FICTION
Colours of the rainbow
RANJITA BISWAS
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Insights and human touches make this collection of short stories sparkle.
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Stories; Sunil Gangopadhyay, Translated by Sheila Sengupta, Srishti, Rs. 145
SUNIL GANGOPADHYAY'S name has long been a household name in Bengali literature and he is one of the leading writers in the country today. Winner of a slew of literary awards, including the Sahitya Akademi Award, he has broken ground with his unusual and bold plots and fluid style of writing. Maestro Satyajit Ray had made films on his work too. Founder of the well-known poetry journal Krittibas, the versatile writer is equally at home in short stories, novels and essays. Stories , a collection of ten stories selected by the author himself for this translation volume amply proves his creative versatility.
Simple language
The language of the stories is simple, as translator Sheila Sengupta points out, but the contents are complex and varied. While a story like "A Fugitive and a Follower" harks back on the turbulent days of the Naxalite movement in Bengal of the 1970s, "Riverside" has, surprisingly, real-life figure of Indira Gandhi, the iron lady; in a metaphoric dialogue she seeks to take a walk by the river but cannot due to her position.
Sengupta quotes the author where he says, "In my own life and the life that I see around me, there is so much to write about... ," and though the author feels somewhat inadequate to express them all, this urge finds resonance in the stories built around superstitions, religious dogmas and unjustness of social hierarchies.
"Virtue and Sin" has a conscientious Muslim policeman who hunts down a smuggler of artefacts from Hindu temples but he hesitates to touch the recovered deity, and stands alone guarding it under the night sky. And then a realisation flashes through his mind: "He realised that within the separate circles that existed in the life of every individual — Shivmangal (the smuggler), Chapala (the prostitute), Siddiqui, Ali, Haranath or even his own — there was enough place for virtue and vice to coexist side by side."
In complete contrast to this story of spiritual experience is "A Cup of Tea at the Taj Mahal" where the popular Ustadji leads a motley crowd of poor villagers to the capital's Taj Mahal Hotel to enjoy a cup of tea. Verging on the genre of the Theatre of the Absurd, it nonetheless takes a dig at the great divide between the haves and have-nots in the country, which finds an echo in the current situation in the country.
Vindicating his reputation
But then again there are stories that vindicate Gangopadhyay's reputation as a romantic poet and author. "Skyscraper" is a touching story of a labourer-couple who help build the tall buildings for the rich but are not a part of it. So on the last day before a skyscraper is handed over to the owners, they spend an evening in one of the rooms imagining it to be their home; on the terrace under a star-studded sky they enjoy the simple pleasure of loving each other.
"Our Manorama" is a study in human behaviour where the imposing, unattractive tea stall owner Manorama brings a whiff of romance to the humdrum lives of a group of men who work in a match factory.
For them the weekend is worth waiting for as they go about their work and duties of a married life just to listen to her unmelodic song and watch her peculiar dance. Here they cannot bear any intrusion. So when a stranger walks in and steals Manorama's heart, they become forlorn and devastated with nothing to look forward to.
It is insights like these and the human touch that make the stories sparkle. The translation by Sengupta is adequate, though seems dull at times. Also, one is reminded of Lynne Truss's book Eats, Shoots and Leaves (on the horrors of punctuation mistakes) while reading some of the sentences. For example "it's" (for `it is'), is constantly written as "its". Apostrophes too are misplaced at many places and sometimes unwanted words have crept into the sentences. A little more careful editing would have removed these small thorns in the enjoyment of the book.
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