20 Short stories by Satyajit Ray

”20 stories’ by Satyajit Ray. Yes! The one whom most of the people know as a master director…..the one who made timeless classics like ‘Pather Panchali’, ‘Apur Sansar’ and a lot more. Though Ray’s proficiency as a writer is not known, he is one of the outstanding story tellers. He is not so popular as others. May be because he wrote mostly in Bengali.
My first exposure to Ray’s writing happened when I was 10. The Book was a Telugu translated one called ‘Phatik Chand’. The Book left such an indelible impression on my innocent mind that I began looking for Bengali Authors, whenever I went to book-fairs! I read it more than 10 times in these 10 years with the same vigour with which I read for the first time! In a way that Book prompted me to read ‘Pather Panchali’ (not by Ray, but made in to a film by Ray) as I wanted to know Ray. After a long wait of 10 years, I am reading a Ray book again!!!! A long wait indeed. What do u say?
Ok, ok, I am coming to the point. The Book :The Book is a collection of 20 stories of Ray translated by Gopa Majumdar. I would like to classify the stories present in it in to 3 types; the first and what took a major part of this was – supernatural, next comes humorous and the next one is – general.First – as he is known for supernatural stories, we can feel a typical Ray mark in them. If you have at any time read any of his works, for example the famous Feluda Stories, these stories send chills in to our spine. One gets the same feeling that we get after reading the last page of ‘The Time Machine,.Remember ‘Darna Mana Hai’, by Praval Raman? These stories have that flavour in them, rather the movie has the flavour of these stories (obviously because these stories are older). Some of them just sound wierd like- ‘The Maths Teacher, Mr. Pink and Tipu’, ‘The Tale of Shibu and the Monster’ and ‘The Vicious Vampire’. Some of them terrify you, if you are absorbed in them like – ‘Bhuto’,'Fritz’,'Anath Babu’s Terror’ and ‘Mr. Brown’s Cottage’. Ofcourse, there is a routine horror one like ‘Gagan Chowdary’s Studio’.
Ray has an excellent style that imbues a feeling of shock, of horror of some weird feeling in us by the time we reach the end of the story.The next categeory – Humour. These stories portray certain human emotions which elicit laughter. We find certain eccentric characters in our day to day life. These stories highlight those characters. Certain idiosyncrasies that form part of people’s mentality are heroes in these stories. ‘Sadhan Babu’s Suspicions’, ‘Chameleon’, ‘Barin Bhowmik’s Ailment’ are some of them. Especially, you can’t hide atleast a short gilmpse of your smile as you read the last line of the ‘Barin Bhowik’s Ailment’. ‘Chameleon’ is a special kind of story. It generates laughter, but at the same time, it chills and may even shock the reader.
The other stories ‘Guest’, ‘Pterodacytl’s Egg’, ‘Load Shedding’, ‘Admirer’ are a description of specific events in a part of life. They describe the changes some events may cause in the day to day events. ‘The Millionaire’ slightly resembles ‘Christmas Carol’. ‘Anukul’ is a readable story. ‘Citation’, ‘Spotlight’ are bound to make you feel suprised in the end.
On the whole, the Book is interesting and makes a good reading. One distinguishing quality of Ray (or in my view Bengalis) is that they take you to live in the surroundings and the tempo of the theme. I guess, Ray was successful in doing that. Who can forget the efforts of Gopa Majumdar? Translation is never an easy task. It was a great job, translating without the stories losing their native flavour.

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