Laurie makes two new friends: Anil, the son of a local cloth merchant, and Kamal, who lost his parents during Partition and now sells buttons and shoelaces but dreams of going to college. Anil and Kamal introduce Laurie to an enchanted world of beetle races, ghosts, chaat and Holi, and he shares with them the secret pool he finds on the mountainside. At the pool the boys fish, build dams, take midnight dips, wrestle, and ride buffaloes. It is there that they plan their grand adventure: a trek to the Pindari Glacier, were no one from their town has gone before. On the slopes of the beautiful mountain they meet pumpkin-eating bears, and keep a close lookout for the Abominable Snow-woman who feeds children fruit, honey, rice and earthworms. This lost classic is a magical tale of adventure and friendship, told in Ruskin Bond's inimitable style.

    Jejuri is a site of pilgramage in author Arun Kolatkar's native state of Maharashtra, and Jejuri the poem is the record of a visit to the town -- a place that is as crassly commercial as it is holy, as modern and ruinous as it is ancient and enduring. Evoking the town's crowded streets, many shrines, and mythic history of sages and gods, Kolatkar's poem offers a rich description of India while at the same time performing a complex act of devotion. For the essence of the poem is a spiritual quest, the effort to find the divine trace in a degenerate world. Spare, comic, sorrowful, singing, Jejuri is the work of a writer with a unique and visionary voice.