Ritwik Ghatak Stories - Translated from Bengali by Rani Ray

 Ritwik Ghatak is known primarily for his Bengali films (Meghe Dhaaka Taara) but he wrote these stories during the 1947-50 period when he must have been around 25 years old. He was left leaning and was an active member of the Communist Party of India, the head of its cultural wing.

 

In this compilation there are stories about partition, revolution, love and hate. In the story Shikha he loves this young girl who is spirited when she was a child but loses herself to education and the ways of the rich and the west. In Solstice he sees the world through the eyes of a student who wishes to give up the urban life and go to the villages and take up a simple life. Similarly in Ecstasy he fantasises about life in a village. The three stories of murder - 'Eyes' is about a factory owner murdering a trade union leader whose eyes haunt him, 'Comrade' where a worker murders his union leader friend who he believes is betraying the cause of thr workers, 'A Fairy Tale' where an honest editor beats the owners of the newspaper to death when he fires him over printing the truth. 'Road' is a story about communal harmony, a friend seeking out a Muslim friend in riot torn Calcutta. 'Earthly Paradise' is about Kashmiri locals fighting mercenaries. 'Deposition' is a story of a man who goes to meet his childhood love, finds her struggling in her new ome married to a much older and abusive man, sees no hope for her and kills her.

Very interesting stories which took me back to his era.