This book is a collection of papers presented at various seminars and
conferences over the years. The topics and themes range from India's culture to
ecology, from mythology to feminism, and from terrorism to human rights. The
essays also represent a variety of critical positions and constitute a
re-examination of some of the central issues in Indian literature. The defining
feature of Indian writing is the quest to specify a space of cultural identity
outside the hegemony. Thus, the need to preserve and project a distinct cultural
identity has always been accompanied by the simultaneous incorporation or
rejection of a colonizing alterity. Most of the papers look