Kheerer Putul (literally, 'The Condensed-Milk Doll') by Abanindranath Tagore is a children's classic in Bangla. Published in 1896, the book has been captivating the hearts of young readers ever since. Kheerer Putul is a fairy tale, which, in the hands of Tagore, has become a rich tapestry of sensual images held together, as an integrated whole, by the plot of the story. The narrative has numerous allusions to Bengali folk culture and folk mythology and these have been explained in the Preface and also in the Notes appended at the end of the present volume.
Sudeshna Mukherjee is an Assistant Professor of English at Acharya Brojendranath Seal College, Cooch Behar and is currently pursuing doctoral research at Presidency University, Kolkata.
Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951) was one of the most prominent artists in late Nineteenth and early Twentieth century Bengal. He was a nephew of Rabindranath Tagore and shared the twin talents of his uncle in writing and painting. Abanindranath, however, is better known as one of the greatest Indian painters. This is not to say, though, that he was less skilled as a literary artist than as a painter. As Soumik Nandy Majumdar says in his reappraisal of Abanindranath, he can ""turn a commonplace descriptive style of writing into a vivid, sensuous and emotive experience"", and that, his paintings often narrate stories. Thus, as Majumdar goes on to say, Abanindranath wrote art and painted words.
Abanindranath Tagore was born in Jorasanko, Calcutta, in British India, on August 7, 1871. He had begun learning art as an academic discipline while studying at Sanskrit College in Kolkata in the 1880s. In 1889, he was married to Suhasini Devi and at this time he left Sanskrit College adn studied English as a special student at St. Xzvier's College. The winning of the Nobel Prize by Rabindranath Tagore for his Gitanjali, in the year 1913, brought the Tagore family international renown, which helped make Abanindranath's artistic projects better known in the West and he exhibited his works in countries like England, France and Japan. Abanindranath passed away on 5th Among his famous painting are Passing of Shah Jahan, Kacha and Devajani and Tales of Arabian Nights.
As has been mentioned above, Abanindranath was a literary artist as well, and wrote (mostly for children and young adults) even while he experimented with new techniques in painting. His notable literary works include Rajkahini, Buro Hangla, Nalak and Kheerer Putul.
Kheerer Patul (Bangla ক্ষীরের পুতুল published in 1896), translated literally into 'The Condensed-Milk Doll', is a colourful little quilt woven by Abanindranath Tagore out of the fairy tales, nursery rhymes, folk culture and folk mythology of Bengal. The original plot, according to Tagore himself, was not his own, but borrowed from a collection of tales made by his aunt. Mrinalini Devi (the wife of Rabindranath Tagore), which was never published and is now lost. The basic structure of Tagore's text is like that of vrata-katha literature, which comprises ritual tales read or recited, during women's folk rituals. Such tales depict the greatness and benevolence of some one or other of the Hindu deities, especially those popular in folk mythology, like Shiv, Manasa and Shashthi. In Kheerer Putul, the plot is solved only after the goddess Shashthi is tricked into intervening, and so the structure might be said as being specifically akin to the vrata-katha of Aranya-Shashthi (Jamai-Shashthi) which is a ritual sacred to the goddess. It may be mentioned here that such a structure of the fairy tale is found among English folktales as well, where the helper of the distressed protagonist and the bringer of the child is often a clever maid-servant.
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