শ্রেষ্ঠ গল্প by Bonoful

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



There are some excellent short stories in this collection.
One thing is sure that Bonoful wanted to give a twist at the end of the story which from my experience most of the short story writers try to give. He wanted to show the twisted nature of mankind directly.

on the other hand Rabindranath Tagore tried to narrate the story and leave the decision somewhat on the reader. But of course Rabindranath has written short stories of the first kind as well.

But both of them stayed true to what happens in the society.

On the other hand, one of my favorite writers Humayun Ahmed actually brought Magical Realism in Bengali Literature. Well, might not be true as I have not read many books altogether. In fact, I didn't even know the the term Magical Realism a year ago. My love for anime led me to read Haruki Murkami and eventually I found Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Which made me admire Humayun Ahmed even more.

Well, without straying too much, let me say the stories are enjoyable. But soon it becomes cliche when you know there will be a twist at the end. Bonoful, tries to show the nature of mankind, but he emphasized too much on the dark side of the force(!) or the person who selected the stories thinks that these will have more positive response from the readers. But there is an exception. That story named অর্জুন মন্ডল (Arjun Mandal) describes a person who started studying at the age of 40. It is the longest story in this book and it gets a 5 star. :)

Another story is at the beginning of the book named বিধাতা (God). That was excellent.

One thing to note is that Bonoful around 1976 in his story বিবর্তন (Evolution) thought that all the Hindu's of West Bengal(Calcutta) should convert to Muslims because Muslims getting more job than any Hindu. Well, in Bangladesh that was the time of political unrest (The leader was assassinated, all his colleagues were in jail and in the line of execution). But West Bengal shouldn't be like that at all. I'm not sure whether he was somewhat ethnocentric or not. It may be interesting to note that, A lot of Bangladeshi thinks that having no beard somewhat facilitates the chance of getting job, whether the job is in a public company or a private company. It is somewhat true for Private companies as they tend to show that they are "westernized" but not that true for public companies; yet the notion prevails.

When I said they always stayed true to the reality, I kind of lied. Now I remember there is a story named দুই ভিক্ষুক (Two Beggars) which narrates two beggars at a shrine.

Another story চিঠি পাওয়ার পর (After Receiving the Letter) tells the story of a person who is going to meet his long lost love for five minutes only. But unfortunately he fails. :(

There are more interesting story and his writing is very humorous. Rabindranth's humor is for a person who has a lot of time to read the things carefully but Bonoful's humor can be seeped even in a busy day. :)



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