In his long life of 89 years, Ruskin Bond has gained enormous experience and a large fan following across the country and beyond — among children who are still children, the children who have grown up into handsome youth, and the children who are getting ready to enter the senior citizen club. When he speaks, people listen. In fact, there are people who take the trouble to travel all the way to Mussoorie just to be able to meet him and listen to him in person.
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This is my first review of any Sudha Murty book. I had previously gifted couple of books to my niece but I myself never had read any of her books. If you are even casually aware of the Indian literary scene, then you would know that Sudha Murty is one of the leading writers of Indian English literature, particular of children’s books. I had watched couple of her interviews on YouTube and was impressed by her simplicity and charm. So I decided to give her a try and check for myself her style and the content of her books.
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It was his birthday. I called him up with a lot of enthusiasm and excitement to extend my wishes. But upon my wishing a long life full of love, happiness and success, the way I do most of the time, he replied in a disappointed voice, “What use is a long life, living till 80 years, when my eyesight would have fallen, joints gone weak, maybe no teeth? It’s better to live a short but healthy life.” And he was saying all this on the day when he had reached 42 years of age! In short, he poured buckets of cold water on all the warmth I was trying to convey. I wanted to ask his rationale behind associating old age with fragility, weakness, and maybe multiple illnesses. Why couldn’t old age remind him of the long experience which he would have acquired, several people he would have come across, several bitter and sweet memories, several events which he would have witnessed in his life and which will certainly go down in history books one day? I wanted to ask these and several other similar questions. But it was his birthday and I did not want to upset him, irrespective of the fact that he himself did not find any charm in that.
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Sera Bhoy by Abhigyan Roychoudhury is a compilation of ghost stories, though not necessarily horror. Most of the stories in the collection can be labelled as supernatural. It is a comparatively new book and this fact is reflected not only in the supporting prompts, language and mention of years, but also in the content of stories. The first and foremost feature that will capture your attention is Roychoudhury’s highly developed and refined power of imagination which has a foundation of mathematical and (other) scientific facts. There is a story where the protagonist was a scientist studying the correlation between a person’s facial features and criminal tendency. He would see fine details (patterns) in everything he saw around him e.g., the brush strokes on a painted wall. These patterns (he used to call them maps) would take form and life, and appear before him all the time.
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Storytelling is an art and not all people are capable of it. Storytelling in written form is another art and not all people are capable of it either. No, I am not talking about writing skills, composition, crafting clever sentences or ideas. Instead, even if you possess all the skills and talents, you may not be able to tell a compelling story in a convincing way. Yes, it demands enormous craftmanship to catch the attention of the readers within first few sentences and then hold it long enough so that they would sit back and let the writer make an attempt to entertain them. This is even more important in the present age of instant gratification and limited attention span. But what if you are bestowed with great talent of pen and imagination to yarn a story, are able to arouse the interest of the reader not just for the first few sentences instead for the first couple of paragraphs, and in fact are able to entertain and keep them amused for the first few pages, and yet fail to make use of that opportunity and lose the interest of the reader as fast as it was aroused. Such is the case with the novel Rajkonya (Bengali) by Prachet Gupta.
Continue readingMost of the stories we come across are set on a basic formula — there is a straight narrative, i.e., the storyline, and then there are fillers, events and details which complement the narrative. In other words, the narrative serves as skeleton for the story, and the details put flesh on that skeleton to create a complete story. While reading Madhumoy (Bengali) by Sunil Gangopadhyay, I felt a slightly different style of composition. There is a core idea, which Sunil wants to communicate. To convey this idea in fiction rather than non-fiction, he yarns a narrative — a very rich, involved and complex storyline. Finally, there are details to make the narrative seem authentic, realistic and something close to our own everyday experiences. The composition is thus very complex, and if you analyse it in the aforementioned manner and are able to recognise the three ingredients, then you would be able to appreciate this work in all its beauty. Fortunately, it is not difficult.
Continue readingIn my review of Sunil Gangopadhyay’s short stories, I had remarked about their having no plot. Still, I am particularly impressed by his narrative and description. With very little glamour and paraphernalia, he is able to present complete, simply narrated and deep stories. When the description itself is simplified, without exaggerated emotions or figures of speech, the readers are let free to discover and explore all the underlying emotions on their own. Another characteristic I am noticing with every new reading of Sunil Gangopadhyay is that he does not shy away from expressing thoughts, biases or emotions — however ugly or socially unacceptable they might be. He considers them, accepts and acknowledges them as a matter of fact, neither boasting nor feeling shy or ashamed of them. In other words, he accepts strengths as well as weaknesses of humans, but neither supports them nor opposes them. This helps him in looking at every thought, problem or idea from different perspectives, most of which are unbiased, thus providing a balanced comprehension.
Continue readingI have reviewed a book by Sunil Gangopadhyay earlier on this blog. It was the first volume of his three-volume collection of short stories. In that post, I had mentioned characteristics of Sunil’s writing style. Also, my analysis of his interpretation of Who Broke Kanishka’s Head continues to be the most read article on my blog. Recently I had an opportunity to read a short novel by him titled Khela, and would share its narrative and my opinion with you.
Continue readingThe next book by Samaresh Majumdar that I read was Manavputra. It is inspired by Henrik Ibsen’s novel ‘An Enemy Of The People’. If you are keeping track of the fight against climate change or other environmental issues, and are also able to read between the lines and what goes behind the curtains, then this novel would not surprise you in any way. The theme is simply the conflict between environmental conversation and corporate interests.
Continue readingIn my previous post I told you about the novel Unish-Bish by Samaresh Majumdar. Through this post I want to share with you another novel by Samaresh Majumdar which goes by the title Pherari. This is a bit different story both in its background and narration. The most noteworthy feature of this novel is the idea which the writer presents through his narration.
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Pradyot 