I was never a big reader of non-curricula based literature. I would attribute this mainly to the difficulty of getting books at the place where I did my schooling and partially to the lack of such culture in school. This made me feel out of place during my engineering college days in West Bengal where most of my friends grew up reading the plethora of selections that Bengali literature offers. Even though I had read Bengali as a subject in school and abridged versions of some classics, I could not get the references nor was acquainted with the authors that they were talking about. I would have most likely got into the habit but I changed my college soon after and that was a different place all-together. Besides spending most of the time in physics textbooks and such popular science books, I got interested in movies and TV series mainly during this time and was an avid user of the file sharing website named BitTorrent.

 

Only recently have I revived my interests in reading starting with the greatest pieces of literature that my native language has in store. I was inspired towards reading mainly by my girlfriend who is a voracious reader, and also watching the movie adaptations of several native literature by my favorite director, Satyajit Ray who himself has an unparalleled collection of literary works that I am currently reading. While his detective masterpiece Feluda Samagra, now compiled in two thick volumes is definitely a great read, I like his collection of short stories titled Golpo 101 more. They are a good source of bedtime stories to tell. Among his other works that I have read and plan to read next are My years with Apu and Our films, Their films, both that I currently in possession. The former was published after his death and is a brilliant memoir of the struggles that he had to face in bringing The Apu Trilogy to life. I have found the writing style of Ray extremely engaging and readable by a wide range of age groups. In my personal opinion, I cannot say the same about the short stories as well as novels by the great Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, who is the doyen of Bengali literature. While his works are also  definitely readable by a wide age group, I feel that one should have a certain level of emotional maturity to really appreciate the depth of his writings. This, of course, excludes the volume of literature that he has written exclusively for children and the ones that we Bengalis start our childhood reading with. After reading Tagore, I feel that he is in a different league all-together and his style is markedly distinct. Among his novels that I have liked the most so far, include Sesher Kobita, Gora and Ghare Baire. From his collection of short stories, it is difficult to pick a few but some of my favorites include Ghaater Kotha, Samaapti, Monihara, Streer Potro, Noshto-Neer, Detective, Shaasti. Next on my list of Tagore's works are his plays, in particular, Roktokorobi  whose modern setting caught my attention sometime ago and I am extremely looking forward to get a copy in my collection soon.

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Another literary work which I am reading currently and qualifies as one of the first pieces of feminist literature from India is the novel titled Prothom Protishruti by the female writer Ashapoorna Devi. Although set in a primarily rural setting in West Bengal, the premise of this novel "unfortunately" is still relatable even in modern day India, particularly in small towns and villages. It is a very in-depth treatise on the systemic oppression of women perpetrated by the patriarchy and the protagonist's fight against its normalization in the society. I look forward to reading the next two sequels in this trilogy of novels, Subarnalata and Bakul Katha.

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Over time, I am planning to also explore the literary works of Bankim Chatterjee, Sukumar Ray and Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyaya. The next book in my reading list is Shei Shomoy by Sunil Ganguly. I will try to write reviews of these literary pieces based on my experiences, on GoodReads and share the link here. So stay tuned...