Of Ghosts and Other Perils

Of Ghosts and Other Perils brings together seven of the author’s stories not translated before. ‘Lullu’ is a ‘civilised, modern’ ghost who steals a married woman from Delhi and hides her in a chamber below a lake, but Amir, her husband, with the help of a weaver-singer, an astrologer, an exorcist, and other ghosts rescues her by making Lullu an opium-addict. In ‘Nayanchand’s Business’ we find a tale of a bull under orders of his ex-owner about to wreak havoc as he makes Yama, the god of the netherworld, and his assistant Chitragupta run in panic to escape being gored. Some of the situations-as when the torso of a man is joined by a quack doctor to the rear portion of a cow after an accident (‘Another Story by Damarudhar’)-produce more fun and dramatic turning points than the reader usually expects.

Troilokyanath’s fiction also has elements of social criticism tinged with satire though with a light touch. And as the translator, Arnab Bhattacharya, points out in a scholarly Afterword, Troilokyanath has been called with some justification a magic realist, a pioneer in Bangla writing.