Clouds and Sunshine by Rabindranath Tagore

By A. Datta
$3.64 Rating: Not yet rated.
Published: Oct. 07, 2012
Words: 9,488 (approximate)
Language: American English
ISBN: 9781301205189

Short description

The clouds and the sunshine play hide-and-seek with profound implications for the future. And the quotidian history of two unrenowned humans on a leisurely rainy day despite seeming to be of no consequence is also far from mundane. The hoary-headed unseen one who has been stringing ages with ages has been sowing the seeds of lifelong joys and sorrows amid the little girl's laughter and tears …

Extended description

This short life-drama originally penned by Rabindranath Tagore in Bengali begins in an idyllic setting. While the clouds and the sunshine are the two prominent players in the firmament, on the earthly stage below the main players are a little girl named Giribala and the young law graduate, Shasibhusan. 19th century Bengali culture is biased against education of girls and favors child marriage. Giribala's brothers, who go to school refuse to teach her to read and to write. Files of strange tiny black glyphs guard the entrance to a mysterious world, carrying on their shoulders dependent vowel signs and the like pointed all the way up. They never care to answer the questions which Giribala asks. The Garland of Tales refuses to betray its tales of tigers, foxes, horses and donkeys to the curious little girl and The Rachis of Narratives gazes at her in silence with its store of narratives, narrating nothing. But soon the weak-sighted Shasibhusan becomes Giribala's preceptor. It is his lab.. (Read more) This short life-drama originally penned by Rabindranath Tagore in Bengali begins in an idyllic setting. While the clouds and the sunshine are the two prominent players in the firmament, on the earthly stage below the main players are a little girl named Giribala and the young law graduate, Shasibhusan. 19th century Bengali culture is biased against education of girls and favors child marriage. Giribala's brothers, who go to school refuse to teach her to read and to write. Files of strange tiny black glyphs guard the entrance to a mysterious world, carrying on their shoulders dependent vowel signs and the like pointed all the way up. They never care to answer the questions which Giribala asks. The Garland of Tales refuses to betray its tales of tigers, foxes, horses and donkeys to the curious little girl and The Rachis of Narratives gazes at her in silence with its store of narratives, narrating nothing. But soon the weak-sighted Shasibhusan becomes Giribala's preceptor. It is his labor of love. In two years Giribala learns the English and Bengali alphabets and finishes reading a few elementary books. Then Shasi is kept busy by some legal proceedings and his doleful pupil distances herself from him gradually. Around this time, Giri's family marries her off at the age of ten. Left with practically nothing to do, Shasi decides to leave his village for Calcutta city but gets into trouble en route twice in a row and gives us a fine example of Murphy. Friendless and penniless, a surprise awaits him in the end. This long short story is a faithful translation of arguably the best work in prose by the gray-haired bloke who took the Literature Nobel outside Europe 100 years ago …
(Less)

Tags

short story, tagore, bengali, child marriage, rabindranath, translation of tagore, megh o roudra, clouds and sunshine, shasibhusan, giribala

Available ebook reading formats

Single purchase gains access to all formats. How to download ebooks to e-reading devices and apps.

Format	Full Book	Sample First 51%
Online Reading (HTML, good for sampling in web browser)	Buy	View sample
Kindle (.mobi for Kindle devices and Kindle apps)	Buy	Download sample
Epub (Apple iPad/iBooks, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, and most e-reading apps including Stanza, Aldiko, Adobe Digital Editions, others)	Buy	Download sample
PDF (good for reading on PC, or for home printing)	Buy	No sample available
RTF (readable on most word processors)	Buy	No sample available
LRF (Use only for older model Sony Readers that don't support .epub)	Buy	Download sample
Palm Doc (PDB) (for Palm reading devices)	Buy	Download sample
Plain Text (download) (flexible, but lacks much formatting)	Buy	No sample available
Plain Text (view) (viewable as web page)	Buy	No sample available

Reviews

Log-in to write a Review   Log-in to add a Video Review

This book has not yet been reviewed.

Reason for report:
— Select a reason — Book is or contains spam Book infringes copyright Same content is published elsewhere with different author (for ex., by private-label rights) Duplicate Incomplete work (such as sample or serial) Should be marked adults-only Category is inappropriate Poorly formatted Nudity or other inappropriate content on cover Nudity or other inappropriate visual content in book Inappropriate erotica content Cover image is improper Content is inappropriate Other violation of Terms of Service Other reason not shown above.

Additional details: