Up End Rakish Ore Raychaudhuri_bengali Chidren Stories

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Upendrakishore Raychaudhuri

Translated from Bengali by Indrani Chakraborty

1. The Wicked Tiger 2. Toontooni and the Naughty Cat

In the evening, when the children tend to fall asleep without having their meals, it isthen that the loving women of some parts of East Bengal narrate these tales to keepthem awake. Those children, even after growing up, cannot forget the sweetness of these tales. I hope, my young, tender, male and female readers will also find thesestories equally endearing.

-- Upendrakishore Raychaudhuri

(Author's Preface, Kolkata, BE 1317)

From one perspective, Upendrakishore has no equal in children’s literature.Toontoonir Boi, Chheleder Mahabharat, Chhotta Ramayanaor the feel and languageof his countless stories, poems and essays published in Sandesh, though of venerableliterary origins, have a quality that greatly appeal to children. A number of excellentliterary works for children can be more fully appreciated only as an adult. This appliesto the writings of Rabindranath, Abanindranath, and even Sukumar Ray or LeelaMajumdar. The pleasure from reading Ha Ja Ba Ra La or Buro Aangla as an adult isnot the same as the thrill of reading Toontoonir Boi. To enjoy Toontoonir Boi, themature reader must awaken the child within.

It is the magic of Upendrakishore’s writing that reaches and delights this inner child.Of how many children’s storytellers can this be said?

-- Satyajit Ray(Excerpted from Prabandho Patrika, Sharodiya, BE 1370)

http://www.parabaas.com/translation/database/translations/stories/toontooni1.html#WickedTiger

http://www.parabaas.com/translation/database/translations/stories/toontooni2.html

http://www.parabaas.com/translation/database/translations/stories/toontooni1.html#WickedTiger

http://www.parabaas.com/translation/database/translations/stories/toontooni2.html



The Wicked Tiger

There lived a big tiger, inside an iron cage, beside the lion-gate1 of the palace. Withclasped hands, the tiger would plead with everyone who passed by the palace,

‘Brother, please open the cage door, just once.’ Hearing this they would say, ‘Ohreally! We open the door and you grab us by the throat!’

Now then, the palace was hosting a grand party. Famous pundits were coming inhordes for the banquet. One of the priests looked like a rather simple fellow. Thetiger started bowing before him repeatedly.

The priest saw this and said, ‘O, this tiger is so gentle! What do you want, son?’ Withhands joined in pranam, the tiger said, ‘Sir, if you could just open the door of thecage, only once. I beg of you.’

The priest was a very good-natured soul; he opened the cage door at once. And the

rascal tiger came out laughing and said, ‘Thakur

2

, I want to eat you.’

Anyone else would perhaps have run for his life. But this priest didn’t know how torun. He was very agitated -– ‘Never heard such a thing before! I did you such a favourand you say you want to eat me! Is that the way to behave?’

The tiger said, ‘Of course, Thakur, everybody does that!’

The priest said, ‘No, never! Come with me, let me ask three testifiers. Let’s hear whatthey have to say.’

The tiger said, ‘Okay, done. If the testifiers agree with what you have to say, I’ll letyou go and I’ll leave. But if they agree with what I say, I’ll gobble you up.’

The two went out into the field to look for testifiers. Farmers often leave a raisedpiece of ground in between two plots of land -– it is called an aal3. The priest pointedto the aal and said, ‘There’s my first testifier.’

The tiger said, ‘Right, ask him. Let’s hear what he has to say.’



The priest then asked, ‘Hey you, Aal, you tell me, if I do someone a favour, will hereturn it with a disfavour?’

The Aal said, ‘Oh yes, Thakur. Look at me. I stand between the fields of two farmers.It’s such a big help to them. One cannot take away another person’s land; the waterfrom one land doesn’t flow into the other person’s land. I do them such a great favour

-– but the rascals run the plough over me to expand their land.’

The tiger said, ‘You heard that, Thakurmoshai? If a favour is usually returned with adisfavour?’

Thakurmoshai said, ‘Hold on, I have two more testifiers to go.’

The tiger said, ‘Okay, let’s go.’

