Wanderings in India: Australian Perceptions

Wanderings in India: Australian Perceptions, sharing its title with a curious and entertaining travel book written by the first Australian-born writer John Lang, is a collection of essays about diverse encounters between Australians and Indians in both South Asia and the Antipodes. The chapters—creative, reflective and academic—meet the objectives of a volume that provide snapshots of the wide range of interests and issues that Australians have shown towards India. Taken as a whole, the chapters represent a range of responses, reactions and experiences that chart the course of the ongoing engagement between Australia and India, between Australians and Indians. While there is something of an emphasis on literary responses, charting the ebb and flow of writers’ reactions to India from the 1850s onwards, this volume also includes historical, political, sporting and other writings about the complex “magnetic amalgams” that link Australia and India. The basic idea is to encourage on-going research and other kinds of writing about cross-cultural engagements between India and Australia; it is hoped that this volume will contribute to discussions about Australia-India relations in the coming century.