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The attractions Roopa experienced and the fantasies she entertained as a teen shaped a male imagery that ensconced her subconscious. Insensibly, confident carriage came to be associated with the image of maleness in her mind-set. Her acute consciousness of masculinity only increased her vulnerability to it, making her womanliness crave for the maleness for its gratification. However, as her father was constrained to help her in becoming a doctor, she opts to marry, hoping that Sathyam might serve her cause though the persona she envisioned as masculine, she found lacking in him. But as he fails to go with her idea, she becomes apathetic towards him, and insensibly sinks into her friend Sandhya’s embrace, for lesbian solace. In time, she comes in contact with Tara the suave call girl who unsuccessfully tries to rope her into her calling to achieve which she introduces Ravi the seducer. However, when Roopa goes to attend Sandhya’s wedding, she loses her heart to Raja Rao the groom even as Prasad, her husband’s lecherous friend falls for her. The scheming Prasad induces Sathaym to go the corrupt way besides weaning him away from Roop...

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That winter night in the mid-seventies, the Janata Express was racing rhythmically on its tracks towards the coast of Andhra Pradesh. As its headlight pierced the darkness of the fertile plains, the driver honked the horn as though to awake the sleepy environs to the spectacle of the speeding train. On that, in the S-3, were the Ramaiahs with their nine year-old daughter Roopa. Earlier, from Ramavaram, it was in the nick of time that Ramaiah took Janaki to Vellore for the doctors to extricate her from the jaws of death. Now, having been to Tirupati for thanksgiving, he was returning home with his wife and Roopa they took along for the sojourn. While her parents were fast asleep, Roopa sat still on a side berth, reminiscing her times at the hospital where Janaki took one month to recuperate under Dr. Yasoda’s care. Soon the train stopped at a village station, as though to disrupt Roopa’s daydreams of modeling herself on the lady doctor at the Christian Medical College Hospital, and as she peeped out, the ill-lit platform seemed to suggest that the chances of her being Dr. Roopa could be but dim. Ramaiah too woke up to the commotio...

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* * * Valmiki Ramayana – Greatest Medicine for Mankind The story of Ramayana is prescribed as textbook for students. Sita and Rama are worshiped as prime couple. No need to mention about reciting it. Whether Valmiki was satisfied with simple narration of the story? Seshendra Sharma denies it. He analyzed it mentioning that to understand the inner meanings of Valmiki Ramayana, the scientific knowledge is essential. The underlying secret of the sage’s mind will be known through the knowledge of science. It is the firm opinion of Seshendra that the argument that “the sciences are for scholars only” is a conspiracy hatched by Selfish scholars and lazy uneducated persons. Seshendra who has democratic ideology and conviction on science and literature informs the public about the secrets of Ramayana expounded by Valmiki. He explains that Valmiki dedicated ambrosia (The Greatest Medicine) named “Kundalini Yoga” to the mankind. The poetry in the metre of Anushtup Sloka is the honey coating to the medicine. It was explained with great introspection and exemplary scholarship. He concludes that the Ramayana is older than the M...

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Sri Sundara Kanda is nothing but Kundalini yoga Many great secrets that are most venerable are given in Srimad Ramayana. Therefore, it became a sacred text which is daily read as a ritual. It would not have been elevated to such level if it were only a narration of a story. We do not read Manu Charitra* daily as a ritual. We do not consider that book as a means of achieving salvation. That is the difference between these two books. The great secrets in Ramayana are the most helpful to all seekers of salvation. It is so because Ramayana has Gayatri Mantra and Kundalini Yoga which are revealed in the Sundara Kanda. The very first verse of this Kaanda gives indication of that subject. The initial seven verses are like the head of this Kanda. The first verse is: ‘Tato Raavananeetaayaah Seetaayaah satrukarsanah iyesha padam anweshtum chaaranaa charite pathi’. It means;’ (Hanuman) who is a terror to the enemy decided to travel along the path which is followed by Charanas in search of Sita who was taken away by Ravana’. That is the meaning....

