Here are seventeen award winning stories whose common claim is only to excellence. The accent is on the inherent heterogeneity on contemporary India, an India constantly negotiating contradictions and coming-togethers, in fiction that both creates and break stereotypes. There is no attempt here to yoke together "universal themes" or "basic conflicts," yet brought serendipitously together is a galaxy of master writers - the pioneers and the path breakers looking back with longing and looking ahead with desire.