Danger! That's what the digital butterflies seem to be spelling out. There is a Word eater at large who snatches words as soon as they are uttered and makes them disappear. The 'monster' turns out to be just a little boy. Otto, Grendel's cousin -but he has formidable mental powers that can be matched only by Monkeyji. Armed with an ammunition of words hoarded by Siril and Gardy, the adventurers roam Hong Kong the city of dragons in search of him. There is tension and taut excitement as they finally take on little Otto and his platoon of crows, in the midst of which the author throws up an interesting idea: does something exist only if it has a name?

Holiday plans for Aditi and the others go off track when a runaway computer programme, the irrepressible Mistress i, decides to take refuge with them. Hot on her heels is the scientist who created her, who threatens to put them in jail for kidnapping. And in the midst of all the commotion, Beautiful the elephant is determined to learn to be everything she thinks she isn't rational, sensible, logical and equable. From their peaceful home in Maharashtra, India, Aditi and her friends are catapulted into a strange encounter with cyberspace. In her astonishingly simple way, Suniti Namjoshi explores the connection between the two worlds cyber and real and throws up some interesting thoughts: Does a computer have a soul? And is 'getting updated' the equivalent of 'growing up'?

A story about the love of books, the power of the imagination, of literary heroes and of the birth of dreams.

Today, Indian writing in English is a fi eld of study that cannot be overlooked. Whereas at the turn of the 20th century, writers from India who chose to write in English were either unheeded or underrated, with time the literary world has been forced to recognize and accept their contribution to the corpus of world literatures in English. Showcasing the burgeoning field of Indian English writing, this encyclopedia documents the poets, novelists, essayists, and dramatists of Indian origin since the pre-independence era and their dedicated works. Written by internationally recognized scholars, this comprehensive reference book explores the history and development of Indian writers, their major contributions, and the critical reception accorded to them. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Indian Writing in English will be a valuable resource to students, teachers, and academics navigating the vast area of contemporary world literature.

In How to Kill a Dragon Calvert Watkins follows the continuum of poetic formulae in Indo-European languages, from Old Hittite to medieval Irish. He uses the comparative method to reconstruct traditional poetic formulae of considerable complexity that stretch as far back as the original common language. Thus, Watkins reveals the antiquity and tenacity of the Indo-European poetic tradition. Watkins begins this study with an introduction to the field of comparative Indo-European poetics; he explores the Saussurian notions of synchrony and diachrony, and locates the various Indo-European traditions and ideologies of the spoken word. Further, his overview presents case studies on the forms of verbal art, with selected texts drawn from Indic, Iranian, Greek, Latin, Hittite, Armenian, Celtic, and Germanic languages. In the remainder of the book, Watkins examines in detail the structure of the dragon/serpent-slaying myths, which recur in various guises throughout the Indo-European poetic tradition. He finds the "signature" formula for the myth--the divine hero who slays the serpent or overcomes adversaries--occurs in the same linguistic form in a wide range of sources and over millennia, including Old and Middle Iranian holy books, Greek epic, Celtic and Germanic sagas, down to Armenian oral folk epic of the last century. Watkins argues that this formula is the vehicle for the central theme of a proto-text, and a central part of the symbolic culture of speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language: the relation of humans to their universe, the values and expectations of their society. Therefore, he further argues, poetry was a social necessity for Indo- European society, where the poet could confer on patrons what they and their culture valued above all else: "imperishable fame."

After a secret mission in Afghanistan ends in a terrible accident, Raja Roychowdhury, fondly known as Kakababu, resigns as the director of the Archaeological Survey of India and goes home to his second-hand books. But the desire to hunt down old, unsolved mysteries of the world refuses to leave him alone. Despite living with an amputated leg, Kakababu insists on taking biannual holidays to remote, little-known areas - and refuses to tell anyone what he does there. Now that he's old enough, Shontu, Kakababu's nephew, has finally been allowed to accompany Kakababu on these mysterious trips. And he cannot wait for the thrilling adventures to begin!In 'The Emperor's Lost Head', Kakababu takes Shontu to Kashmir to find a hidden sulphur mine. Except that that's a lie, and Shontu has no idea how to get his uncle to admit the truth.'The King of the Emerald Isles' finds uncle and nephew in an uncharted island in the Indian Ocean. Stubbornly secretive as always, Kakababu refuses to tell Shontu what has brought him to the dangerous island. Is he ready for the answers he might find?