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Contents 1. Seshendra’s Profile 6 2. Gunturu Seshendra Sharma : An Extraordinary Poet –Scholar : The Hindu 7 3. About the Translator 8 4. Translator’s Note 9 5. Seshendra Sharma: Supreme Deity of Intellectual Criticism 11 6. Shodasi : Foreword by N.Ramesan 16 7. Shodasi : Foreword by Viswanatha Satyanarayana 18 8. Shodasi : Sanskrit Foreward by Gunderao Harkare 24 9. One Thought to begin with 29 10. Commentators on Valmiki 35 11. Wonders in Valmiki 44 12. Philology of Valmiki 52 13. A discussion on “Netraturah” 62 14. How was the name Sundara Kanda Chosen? 66 15. Sri Sundara Kanda is nothing but Kundalini Yoga 78 16. Discussion on the name of Sundara Kanda 118 17. Trijata’s Dream is nothing but Gayatri Mantra 126 18. Bharatha is image of the Ramayana 134 19. The relationship of the Megha Sandesham with the Ramayana 154 20. It is Appropriate to Say that in the Ramayana Supreme Deity is Indra rather than Vishnu 162 21. Indra and Vishnu in Veda 188 22. Debate on the Ramayana is more recent than the Bharatha 197 23. New evidence to show that the Ramayana was earlier than 202 the Bharatha 24. Benedictory verse ...

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Excerpt: ?WHAT do you think she?d do if she caught us? We oughtn?t to have it, you know,? said Maisie. ?Beat me, and lock you up in your bedroom,? Dick answered, without hesitation. ?Have you got the cartridges?? ?Yes; they?re in my pocket, but they are joggling horribly. Do pin-fire cartridges go off of their own accord?? ?Don?t know. Take the revolver, if you are afraid, and let me carry them.? ?I?m not afraid.? Maisie strode forward swiftly, a hand in her pocket and her chin in the air. Dick followed with a small pin-fire revolver....

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Excerpt: Barnaby Rudge, A Tale of the Riots of ?Eighty by Charles Dickens.

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Excerpt: The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf.

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. The Boarding-House. Mrs. Tibbs was, beyond all dispute, the most tidy, fidgety, thrifty little personage that ever inhaled the smoke of London; and the house of Mrs. Tibbs was, decidedly, the neatest in all Great Coram-street. The area and the area-steps, and the street-door and the street-door steps, and the brass handle, and the door-plate, and the knocker, and the fan-light, were all as clean and bright, as indefatigable white-washing, and hearth-stoning, and scrubbing and rubbing, could make them....

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Introduction: Among the notable books of later times-we may say, without exaggeration, of all time--must be reckoned The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau. It deals with leading personages and transactions of a momentous epoch, when absolutism and feudalism were rallying for their last struggle against the modern spirit, chiefly represented by Voltaire, the Encyclopedists, and Rousseau himself--a struggle to which, after many fierce intestine quarrels and sanguinary wars throughout Europe and America, has succeeded the prevalence of those more tolerant and rational principles by which the statesmen of our own day are actuated....

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Excerpt: The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott.

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Excerpt: The Sentimentalists by George Meredith.

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HOMEWARE. PROFESSOR SPIRAL. ARDEN,............................................ In love with Astraea. SWITHIN,................................................... Sympathetics. OSIER. DAME DRESDEN............................ Sister to Homeware. ASTRAEA,........... Niece to Dame Dresden and Homeware. LYRA,..................................................................... A Wife. LADY OLDLACE. VIRGINIA. WINIFRED....

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The mystery of a secret room, scene of many murders, is unraveled by Carlos Paredes, the Panamanian Sherlock Holmes. (Summary by manybooks.net)

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Fiction, Mystery

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Excerpt: One, two, three, four, five. There were five of them. Five couriers, sitting on a bench outside the convent on the summit of the Great St. Bernard in Switzerland, looking at the remote heights, stained by the setting sun as if a mighty quantity of red wine had been broached upon the mountain top, and had not yet had time to sink into the snow....

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Written by Louisa May Alcott under her pseudonym, A. M. Barnard, this Christmas story deals with the themes of love and defending one's honor. Although he is disinherited and poor, Maurice Traherne tries to win the hand of his love, Octavia.(Summary by Jennifer Stearns)...

