Among the various pleasant memories of childhood, one that I go back to time and again, is that of the annual visit to the book fair. No, I am not speaking of the famous Kolkata (erstwhile Calcutta ) book fair. The book fair I am speaking of used to be organised at the locomotive township of Chittaranjan, which sits cosily along with the now decadent township of Hindustan Cables, on the bank of the Ajay river.I was a resident of HCL, and the annual Chittaranjan book fair was a coveted destination for me and my younger brother each year.
We loved to move through the stalls, browsing through the colourful Bengali and English books. Thirty to thirty five years back, the erstwhile USSR was in its full glory, and we used to get wonderful Russian books in Bengali and English published by Vostok and Raduga publishers. Equally well illustrated books from China were also available. I still remember the three dimensional books from Russia, and also the one, where the story was about little animals taking shelter inside a mitten on a cold night - the book was shaped like a mitten! Then there were the Bengali books- Satyajit Ray, Leela Majumdar, Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay,Sanjeev Chattopadhyay, Sunil Gangopadhyay, and possibly the most popular among children and adults of all ages - Narayan Debnath, with his Bnatul the great, Handa-Bhonda , and Nonte-Fonte comics series. Narayan Debnath gave us our very own comics character for the first time, and they still rule the roost ! My brother used to coax and coerce my father to get hold of the latest releases of the activities of our favourite characters, and won most of the time .
I think this yearly trip to the book fair, where we learnt to touch and feel the texture and love the smell of fresh printed books, first sowed the seed of my love for books. And it grew steadily and continuously. Luckily, Children's literature has always been an integral part of Bengali literature; the journey of the genre started almost one hundred and fifty years back.Children of Bengal have been fortunate enough to grow up hearing and reading folktales,stories and poems collected and written by stalwarts like Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar, Upendrakishore Ray Choudhury, Jogindranath Sarkar, Rabindranath Tagore, Sukumar Ray, Satyajit Ray, Leela Majumdar and Ashapurna Devi. We have had our very own detectives, yound adult heroes and cartoon characters. We have had our very own monthly and/or fortnightly children's magazines- Sandesh, Anandamela, Suktara, Kishore Gyan Vigyan- to name a few.
The fortnightly Anandamela children's magazine was our regular friend throughout our childhood. We borrowed Shuktara , Indrajal Comics and Amar Chitra Katha comics from our neighbours. "Pujabarshiki"- special festival editions that were published on the occasion of the biggest festival of Bengal, Durgapuja, were eagerly awaited for. These big, fat editions were filled with adventure novellas of young adult heroes like Santu, along with Kakababu (Sunil Gangopadhyay), Gogol (Samaresh Basu)and the Pandav Goyendas (Shahsthipada Cattopadhyay); hilarious ghost stories with funny and loving ghosts and stupid thieves abound by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay and Leela Majumdar; detective stories of our favourite detective Feluda (Satyajit Ray) and later Arjun (Samaresh Majumdar); fairytales by Shailen Ghosh and Nabaneeta Devsen; Science fictions by Adrish Bardhan and scientific adventures with Professor Shonku (Satyajit Ray); the struggling sportsman stories by Mati Nandi; along were present wonderful poems by Annadashankar Roy, Shyamalkanti Das, Ratantanu GhNati, Bhabaniprasad Majumdar and others; short stories by other eminent writers, complete comics of Phantom/ Rip Carby/ Flash Gordon, and various non-fiction articles of interest. It was a full platter, to be savoured bit by bit, through the leisurely afternoons of the long vacations.
As I grew up, I started secretly reading serialised novels for adults, from Desh Magazine. Not one, I have read quite a few of them from first chapter to the last, from the weekly Desh. Samaresh Majumdar's Garbhadharini and later Saatkahan, were the two novels I completed reading secretly. Parallelly I had started reading the complete works of Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, Rajshekhar Basu and some amount of Rabindranath Tagore. Actually, I had started reading Bankimchandra, the father of modern Bengali literature, when I was in class IV. It was summer vacation, we were on our half yearly trip to our ancestral home at Chandannagore, and there were no story books left there to be read. So I had no option other than taking down the voluminous Bankim Rachanabali (complete works of Bankim) and start reading Devi Choudhurani, possibly his most popular novel. I was unable to understand most of those very long, ornate , compound words, but could follow the storyline more or less. I remember, one day my uncle asked me - are you being able to understand whatever you are reading? and I confidently said - yes! to which my uncle asked me, okay, then tell me the meaning of "taltamalchhayaghananivirakshudrapallivat" - which ofcouse, I was unable to answer. The elders laughed a lot, but it did not dampen my spirit. I continued reading Bankimchandra, and managed to complete Devi Choudhurani and Anandamath before we came back. And yes, I read the rest of the novels in the consecutive holidays I went to spend at chandannagore. I had completed reading Bankimchandra before I was thirteen.
