Charming tales
ANTARA DAS
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Two stories that teach us how to deal with some complex issues.
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Teaching through story telling is often more entertaining and effective than laying down a list of dos and don’ts. The two books from Katha —Ma Ganga and the Razai Box and Satyadas — employ allegory to provide a charming yet instructive account of issues that affect us all.
Young Yasho of the Hill people is the protagonist of Ma Ganga and the Razai Box. Though young, she bears the responsibility of finding a solution to the problem of soil erosion that is depriving her village of the fertile top soil r
equired for cultivation of crops. An added problem is the scarcity of water, as a peeved Ma Ganga has decided not to run her course and instead sleep inside Yasho’s razai box, till the Hill people find Shiva’s matted locks over which she can flow. Complete with vibrant and dramatic illustrations, the story, written by Geeta Dharmarajan, weaves environmental concerns like pollution, soil erosion and desertification with mythology, without losing out on the simple human tale.
Exploring truth
Satyadas, on the other hand, is the name of the mysterious visitor who appears on a rainy evening in front of Raghunath’s humble grocery shop. Unable to travel in the bad weather, he is offered food and shelter by Raghunath, the
warm and caring host. He goes away the next day, but not before leaving a pouch whose valuable contents will test the limits of Raghunath’s honesty. While the charcoal sketches bring to life the humble life and household of Raghunath, the story, originally written in Bengali by Bimal Kar and translated into English by Enakshi Chatterjee, is about the decline in human values as one falls a prey to greed. As the prologue to the book describes, it is a story “exploring truth, falsehood and everything in between”.
In a nutshell, two simple stories that teach us how to deal with some very complex issues of life.
MA GANGA AND THE RAZAI BOX
by Geeta
Dharmarajan, Rs. 50;
SATYADAS
by Bimal Kar, Rs. 75,
Katha Books
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