Ticket to India by N.H. Senzai (English) Paperback Book

Description: Ticket to India by N.H. Senzai Synopsis coming soon....... FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description A family trip to India turns into a grand adventure in this contemporary novel about the Great Partition, from the award-winning author of Saving Kabul Corner and Shooting Kabul.A map, two train tickets, and a mission. These are things twelve-year-old Maya and her big sister Zara have when they set off on their own from Delhi to their grandmothers childhood home of Aminpur, a small town in Northern India. Their goal is to find a chest of family treasures that their grandmothers family left behind when they fled from India to Pakistan during the Great Partition. But soon the sisters become separated, and Maya is alone. Determined to find her grandmothers lost chest, she continues her trip, enlisting help on the way from an orphan boy named Jai. Mayas grand adventure through India is as thrilling as it is warm: a journey through her familys history becomes a real coming-of-age quest. Author Biography N. H. Senzai is an author and intellectual property consultant.? She lives with her husband and son in in the San Francisco Bay Area. Shooting Kabul is based in part on the Ms. Senzais husbands experience fleeing Soviet controlled Afghanistan in the 1970s. This is her first novel.? Visit her online at nhsenzai.com. Excerpt from Book Ticket to India 1 A Rose Is a Rose THE MOMENT THEY ARRIVED, after an exhausting twenty-hour flight, they found the house, usually an oasis of calm, in chaos. Zara stumbled through the carved wooden doors first, while Maya entered last, sweaty from the soaring temperatures outside, a sharp contrast to cool, temperate San Francisco. She closed her eyes for a moment, watching a kaleidoscope of colors flash behind her eyelids--vibrant images that assaulted her senses each time she arrived. The sun seemed brighter here, more gold than yellow, raining heat down over the dusty city of Karachi. She opened her eyes and her pupils adjusted to the shadowy foyer, decorated in calming white, cream, and powder blue. While her sister pushed past teary relatives to launch herself into her grandmothers arms with a dramatic sob, Maya stood back. She was stunned to see how her grandmother appeared to have aged a decade since she last saw her. Her usually meticulously wrapped sari was askew, and her silver hair, always pulled back in an elegant chignon, was wild around her shoulders. Naniamma had always been the strong, solid partner in her grandparents marriage and Maya had never seen her cry, let alone fall apart like this. But as soon as Naniamma set eyes on Maya, she beckoned her for an enveloping hug. Before Maya could loosen her tongue and come up with something comforting to say, her mother gently pulled Naniamma away. "Ammi," Dalia whispered, "I just cant believe Abbu is gone." They clung to one another for a long minute, until a tight-lipped great-aunt guided them to the living room, with its ornate wooden sofas and embroidered cushions. As the adults and Zara huddled together, passing around a box of tissues, Maya stood, forgotten. Fighting the urge to hide under the dining room table as she had when she was a child, she spotted one of her grandfathers paintings hanging across from her, an abstract swirl of cool blues and beiges. She remembered the day hed painted it, while on a picnic on Hawksbay beach. When he had been alive and healthy. Heart heavy, she slunk off with her backpack, up the stairs to the empty television lounge. Longing to hear a comforting voice, she picked up the phone and dialed her home number in California. She wanted to tell her father that theyd reached Karachi safely. When the rings rolled over into voice mail, she realized he was probably out, dealing with burial plots, headstones, and other preparations for Nanabbas funeral, which was to take place in San Francisco in a week. Restless, she went to the towering bookshelves that lined the room. She passed business, mathematics, poetry, and old novels, until she reached the section on history and politics. She pulled out a history book, titled The Struggle for Pakistan. On the way to the sofa, she switched on the television to a soap opera in Urdu. While her brain tried to adjust to a language she understood but didnt speak much, she glumly opened her backpack. Sixth grade had started two weeks before, and Maya had been thrilled that her best friends, Olivia and Kavita, had been assigned to the same homeroom. But even before she could get used to a new class schedule, the news of her grandfather had come. And now, being away for more than a week meant completing take-home assignments: a stack of math sheets, a book report on Sacagawea, and a detailed journal describing her trip. With a sigh, she grabbed the journal like a lifeline, along with the new box of colored pencils shed gotten for her art class. Theyd just begun analyzing the works of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo when shed left for Pakistan. Fridas paintings were instantly recognizable by