The continual, unpredictable, and often violent "traffic" between identities in colonial and postcolonial India is the focus of Parama Roy's stimulating and original book. Mimicry has been commonly recognized as an important colonial model of bourgeois/elite subject formation, and Roy examines its place in the exchanges between South Asian and British, Hindu and Muslim, female and male, and subaltern and elite actors. Roy draws on a variety of sources—religious texts, novels, travelogues, colonial archival documents, and films—making her book genuinely interdisciplinary. She explores the ways in which questions of originality and impersonation function, not just for "western" or "westernized" subjects, but across a range of identities. For example, Roy considers the Englishman's fascination with "going native," an Irishwoman's assumption of Hindu feminine celibacy, Gandhi's impersonation of femininity, and a Muslim actress's emulation of a Hindu/Indian mother goddess. Familiar works by Richard Burton and Kipling are given fresh treatment, as are topics such as the "muscular Hinduism" of Swami Vivekananda. Indian Traffic demonstrates that questions of originality and impersonation are in the forefront of both the colonial and the nationalist discourses of South Asia and are central to the conceptual identity of South Asian postcolonial theory itself.

"Fresh and insightful. . . . Roy introduces readers and literary critics to nonliterary examples including religious mentoring and discipleship, public figures, and Bombay movie stars and their films. This is the most exciting and interesting book I have read in the field for some time."—Caren Kaplan, author of Questions of Travel

Reprint of the original, first published in 1871. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.

As a literary genre, Indian short story, next to poetry, is the most popular and accepted form of literature for its variety and nuance of Indian experience. Evolving over time, it has gained wide currency among people. Even after its recourse to traditional rules of the craft, Indian short story amazingly presents itself an original and distinctive form of art. Developed out of contemporary native literature and western storytelling technique, Indian short story presents an amalgation of two different literary traditions which has become unique and distinctive in course of time and long been catering to the taste of people. Ever since its origin, it has already witnessed a plethora of Indian writers who have made significant contributions to this genre by encapsulating the essence of Indian life and culture. They are Rabindranath Tagore, Munshi Premchand, R.K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand, Ismat Chughtai, Ruskin Bond, Khushwant Singh, Saadat Hasan Manto, Ashapurna Devi, Jhumpa Lahiri, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Anita Nair, Qurratulain Hyder, Namita Gokhale, Madhulika Liddle , just to name a few. At present Indian short story has taken a wider form, much more than earlier and almost every writer has started trying her or his hand at this field that it is too difficult for one to sum up the whole in one singular work. Still this present book is an endeavour to compile the works of major Indian short story writers in a short but comprehensive way in order to supply the best possible materials to readers, writers, academics, scholars and students who wish to do further studies in this field. There are twenty six chapters in this book which together presents a rich tapestry of this genre. Hopefully this book will march towards many unexplored realms exciting many curious minds, restarting many fruitful dialogues and invigorating many fresh and new ideas among academics, scholars and students alike.