(By the way, just in case you are curious, taltamalchhayaghananivirakshudrapallivat should be read thus ---- tal-tamal-chhaya-ghana-nivira-kshudra-palli-vat --- which means "like a small village under the dark shadows of the tal and tamal trees". )
So basically, while still in my teens, I was simultaneously feeding on Bengali classics and modern literature, both for children and adults. Does this mean that I was completely unaware of world literature or books in English? Not really. As a new reader, I got my dose of Enid Blyton, along with Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and Bobbsey Twins from the school library. I shifted school when in Class VII, and for some reason, library facility was not entertained here. So I barely had chance of reading writings in English as an young adult. But I had read translations of most world classics for children; translations, primarily because not many English books were available in our market in those days; also because, for some unspecified reason, my father was not very interested in buying English books. The most important and prized books in English from that time, which still are with me, are 'The Diary of Anne Frank' and 'Little Women'.
My reading spree got curtailed a bit during my college and university days. The turbulant, ever-exciting hostel life in the megacity of Kolkata, the first taste of independence and hitherto unexplored harmless fun like weekend movies and incorrigible bargaining at Hatibagan market, the never-ending college syllabus, and the perennial existential problems of private hostels sent the reading habit to the backseat . I did borrow a few American pop novels from the book lending shop, or other books from some friend, but the focus has shifted. This lull continued almost for about a bit more that a full decade, thanks to a thankless job environment and a pulverized personal life;my self-promise of building up my own library was washed down the drain along with many other unfulfilled promises and broken dreams. It was during this time that the Internet became my library. Whenever I got some break at office, I browsed through the pages of sites like Bibliomania and Project Gutenberg, and read Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott and poems by Pablo Neruda; I visited several university websites and went through the lectures and notes on literary theories and film theories. The Internet was my window to the world I loved so much, the library I wanted to call my own.
Things have been different in the last few years. A time came when I finally started building my own library, though not consciously only for the sake of it. I started reading again. 'One Hundred Years of Solitude', Pablo Neruda's Memoirs, Leela Majumdar's autobiography 'Paakdandi' are some of the books that have really stirred me in the last few years. I edit, publish and write for a Bengali children's webmagazine named Ichchhamoti for the last six years. For this reason nowadays I am more into reading children's literature. I have always been interested in mythologies and folktales. So nowadays I have read and am reading some of the recent Indian bestsellers, which are mostly variagated renditions of different mythologies - The Shiva Trilogy has been completed and Devdutt Pattnaik's Jaya is the book whose pages I am currently flipping. And yes, I must mention that when I really do not want to cerebrate, rather celebrate, I simply get a couple of Mills & Boons from the book-lending shop and happily burn the midnight oil gulping them down.
I am primarily a fiction-reader. But I do read poems at times, and lately am being interested in reading non-fiction too. There are various wonderful websites which offer daily doses of information and thoughts about life from around the world, and I keep on reading them in between my work.
On the event of International Author's Day, I want to graciously thank all the authors whom I have had the opportunity to read since my childhood. I have been unable to mention all of them in this short post. But that does not mean I have forgotten them. Each of them, through their works, have helped me in bits and pieces to develop my own Weltanschauung and make me the person I am today. I am sure my world-view will continuously be enriched and expand itself taking cue from all those books and articles that I shall be reading in the days to come.
Thus, in tune with the Johnny Walker tagline, I tell myself -"keep reading !"
(This post is written in response to the International Author's Day celebration at http://b00kr3vi3wtours.blogspot.in/p/iad.html. Many thanks to Debdatta Sahay for organizing such an event.
The FB page for the same is https://www.facebook.com/events/450475965089553/)
(Any lack of or mistake in information about writers/books/characters is completely unintentional and solely attributed to fading memories and/or gradually weakening grey and white cells.)