Santanu Kumar Acharya
Subtitle: stories
By: translated from the Oriya by Paul St-Pierre, Leelawati Mohapatra, and K.K. Mohapatra.
Contributors: St-Pierre, Paul.; Mohapatra, Leelawati.; Mohapatra, K. K., 1953-
Edition: First Published in India in 2004 by Grassroots, ISBN 81-89040-07-3
Series: Indian writers series; Indian writers series (Bhubaneswar, India)
Publisher: Grassroots
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Bhubaneswar
Language: eng
Number of pages: 66
Subjects: Ācāryya, Śāntanu Kumāra, 1933- -- Translations into English
Genres: Translations into English.
Work titles: Fiction
First sentence: They tore on ahead,skidding, skipping,surging forth like a buoyant dark green mountain stream.
Description: Contains three stories : Plus and Minus Greater than Zero, Parallel Lines and The Visitor
All these are much dicussed and translated and published in reputed literay journals of English and other Indian languages. 
Plus and Minus Greater than Zero centers around the historical truth that human history does not cancel itself out   like mathematical plus and minus figures. History builds up on itself, on its own ruins. The story is built up on the psychology of children when they contest for leadership amongst themselves.Two children were locked up in a fight, like bullies, when they heard the call of other children for rescuing a small bird that had accidentally fallen into a tank of pitch the road workers just left behind. None ventured to get up onto the perilous sticky  rim of the pitch tank and bend down for picking up the struggling bird  from sure death. However, one of the warring parties  did take the cahallenge unto himself and rushed forward for rescue mission. But unfortunately he lost balance and fell into the tank. The onlookers howled and fled the scene.Suddenly the otherwarring partner, the opponent of the sinking boy, did a somersault. He  jumped up on to the rim of the  tank,  bent down and caught hold of a   hand of the drowning boy and tried to pull him up with all his might. But he too lost balance and tumbled into the tank himself. When the workers came back there was no trace of the drowned children except a branch like human hand jutting out of the hot pitch with a little bird perching on it, alive.