Flavour lost | Review of ‘The Penguin Book of Bengali Short Stories’, edited by Arunava Sinha

In the stories, we do get an impression of Bengali literature, but several times removed from the real thing.
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Many Gen Z Bengalis in Kolkata are only capable of reading their favourite Feluda stories by Satyajit Ray in English translation. For the benefit of this ever-expanding class and others as well, it has become imperative to render into English the treasures of Bengali literature. In certain Kolkata circles, the mother tongue is only used for communicating with the underclass. Translations are their only means of savouring Bengali literature. It may be one of the most widely spoken languages in the world but Bengali certainly faces several challenges today.

An award-winning and prolific translator, Arunava Sinha, the editor of The Penguin Book of Bengali Short Stories, has selected 37 Bengali short stories, of which he has translated all but five. The other translators are Pushpita Alam, Anish Gupta, Arifa Ghani Rahman, V. Ramaswamy and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. This book could serve as a primer for those unacquainted with Bengali literature. This is an inclusive selection, and is an appetising mix of undisputed classics as well as the works of popular authors from both West Bengal and Bangladesh. Manoranjan Byapari represents Dalit prowess.

It is, however, by no means a definitive collection, dictated as it is by Sinha’s personal tastes. It begins with Rabindranath Tagore and ends with Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay, who is a cause célèbre in her own right. One looks in vain for the works of Satinath Bhaduri, Kamal Kumar Mazumdar, Debesh Roy, Nalini Bera, Syed Shamsul Haque and Shawkat Ali. Strangely, Sinha has included Purnendu Pattrea’s suite of 41 poems, Conversations (Kathopokathan), in this volume. Can it be termed a short story? Sinha also seems to have a penchant for cinema. Some of the stories have been turned into successful films by leading directors.

Like chalk and cheese

These short stories cover a wide swathe of the subcontinent’s turbulent socio-political history. The evils of the caste system (‘Paradise of the Wretched’), sectarian violence (‘Aadaab’), religious bigotry (‘India’) and patriarchy (‘Getting Physical’), as well as earth-shaking events like the Partition, famines, the Naxalite movement (‘Draupadi’) and the sanguinary birth of Bangladesh (‘The Raincoat’) are some issues they highlight. The crises of survival faced by middle-class Bengalis on both sides of the border are closely examined. Some writers occasionally stray into the world of dreams, as in ‘The Old Man of Kusumpur’ and ‘Why There Are No Noyontara Flowers in Agargaon Colony’.

But while the reader will easily follow the storyline and gather some idea of the social milieu, the distinctly individual voices of the writers are smothered by the juggernaut of standard English. The latter has as much in common with the ecosystem of the Bengali language as do the idiomatic chalk and cheese.

In translation, the swear word “mairi” in Tagore’s ‘Dead or Alive’ becomes a tame “really”. The percussive beat of “jham jham bol” in ‘The Raincoat’ turns into “pitter-patter drizzle”. The wild music of the Santals and regional dialects, in ‘Draupadi’ and ‘The Old Man of Kusumpur’, respectively, are inhibited by the dictates of the Queen’s language. We do get an impression of Bengali literature, but several times removed from the real thing.

The reviewer is interested in Kolkata’s vanishing heritage and culture.

The Penguin Book of Bengali Short Stories

Ed. Arunava Sinha

Penguin

₹1,250