Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) is a private university located in&nbsp;Tamil Nadu, India. Founded in 1984, as Vellore Engineering College, the institution offers 20 undergraduate, 34 postgraduate, four integrated and four research programs. It has campuses in Vellore, Amravati, Bhopal and Chennai.

VIT is one of the top ranked private universities in India according to NIRF, THE and QS Rankings.&nbsp;Govt. of India has recognized&nbsp;VIT, Vellore as an&nbsp;Institution of Eminence. This has allowed VIT to take independent quality initiatives and move up in world ranking.

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VIT University

School of Social Sciences & Languages

Vellore Campus

Horror Fiction in the Global South: Cultures, Narratives, Representation

Historic Time and Mythical Monsters: Negotiation of Mortality in M. T. Vasudevan Nair's ‘Little Earthquakes’

Stories about monstrous encounters during travel are ubiquitous in every culture. Scholars see them as figurative representations of the cultural anxiety related to traversing the unknown and the encounter with the “Other”. For instance, the early Greek 'monster-on-the-road' tales are often read in the context of the expansion of trade among Greek city-states and the Greek colonization of far flung territories which necessitated going beyond the safety of familiar town boundaries. The Indian epics and folktales also abound with encounters of travellers with supernatural/monstrous beings. Whether it is episodes such as the “YakshaPrasna” in the Mahabharata, or the Bodhisatta's encounter with the Naga and the Yaksha in Buddhist legends, or his encounter with Yakkhinis in the Jataka tales, travel often involved encountering the Dangerous “Other” who had to be defeated/satiated/converted. These early traveller's tales can be read as records of the anxieties regarding expansion/establishment of the Kshatriya hero's kingdom where the wild/primitive outside the bounds of civilization had to be conquered/appropriated. In the case of the religious hero, the monster represented a crisis of faith - either he/she was an embodiment of the allures of material pleasure the ascetic had to guard against or a staunch believer of another faith who had to be converted/conquered. All these “forgotten” traditions of travel come together in the Yakshi tales of medieval Kerala where a shape-shifting tree spirit haunting lonely pathways evokes memories of the ancient traveller's encounter with the wilderness and its corresponding deities. This paper attempts to read these tales from medieval Kerala against earlier Indian traditions of travel as well as the literal and metaphorical crossings of caste and gender borders that travel entailed during the medieval period. © AesthetixMS 2020. This Open Access article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For citation use the DOI. For commercial re-use, please contact editor@rupkatha.com.

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Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities

Anxious encounters with the (monstrous) other: The yakshi tales of medieval Kerala

This paper analyses Jamaica Kincaid’s nonfiction travel work A Small Place from a postcolonial perspective in order to demonstrate it as a counter travel narrative against Western centric travelogues. A significant voice in Caribbean literature, Kincaid explores the tenuous relationship between mother and daughter as well as the themes of colonialism in her widely celebrated works of fiction and non-fiction. Her intensely personal, honest and provocative writings have earned her an appreciable place in the literary world. The publication of A Small Place in 1988 and Lucy in 1991 earned her bitter criticisms and reviewers were divided over the angry tone expressed in both works. In A Small Place, described as “an anti-travel narrative”, Kincaid returns to her homeland after 20 years. She writes about post-colonial Antigua discussing problems that took place on the island during the 1980s, particularly addressing the issue of tourism. The article looks into how Kincaid inverts the idea of tourism as a normal and innocent activity by attacking the neo colonisers and revealing the point of view of the natives of Antigua. © 2019, Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication. All rights reserved.

World University root node

International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering

Counter-travel narrative of resistance: an analysis of Jamaica Kincaid’s a small place as a counter –travel narrative

This paper endeavors to trace the metaphysical and structural analogy between Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist and the perpetual Indian epic Bhagavad Gita emphasizing on the cardinal principles of Bhagavad Gita employed in the novel. This study also intends to throw light on the universality and the timelessness of the principles of Bhagavad Gitaasdepicted in TheAlchemistthat are most crucial in thepresent day global context. © 2019, Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication. All rights reserved.

The Alchemistv/S the Bhagavad Gita: A rendezvous

This main objective of this study is to compare the antimicrobial activity of extracts of Coriandrum sativum Linn. and Apium graveolens Linn. (family Apiaceae). Ethanol was used as organic solvent to prepare the crude extracts from the leaves. Antimicrobial activity of both plant extract were evaluated by agar well disc diffusion method against Streptococcus mutans, Klebsiella pneumonia and Pseudomonas aeroginosa. The ethanolic crude extract of Coriandrum sativum Linn. showed more activity against Streptococcus mutans and that of Apium graveolens Linn. showed more activity against Klebsiella pneumonia and Pseudomonas aeroginosa. In conclusion both these plants can be considered as natural source of antimicrobials therefore will be included in our daily diet. © 2017, Research Journal of Pharmacy and Technology. All rights reserved.

Research Journal of Pharmacy and Technology

Comparative evaluation of Coriandrum sativum Linn. And Apium graveolens for Antimicrobial activity

The main source of drugs is the medicinal plants. Some of them are used as Anthelmintic agents. Coriandrum sativum Linn.(Malli) and Apium graveolens Linn.(Celery) belongs to the family Apiaceae. The main aim of the study is to make a comparison between anthelmintic activities of the ethanolic extracts of Coriandrum sativum Linn. and Apium graveolens Linn. The anthelmintic assay was evaluated by determining how much time is needed for helminths for paralysis and death. Results showed that the ethanolic extract of the drug has revealed a concentration dependent anthelmintic activity. Coriandrum sativum Linn showed more antioxidant activity than Apium graveolens Linn. Hence both plants can be included in our daily diet. © RJPT All right reserved

Comparative evaluation of the anthelmintic activity of coriandrum sativum Linn. And apium graveolens Linn.

In this article, I look at the radical Tamil reformist novel, A. Madhaviah's Muthumeenakshi published in 1903. This novel which dealt with common reformist issues of the time such as widow-remarriage and female education still struck a more radical note from the other reformist novels of the day in its support of the re-marriage of the widow who was not a virgin. In this paper, my attempt is to situate Muthumeenakshi amongst the other social reformist novels of the day and trace where the novel conformed to and departed from the other reformist novels. Through this, I plan to complicate the commonly held assumptions about social reform by bringing out the contradictions within the reformist project as well as explore the variety of positions within it and trace the aftermath of the reformist debates in India's later history, especially in the nationalist discourse. © AesthetixMS 2017.