Reviewed by Ashish Sen

When Achala di first informed me about this evening I was delighted, but also somewhat intimidated. Delighted because the idea of listening to Aloka Chatterjee's translations of Upendra Kishore Roy Chowdhury's stories took me back to my childhood when my grandmother and parents would tell us these stories. Intimidated because when I first spoke with her I had no idea that I would be asked to say a few words about the author and the stories.

Tales of Tuntuni, the wise bird is engaging on several levels. It is a beautifully produced book, and it is a delight to read these wonderfully translated stories of Upendra Kishore Roy Chowdhury.

Aloka Chatterjee's pen is very light, deft and racy. At the same time, it is so faithful to both the letter and spirit of Chowdhury's work that you don't feel that you are reading a translation. Experts, I'm sure , will tell us that this is what good translations are meant to do. However, to a layperson like me, these writings capture and encapsulate far more:

Upendra Kishore Roy Chowdhury was not just a writer, but also a painter, violin player, composer - apart from his other occupations and skills. When you read these translated short stories, you are bound to feel the music, the verse and the rhythm - all of which colour and paint these stories into wonderful fantasy world for children (and dare I say adults too). It is not easy to bring out these layers in a translation. There in lies the genius of Aloka Chatterjee's pen.

There are also other insights that the book provided me with:

• Obviously, here we have someone who knew these stories like the back of her hand. We have a writer/translator who is not only an expert in her craft and pen, but has breathed life into the stories.
• Secondly Aloka di - was also not only a gifted writer but must have also been a fabulous story teller. These stories are written to be told and to be heard. The choice of words, the use of active voice, the pace , the use of verse and rhyming couplets - they are ideal for storytelling.

Let me give you just a few examples:

FROM TUNTUNI AND THE KING
Such a miser, the King turned out to be,
He took away the one coin from me;

Or

What fun, what fun!
It makes me want to cry!
The King was given a dish of frog fry!

Or

FROM THE CROCODILE AND THE FOX
Hold the book, this side up,
How does it feel to be eaten up.

The result is you have rhyme, you have rhythm, you have verse and you have doggerel - all bringing alive the spirit of his work : (the kind of aaboltaabol for which his son Sukumar Rai was famous )

What is more, is that while the stories are for children, I'm convinced that adults will enjoy listening to them as well.

• The third insight raises , a larger question. Although it is about style and substance, it goes beyond the realms of literature and is interesting from the point of social and cultural history. There is a lightness, litheness and cheerfulness to these stories which seems to be in sharp contrast and quite different to many of the Western fairy tales which were written around that time.

The book's preface tells us that the Tales of Tuntuni and others were written by Upendra Kishore Roy Chowdhury in the early 20th century. This was also a time of significant social and cultural reform in the sub-continent - especially in Bengal.

In many ways Roy Chowdhury was an offspring of the Bengal Renaisaance. A leading member of the Brahmo Samaj(he was - as mentioned Sukumar Ray's father and Satyajit Ray's grandfather), he also pioneered in India the art of engraving and colour printing. Apart from his stories on Tuntuni, he was well known for his other works like ChhelederRamayan and Chhelder Mahabharat and ofcourse GoopiGyneBagha Baine….

He was called the Hans Christian Anderson of Bengal. However, unlike Anderson, or many other writers of fairy tales like the Grimms Brothers, Roy Chowdhury's stories do not emanate a heaviness sometimes bordering on gloom and sadness or a darkness/sadness that often hangs over his Western counterparts.

Let me - for a moment digress and give you an example. Last year, I was a part of a musical called Tales of Near and Far. Hans Christian was one of the characters I had to enact. The specific story that took centre stage was the Little Mermaid. In the original story penned by Anderson, the mermaid does not live. This must have proven to be too dark and morbid for the popular audience, because over the years, the story was modified. The mermaid lived and married the prince.

The Little Mermaid is not an exception. There are many others - Rumpelstilskin, Rapunzel, The Pied Piper of Hamelin are just a few others in a long list of stories which have a grim and grey side.

It is interesting that Roy Chowdhury's stories and style of writing radiate a spirit that is far more akin to Aesop Fables than to that of Anderson or the Grimms brothers.

And yet, Roy Chowdhury's stories were penned during the times when Anderson's works flourished. There is a larger question here - a larger implication which perhaps questions the depth of Macaulay's minute of 1835 and the extent to which it could/could not penetrate into the heart and minds of the sub-continent's culture. But that is probably material for another story.