Rales Of Magical My Stery

Two `jobs' that need imagination in abundance are creative writing and filmmakeing, yer it is hard to imagine that one person would be capable of combining the two in a carreer spanning over three decades. Satyajit Ray did just that, and even through Ray, the film-maker, over-shadows Ray, the writer, his short stories form an ageless oeuvre with the simplicity and magic that has made Harry Potter such a rage around the world. Not surprisingly then, like J K Rowlings, Ray's stories are spooky, people as easily with ghosts and other-worldly beings as with everyday people.

Indigo consists of very complete representation of Ray's stories, perhaps more so than his earlier collections, seven of whicch have been translated from the orginal Bengali into English by translator Gopa Majumdar. More excitingly, especially for members of the Feluda Fan Club, is the inclusion of a `new' Feluda story first published in Bengali in 1995-96 in Sandesh, three years after Ray's death, and now translated into English. The Feluda stories deal with mysteries, are heartwarming, and have given India its closest appromixation of a folk Sherlock Holmes. Also included in the collection are some stories earlier translated by Ray himself. Also making his `English' debut is series of Ray's Uncle Tarini stories.

 

Translations from a regional language can often be treacherous - either too literal, or too metaphorical. But Gopa Mjumdar, who has tanslation wuch as Ashapurna Debi's Subarnalata and Bibhutibhushan Bhandhopadhyay's Aparajito, along with several of Ray himself such as The Experor's Ring, Twenty Storeis, Felud's Last Case and others to her crredit, has done a remarkably sensitive job. Engrrossingly, in tthe re-telling of the tales in English, the stories do not lose their Bengali flavour. Stories such as Duel In Lucknow, Uncle Tarini, The Maharaja, Uncle Tarini And Betal, The Two Comdeians and the like are first-time translations into English.

For readers unfamiliar with the locale in which his books are set but who have seen Ray's films, it is interesting to nore that the stories throw light on the Bengali upper class a group of people who were in the priod in which these stories are set pro-British and wanting to emulate them in every way possible. In contrast Ray's cinema portarys a totally different milieu, that of the poorer section of stories minght lend tthem excitement and give you goosebumps, the Satyajit Ray touch is obvious in the manner in which a message is discreetly tucked into the narrative.

Stories such as Indigo, Khagam, and The Case Of Mriganko Babu can be put in one category where the main character or the narrator of the story has a ghostly presence. Rratan Babu And That Strange Man, Kutum Katam. The Scarecrow and A Duel In Lucknow fall into a similar category, only here the main charcters come in contact with ghostts. The book includes stories within stories, as recounted by a character called Uncle Tarini who is a story-teller recountin his experiences with characteristic relish. Even though the stories become predicatble after point that doesn't make them any less interresting. Then there are stories such as The Attic, The Class Friend, The Two comedians and The Promise that deal morre specifically with friendship and honesty. Stories like Big Bill, I Am A Ghost, and Ashamanja Babu's Dog are les easily slotted but hold your interest nonetheless.

In these politically correct times, the reader connot fail to notice that the spotlight in this collection of stories is almost inevitably on male characters. Female characters either don't exist or assay minor roles. There may be two reasons for this, though the points are at odds with each other. The first that Ray's world (at least that of his fiction) is male-dominated. And second, that he is implying that only men get involved in the world of spirits and other beings. Be that as it may, Rray's stories were popular when he wrote them, and their simplicity has ensured taht they have outlasted him into a new millennium.