Contents: Preface. Introduction. 1. Some early Australian storytellers and their tales/Bruce Bennett. 2. The shifting paradigms of Indo-English novel: problems and possibilities/Shyam Asnani. 3. Poetic image and symbol/Dennis Haskell. 4. "Singing the World Anew": learning, narration and collaborative culture in Kim Scott's true country/Sudha Rai. 5. Metropolitan landscape internalised: Tranter's poems on Sydney/Rashmi Bhatnagar. 6. The irresistible desire for self-assertion in miles Franklin and Arundhati Roy/Meenakshi Raman. 7. O' Connor's poetic Credo and Vedic literature/Shalini Sharma. 8. "Sarve Bhavanthu Sukhinah"/Surendra Bhatnagar. 9. Echoes in the Aravali bowl: the creative writers' and artists' eve/Sheela Upadyaya. 10. Poetic isthmuses: launch of the Setu... (the bridges...)/Sonia Behl. 11. Eco tourism in India: a socio-environmental Sin Qua Non/A.K. Raina. 12. Mudrooroo's meditative musings of India: evolution of a poetic persona through caring for and sharing of cultures/Sunita Bhadoria. 13. The 'Self' and the 'Other Selves' in Robert Gray's poetry/Evelyn Eli. 14. Kate Grenville's Mythopoeic imagination: a study of her novels/Atiqa Masih. 15. Multiculturalism in contemporary Australian fiction/Pradeep Trikha. 16. Swapping cultures: translation as imaginative Quid Pro Quos/Anuraag Sharma. Poems. Index.

"Culture in its highest form pre-supposes the practical paradigm of caring. India and Australia, apart from cricket and the cattle place, also share an infinite cultural diversity. And both are moving towards the realization of a convergence of various cultural segments of their respective populace, wherein the significant parts make an equally significant whole. Ours jointly has been the endeavour to attain the pinnacle of a Vernacular Republic, a global village or Visvagram. And the present book, after the seminar, containing as it is the seminar papers, is a second step and not a leap toward the realization of a participatory Universe. May it be the planting of a single, little foot of Lord Vamana!" (jacket)