to. That is how we conceptualised this book. We had an open call, one author contacted another author--an ardent traveller, or a blogger, and within a year, we had over fifteen authors penning down their travel memories and exceptional experiences for this book. This book attempts to give a sense of the wealth of these solo, family, or group journeys. It is rich with anecdotes from sea voyages, hiking and biking trips, fishing and safari trips, a getaway in a resort during the pandemic, a trip to the North Pole and the South Pole, and many more unique tales of wondering and wandering. We have tried to group these geographically. The range of writeups that we received surprised us. If one story dealt with painting on a cruise ship to Antarctica, then another talked about fishing in Alaska, or restoring the dead in Indonesia; an artist spoke about his experience of painting Graffiti on a wall bordering Mexico, and a travelling spouse spoke about her memories of visiting Nelson Mandela's prison in South Africa; from a metaphysical journey in the Amazon to trekking expeditions to Armenia; from Cinque Terre in Italy to a waterfalls in Argentina, from exploring ancient forts of India, to following Napoleon Bonaparte's route across Europe on a bike. Every story is unique, and it is precisely this nostalgic and spectacular travel tale we have tried to curate and collect in this book. We wish you an exciting journey ahead. Ship Ahoy Publisher, July 7, 2022