their bold, earthy colors--rainforest yellows, blood reds, vibrant blues, and neon pinks. She flipped open the history book and froze. On the first page was a date, along with a signature: Malik Humayun Ahmed. Her grandfather. She stared at the blue ink, thinking back to a summer day, five years ago, when shed gotten into a particularly nasty fight with Zara--over what, she couldnt remember. But it had ended how their fights usually did, with her sister throwing verbal daggers at her while she stood there mute, unable to formulate a good jab in response. Later, it was Nanabba whod coaxed Maya out of a tree and set up an easel for her in his office. Painting, for him, hed explained, was like meditation. Hed shown her how to use a brush, demonstrating how the strokes could disentangle her thoughts. Each color, he told her, meant something different as it formed an image on the canvas. Red was danger, pink meant love, yellow hinted at cowardice, blue resonated calmness, green was renewal, and brown symbolized the earth. Maya fell in love with the process and later found that writing served the same purpose. "And he was right." Maya sighed, writing a title on the front of her journal: "My Journey to Pakistan." On the next page she sketched a rectangular stretch of land, bordered by Afghanistan, India, China, and the Arabian Sea along the bottom. Then she began to write, soothed by the rush of words spreading across the page. Thursday, September 15 Karachi, Pakistan Here are some facts about Pakistan: 1. The name Pakistan--pak ("pure") and stan ("land") means "land of the pure" in the Persian and Urdu languages. 2. Islamabad is the capital, though Karachi is the biggest city. 3. The population is 193 million people, making Pakistan the sixth most populous country in the world. 4. The national language is Urdu, the official language is English, and Saraiki, Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, and Baluchi are also spoken. 5. The official currency is the Pakistani rupee. 6. Cricket is the most popular sport. My moms family is from Karachi, Pakistan, but my dad was born in Chicago. His parents came to the United States from Pakistan in the 1970s so his father could get a PhD in engineering. As soon as he graduated, they moved to the West Coast and settled in Berkeley, California. My parents met when my dad went to Karachi to visit his grandparents. They liked each other instantly and decided to get married. Maya paused. There was no avoiding it, she realized. Her grandfather was the reason they were here, and she had to say something about him. The day before yesterday, my grandfather went to weed his garden in the cool part of the afternoon, as he usually did. A few hours later, thats where they found him, lying peacefully in a patch of tulips. Hed had a heart attack. He was the eldest of three boys, and his greatest wish growing up was to fly. And so, even though his dad was totally against it, he became an air force pilot for the Pakistani military. But he didnt stay in the sky long. He came tumbling down to earth when he crashed during a training drill, and broke his back. His flying career over, he joined his fathers accounting firm. When my grandfather told me this story, he wasnt sad. He just accepted what had happened as the will of God. He told me that as he buried his dream of flying, he uncovered something else--the joy of gardening. My last memory is of him sitting on the porch, holding his pipe. I can still smell the smoke rising in the warm night air, mixed with the scent of musk and cedar wood--his Old Spice cologne. Hed been telling me one of my favorite stories about his childhood--about the time he and his best friend climbed up a mango tree and hung their schoolmasters bicycle from its branches. Maya exhaled a pent-up breath, the air rushing out of her lungs as her eyes filled with tears. She had been his favorite, she knew. He had never said it, but in his quiet, gentle way, hed hinted at it as they both worked together on some shared interest or another--painting, gardening, collecting old coins, eating unripe mangoes sprinkled with chili pepper and salt. She clutched the journal to her chest and leaned back against the sofa, comforted by the words that were bringing her grandfather back to life, even if just for a moment. * * * Hot. Its really hot. Eyes flickering open, Maya found herself in a large four-poster bed with her Details ISBN1481422596 Author N.H. Senzai Short Title TICKET TO INDIA R/E Pages 304 Publisher Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books Edition Description Reprint Language English ISBN-10 1481422596 ISBN-13 9781481422598 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY FIC Audience Age 8-12 Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States Imprint Simon & Schuster Year 2017 Audience Children/Juvenile Publication Date 2017-08-10 NZ Release Date 2017-08-10 US Release Date 2017-08-10 UK Release Date 2017-08-10 Illustrations f-c cvr (no spfx) AU Release Date 2016-12-31 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. 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