The cover of Sundaram’s golden jubilee volume

What if you were offered the power to heal every kind of illness in the world? Would you compromise your comfort to cure people?

This is one of the questions raised by the delightful anthology of stories by playwright Badal Sircar. Published by Lekhoni, the book Galper Khonchai Galpo (Stories Sparked Off By Stories), will be followed by a second anthology titled Panchmeshali Galpo (Miscellaneous Stories). “All my plays have as their source something that I have read or seen,” said Sircar.

After numerous plays, Sircar has now taken to adapting his favourite reads to crisp Bengali prose, his personal experiences adding depth and colour to the narration. He has recreated tales by Saki, Guy de Maupassant, O. Henry, Washington Irving and Kir Bulychev. One finds it hard to believe that Sejomamar Saromeyo was inspired by Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat, so inseparable does it seem from the familiar Calcutta milieu. “The stories are thought-provoking and the laughter is serious, adult laughter,” says Sircar.

Golden year

With productions like Sajano Bagan, Sovajatra, Chhayar Prasad, Galpo Hekim Saheb, Parabas and Alokanandar Putrakanya, Sundaram would have found it easy to fill its 326-page golden jubilee commemorative volume with nostalgia. But the book titled Suvarno Sundaram: Bangla Natyer Ponchash Bochhor tries, instead, to capture all aspects of theatrical craft.

The book, edited by Prabhat Kumar Das, has 30 essays by the likes of Kumar Roy, Sankho Ghosh, Arun Mukhopadhyay and Bivas Chakraborty. Sundaram’s director, playwright and actor Manoj Mitra’s contribution, Tokhon Partha, is a sparkling and intimate recollection of early days spent with the group’s first director, friend and classmate Partha Pratim Chaudhury.