There was a banyan tree in the middle of the field. Thakurmoshai pointed at it andsaid, ‘That’s my testifier.’

The tiger said, ‘Fine, ask him. Let’s hear what he has to say.’

Thakurmoshai said, ‘Dear Banyan Tree, you are quite old. You’ve seen and heard alot. Tell me something, would people be bad to the one who is good to others?’

The banyan tree said, ‘That’s the first thing people do. Those folks out there satunder my shade to cool themselves but they poked and pricked me for my gum. Ontop of that, to hold that gum, they plucked my leaves. Now look there, they arewalking away with a branch broken from my trunk.’

The tiger said, ‘Now what, Thakurmoshai? Did you hear what he said?’

The priest was now in a fix. He didn’t know what to say. It was just then that a foxwas passing by. Thakurmoshai pointed at that fox and said, ‘There is my othertestifier. Let’s hear what he says.’

He then called out to the fox and said, ‘O wise Fox, wait a minute. You are mytestifier.’

The fox stopped but didn’t come close. From that distance, he asked, ‘How’s that?How did I become your testifier?’

Thakurmoshai asked, ‘Tell me, son -– if someone does you good, would you return itwith something bad?’

The fox said, ‘Who has done whom what good, and who has done whom what bad?When I hear that I could tell.’

Thakurmoshai said, ‘The tiger was in the cage and I, the Brahmin, was on the road,passing by …’

The fox, hearing this, promptly said, ‘This is so complicated. I can’t say a thing till Isee that cage and that road.’





[1] lion-gate: the main entrance to the palace, flanked by stone lions[2] thakur/thakurmoshai: a form of address for a Brahmin priest[3] aal: a divider, a ridge around an agricultural land.

Bhalo Rakkhaser BoiJaya MitraCover design and illustrations by Shibaji Basu.

16 x 17.5 cm. 130 pp. 2003. Pb. Bengali.

ISBN 81-86017-44-5. Rs 70.A collection of modern fairy tales touching on themes like ecology, social justice,

popular initiative and gender, by a major activist, poet and novelist.

Rupuli Beter Jhanpi

Jaya Mitra

Cover design and illustrations by Shibaji Basu.

17 x 17.5 cm. 98 pp. 2000. Pb. Bengali.ISBN 81-86017-31-3. Rs 50.

A collection of modern fairy tales touching on themes like ecology, social justice,

popular initiative and gender, by a major activist, poet and novelist.



Dariyalal

Gunvantrai AcharyaTranslated by Kamal Sanyal

Introduced by Samik Bandyopadhyay Cover design and illustrations by Gautam

Chattopadhyay.

21 x 24 cm. 144 pp. 2000. Pb. English.ISBN 81-86017-20-8. Rs 100. Translation from Gujarati of a story of sea voyagers,

traders, pirates, and their adventures in strange lands, centring around a slave driver who

has a change of heart and takes it upon himself to free the African slaves labouring in aGujarati settlement in Zanzibar.

Majantali & Co.

Upendrakisor Raychaudhuri

Translated by Maduchhanda Karlekar

Cover design by Gautam Chattopadhyay.Illustrations by Upendrakisor Raychaudhuri.

19 x 22.5 cm. 32 pp. 1997. Pb. English.

ISBN 81-86017-09-7. Rs 30. Animal stories for children by the founder-editor of Sandesh and the creator of the ever popular characters Goopy Gyne and Bagha Byne,

immortalized in his film by the author's grandson, Satyajit Ray.

Dakatey Kahini

Mahasweta Devi

Cover design by Gautam Chattopadhyay. Illustrations by Satyajit

Ray, Gautam Chattopadhyay and Judhajit Sengupta.



19 x 18.5 cm. 96 pp. 1998. Hb. Bengali.

ISBN 81-86017-11-9. Rs 50.

A collection of bandit tales by Mahasweta Devi covering the early years of the Raj.

