That Bird Called Happiness: Stories

by Nabendu Ghosh, Ratnottama Sengupta (Editor)

‘Nabendu Ghosh’s perfect characterisation enabled any director to shoot the film with ease. He had the rare ability to pen the pulse of a character.’—Dilip KumarIn this collection—ranging from stories of love found and lost to tales of the supernatural—Ghosh masterfully traces the inscrutable ways of the human heart. The reigning queen of Bombay cinema allows a younger leading man to fall in love with her to spite her husband. A schoolmaster’s ravishing wife joins him in the small town where he works, inspires him to build a garden for her, and sets about wrecking his life. An impoverished student sits across a purdah from a nawab’s begum; she dictates letters to her husband and, as the student takes down her words, he falls into forbidden love with the voice from across the screen. And an unbending priest from Noakhali finds all the principles of his life upended after Muslim rioters kidnap his daughter. Marked by psychological insight, keen observation and vivid prose, That Bird Called Happiness brings to readers the work of one of the greats—not only of Bengali literature but of the Indian literary canon.About the AuthorNabendu Ghosh (1917–2007) was a dancer, novelist, short-story writer, film director, actor and screenwriter. And, as part of a team of iconic film directors and actors, he was instrumental in shaping an entire age of Indian cinema. He was the recipient of numerous literary and film awards, including the Bankim Puraskar, the Bibhuti Bhushan Sahitya Arghya, the Filmfare Best Screenplay Award and the National Film Award for Best First Film of a Director.Ratnottama Sengupta has written Krishna’s Cosmos, a biography of the pioneering printmaker Krishna Reddy, and on Hindi films for the Encyclopædia Britannica. She has been a member of the Central Board of Film Certification, served on the jury of the National Film Awards, and has herself won a National Film Award. In 2017, she directed And They Made Classics, a documentary about Nabendu Ghosh.

272 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 10, 2018

Reviews

[Pratibha Pandey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in the era , about 50-60 years in past this translated book of short stories is a world in itself. You can see the culture , the change in thoughts and the principles people lived with but also the universal theme of love , loss and chasing happiness. It is a mirror to the current world and a direction where we come from , in terms of our action and reactions.

[Vinay Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short stories is good to savour one story at a time. But some collections come along at times that make you wanna read sooner. That Bird Called Happiness is a collection of short stories translated into English from Bengali, and it turned out to be such a collection. Stories that make me wonder about some things, about the definition of love that's so different in them. I might revisit my favourite stories in the collection again for sure. From the beautiful cover, to those beautiful stories, this is a book I quite liked reading.