Author – Nrupal Das

Rating – 3/5 stars

Number of Pages – 14

The boy is a story of a family. That family is ours. That boy could be you.

The story of a boy who went to play his usual tennis ball cricket in a nearby field. Nothing was unusual that day. Until in the evening when the boy does not return and a friend tells her mom that the boy never went to play that day.

A frantic search begins with the neighbors and the boy’s friends pulling in all their resources. Does the boy return? Where did he go? Where was he taken? What happens at the end?

The boy is an interesting story of a small boy loves his parents and happy in his small world around his parents, school, friends, and cricket. We were all like this at that tender age when nothing was a lie and every word seems true.

The start is good. You get totally into the story. I eagerly waited for the story to unfold. The story carries the innocence. It is relatable and emotional. I like the plot of the story which is great.

The boy is a perfect companion for your coffee break. A short story of a boy that speaks to you and he too likes a happily ever after family stories.

Would you like to meet him? Pick a copy.

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 ‘I received a copy from Author in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.’

Author – Saratchandra Chattopadhyay

Translation – Anindita Mukhopadhyay

Rating – 4/5 stars

Number of Pages – 195

Publisher – Rupa Publications

Saratchandra is one of the most prominent Bengali novelist and short story writers of twentieth-century India. He has a number of stories to his credit written in Bengali language and many of them adapted in movies and plays. This book brings some of his stories translated into English for the readers unknown to Bengali. Most of his work deals with the lifestyle, tragedy and struggle of the village people and the contemporary social practices that prevailed in Bengal of that time. The stories are as old as nearly hundred years.

The stories come from the everyday life of a common man and underprivileged and deprived class of the society. The stories come from rural India. The stories in this book prominently focused on the untouchability, exploitation of the poor by the rich class and the men in power.

This collection has twelve widely acclaimed short stories of the author. The stories ranged from childhood memories of notoriety, a teenage love story which breaks the barrier of the social caste system, a lonely mother, a helpless farmer and other stories showing the facets of society. The ambiance of stories is based on older Bengal of the early twentieth century.

The stories run at a slow pace and take time to build the character. Sometimes I felt the characters lost the track but it was only the time story formulate. They are written in the same manner the stories had written by other writers of that time. You need to be a little patient and read the story till the end to fell in the delight of his writing.

Translation of hard reality, casteism, presenting a vivid picture of rural Bengal.

Bio

Saratchandra Chattopadhyay (1876-1938) was one of the most prolific novelists and short story writers from Bengal in the early twentieth century. Among his novels, his most notable works include Baikunther Will, Pather Dabi, Devdas and Srikanta: stories such as ‘Mejdidi’ and ‘Mohesh’ rank among the most loved. Saratchandra’s powerful portrayals of human, economic and social distress, colonialism, middle-class lives and the rural world are still widely read, translated and have been adapted into films.

Anindita Mukhopadhyay teaches History at the University of Hyderabad and was formerly fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. She completed her graduation from Presidency College, Calcutta University, Kolkata, her Masters and M.Phil. from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and her Doctoral dissertation from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. She has translated Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Sesher Kobita’ – The Last Poem (2007) and authored Behind the Mask: The Cultural Definition of the Legal Subject (2013).

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‘I received a copy from Publisher in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.’