Sanjukta Dasgupta

The Ghost of Gosain Bagan,by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay; Translated

from the original Bengali by Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee; Ponytale

Books, Kolkata, India; 2008; P. 117; ISBN:13: 978-81-905748-2-2

It is a truth universally acknowledged that children’s fiction

intended for young readers belonging to well-demarcated

age groups that fall under pre-school, primary school and

middle school categories is often consumed with amazinghunger by adult readers. Ponytale Books has pegged The

Ghost of Gosain Bagan in the 10+ category. The publishers

clearly define the agenda of their “publishing programme” by introducing themselves as a “specialist children and

young adult imprint” and also state carefully that “Ponytale

Books caters to 8 to 13 age group. Ponytale Books focuseson publishing quality original books that not only entertain

and inform, but also subtly educate about universal values, Indian history, culture and

tradition in a rapidly globalising world.”

KID LIT

But there is an element of supreme irony embedded withinthe rubric of this literary genre, if we assume that kid lit or

children’s literature is intended exclusively for child

readers. It is an accepted norm that fiction written for adultreaders will invariably be written by adult writers. But

adult writers also invariably write fiction intended for

children. We are still not sure whether child authors will beable to write for their peers and find publishers too.

Therefore, due to adult authorship, often children’s

literature becomes instructional manuals, internalizing anawareness programme that can be overt or covertdepending upon the narratorial skills of the creative writer.

The hegemonic control of the adult author on the child’s

empirical and epistemic exposure and responses however isa matter of debate that cannot be resolved easily. The

instruction cum entertainment mode of creative writing for

children is instilled with a noble urge to motivate andGonsaibaganer Bhut

Cover of the Bengali book





The Ghost of Gosain Bagan

Mukherjee’s fiction begins with ‘failure’. No other horror could be so traumatic to aschool going child than low scores in examinations and more so in mathematics, the

formidable subject deeply revered by educated and cultured Bengalis. So when Burunreturns home with the school progress report recording that he had secured just 13 marks

in mathematics, his teachers and parents behaved as if a catastrophe had taken place.

Burun’s depression, his loitering deep into the forest,

Burun’s subsequent friendship with the ghost Nidhiram

and Nidhiram’s role like a friendly genie out of the bottle

replicates many Western children’s stories about ghostsand spirits helping the weak child to shake off his fears.

The hilarious math teacher Karalibabu, Burun’s

grandfather Ram kaviraj, the ayurvedic doctor, the Tantric

bandit Habu who could hypnotise people and tigers, provides the exotic essentialisms of Indian culture that are

internationally recognized. The agenda of the text however is positive, for Burun’s adventures were just a hypnotic

trance engineered by the dreaded tantric Habu. Eventually

Burun was jolted out of the dreamland and became freefrom the hypnotic spell. So Burun’s freedom from fear and

humiliation also leads to his gaining the ability to face

failure and translate the experience of failure to a positive

understanding of the world and its diverse experiences. Thedreamland sequences are exquisite and the text does not

seem to be a translated text at all. A sample will bear thisout--“Burun and Bhutum had reached the land of the moonon a small toy aeroplane. The fields were golden in colour here. Golden trees, golden

grass and gold-dust spread in the sky…The old woman of the moon had stopped spinning

her wheel and sat down to prepare pancakes for them… The land was full of mirth andmerry-making-- games, magic, picnic, circus, ice-cream and what not. There was no

hassle of studies, no big schools, no pathsalas even. Only fun and fun." (p.112)

As a matter of fact this psychological therapy as subtext in this slick fiction of 117 pages

brings to mind J.K.Rowling’s recent speech at the 2008 Harvard University convocation(June 5, 2008 Harvard University Gazette online). Rowling ‘s speech primarily

prioritized the fringe benefits of failure and the importance of imagination. Rowling had

stated, “We do not need magic to change the world. We carry all the power we needinside ourselves already, we have the power to imagine better.”

I am certain now that The Ghost of Gosain Bagan has been brilliantly translated by

Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee, J.K.Rowling will now be able to read this riveting Bengali

fictional text and perhaps wonder how a local writer in India had anticipated the subtext

Illustration from The Ghost of Gonsai Bagan



of the Harry Potter series and represented the fringe benefits of failure in a way that

represents and negotiates local and global aspirations so magically.

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Up End Rakish Ore Raychaudhuri_bengali Chidren Stories