Collection of elephant stories, descriptions and insight into animal behavior, anatomy and haunts.

An Indian elephant befriends a mouse, a butterfly, and a parrot, and together they have many adventures.

Vivid Portrait Of An Animal That Has Captured The Imagination Of Humans For Millennia Elephas Maximus, The Majestic Asian Elephant, Is Still Revered In Indian Religion And Culture. Yet, Unabated Ivory Poaching Conjures Up Fears Of A Future When Tuskless Males May Be All That Survive And Conservationists Are Fighting To Preserve Its Endangered Habitat As Settlements Expand. Fascinated By This Regal Animal And Its Unique Relationship With Humankind, Stephen Alter Travelled Extensively Across India To Explore Its Natural Home, And Its Place In History And Myth. Alter'S Search Takes Him From National Parks Where He Observes Elephants In The Wild To The Annual Sonepur Mela Where They Are Bought And Sold, To Kota Where They Once Played A Unique Role In Royal Festivals. He Charts The Elephant In Art, Religion, Folklore And The Everyday World Of India, Bringing To Life The Complex Past And Troubled Present Of This Majestic Creature While Offering Hope For Its Future.

In this award-winning novel, Tharoor has masterfully recast the two-thousand-year-old epic, The Mahabharata, with fictional but highly recognizable events and characters from twentieth-century Indian politics. Nothing is sacred in this deliciously irreverent, witty, and deeply intelligent retelling of modern Indian history and the ancient Indian epic The Mahabharata. Alternately outrageous and instructive, hilarious and moving, it is a dazzling tapestry of prose and verse that satirically, but also poignantly, chronicles the struggle for Indian freedom and independence.

The Author Has Been Studying The Life Of Wild Elephants In Southern India Since 1980. This Is The Story Of His Work On Elephants, Their Ecology, Social Behaviour, Interactions With People, And The Problems They Face.

For More Than Four Decades After Gaining Independence, India, With Its Massive Size And Population, Staggering Poverty And Slow Rate Of Growth, Was Associated With The Plodding, Somnolent Elephant, Comfortably Resting On Its Achievements Of Centuries Gone By. Then In The Early 1990S The Elephant Seemed To Wake Up From Its Slumber And Slowly Begin To Change Until Today, In The First Decade Of The Twenty-First Century, Some Have Begun To See It Morphing Into A Tiger. As India Turns Sixty, Shashi Tharoor, Novelist And Essayist, Reminds Us Of The Paradox That Is India, The Elephant That Is Becoming A Tiger: With The Highest Number Of Billionaires In Asia, It Still Has The Largest Number Of People Living Amid Poverty And Neglect, And More Children Who Have Not Seen The Inside Of A Schoolroom Than Any Other Country. So What Does The Twenty-First Century Hold For India? Will It Bring The Strength Of The Tiger And The Size Of An Elephant To Bear Upon The World? Or Will It Remain An Elephant At Heart? In More Than Sixty Essays Organized Thematically Into Six Parts, Shashi Tharoor Analyses The Forces That Have Made Twenty-First Century India And Could Yet Unmake It. He Discusses The Country S Transformation In His Characteristic Lucid Prose, Writing With Passion And Engagement On A Broad Range Of Subjects, From The Very Notion Of Indianness In A Pluralist Society To The Evolution Of The Once Sleeping Giant Into A World Leader In The Realms Of Science And Technology; From The Men And Women Who Make Up His India Gandhi And Nehru And The Less Obvious Ramanujan And Krishna Menon To An Eclectic Array Of Indian Experiences And Realities, Virtual And Spiritual, Political And Filmi. The Book Is Leavened With Whimsical And Witty Pieces On Cricket, Bollywood And The National Penchant For Holidays, And Topped Off With An A To Z Glossary On Indianness, Written With Tongue Firmly In Cheek. Diverting And Instructive As Ever, Artfully Combining Hard Facts And Statistics With Personal Opinions And Observations, Tharoor Offers A Fresh, Insightful Look At This Timeless And Fast-Changing Society, Emphasizing That India Must Rise Above The Past If It Is To Conquer The Future.

Listen along with Ravi to Grandfather's captivating stories about India, where the sun is like a ferocious tiger and monsoon rains cascade like waterfalls. Notes after the story include facts about India's animals, food, culture and religion, and a simple elephant dance music score. AGES:4 to 10 years ILLUSTRATIONS: Colour