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Fiction, Romance

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Inhabitants of the small town of Hamilton joke that they are afraid of being the dummy when playing Bridge, for fear of being murdered. Meanwhile, Special Investigator Bonnie Dundee demands a re-enactment of the 'death hand' to try and find out why, and how, the victim was killed during a high society Bridge party. (Summary by Gesine)...

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Mystery

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Passing over Ickleworth Bridge and rounding up the heavily shadowed river of our narrow valley, I perceived a commotion as of bathers in a certain bright space immediately underneath the vicar?s terrace-garden steps. My astonishment was considerable when it became evident to me that the vicar himself was disporting in the water, which, reaching no higher than his waist, disclosed him in the ordinary habiliments of his cloth. I knew my friend to be one of the most absentminded of men, and my first effort to explain the phenomenon of his appearance there, suggested that he might have walked in, the victim of a fit of abstraction, and that he had not yet fully comprehended his plight; but this idea was dispersed when I beheld the very portly lady, his partner in joy and adversity, standing immersed, and perfectly attired, some short distance nearer to the bank....

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Excerpt: The Rose and the Ring by William Makepeace Thackeray.

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Excerpt: Coming in to dress for dinner, I found a telegram: ?Mrs. Stormer dying; can you give us half a column for to-morrow evening? Let her off easy, but not too easy.? I was late; I was in a hurry; I had very little time to think, but at a venture I dispatched a reply: ?Will do what I can.? It was not till I had dressed and was rolling away to dinner that, in the hansom, I bethought myself of the difficulty of the condition attached. The difficulty was not of course in letting her off easy but in qualifying that indulgence. ?I simply won?t qualify it,? I said to myself. I didn?t admire her, but I liked her, and I had known her so long that I almost felt heartless in sitting down at such an hour to a feast of indifference. I must have seemed abstracted, for the early years of my acquaintance with her came back to me. I spoke of her to the lady I had taken down, hut the lady I had taken down had never heard of Greville Fane. I tried my other neighbor, who pronounced her books ?too vile.? I had never thought them very good, but I should let her off easier than that....

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Excerpt: The Pigeon Pie by Charlotte M. Yonge.

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Excerpt: The Patagonia by Henry James.

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Excerpt: Chapter 1; Olive will come down in about ten minutes; she told me to tell you that. About ten; that is exactly like Olive. Neither five nor fifteen, and yet not ten exactly, but either nine or eleven. She didn?t tell me to say she was glad to see you, because she doesn?t know whether she is or not, and she wouldn?t for the world expose herself to telling a fib. She is very honest, is Olive Chancellor; she is full of rectitude. Nobody tells fibs in Boston; I don?t know what to make of them all. Well, I am very glad to see you, at any rate.? These words were spoken with much volubility by a fair, plump, smiling woman who entered a narrow drawing-room in which a visitor, kept waiting for a few moments, was already absorbed in a book. The gentleman had not even needed to sit down to become interested: apparently he had taken up the volume from a table as soon as he came in, and, standing there, after a single glance round the apartment, had lost himself in its pages. He threw it down at the approach of Mrs. Luna, laughed, shook hands with her, and said in answer to her last remark, ?You imply that you do tell fibs. Perhaps that...

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Table of Contents: Book First 3 -- Chapter 1, 3 -- Chapter 2, 8 -- Chapter 3, 12 -- Chapter 4, 20 -- Chapter 5, 26 -- Chapter 6, 30 -- Chapter 7, 38 -- Chapter 8, 45 -- Chapter 9, 51 -- Chapter 10, 55 -- Chapter 11, 62 -- Chapter 12, 69 -- Chapter 13, 77 -- Chapter 14, 83 -- Chapter 15, 89 -- Chapter 16, 96 -- Chapter 17, 106 -- Chapter 18, 114 -- Chapter 19, 124 -- Chapter 20, 131 -- Book Second 145 -- Chapter 21, 145 -- Chapter 22, 153 -- Chapter 23, 163 -- Chapter 24, 173...

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One of Dickens' Christmas stories, this was first published as part of the Christmas number of Household Words for 1854. The first chapter relates Dickens' visit to the ancient Richard Watts's Charity at Rochester. The second chapter is the touching story of Richard Doubledick, which Dickens supposedly told the travellers, and Dickens' journey home on Christmas morning provides the short concluding chapter. (Summary by Ruth Golding)...

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Fiction, Holiday