Abanindranath Thakur, nephew of Gurudev Rabindranath, was also one of his closest associates. A doyen of the literary and fine arts, he penned several novels, primarily aimed at a younger audience. Rajkahini is the foremost among them- and comprises several tales, eventful and fluent. The stories have a historical basis but the author has used a master artiste's perspective to embellish and elaborate the narrative. The stories have a timeless appeal and have been enjoyed by generations of readers-young and old.
Dr. Dhananjoy Sen taught English at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur for over three decades. He was an active patron of the students' Technology Dramatic Society and has translated numerous plays, short stories, poems and novels. After retirement from IIT, he was associated with Vidyasagar University and Kolaghat Engineering College. Avenel press has published several of his books.
Rajkahini is a collection of stories of the valor and patriotism, of the strong passions and changing fortunes of the Ranas of Rajputana. The stories are based on the Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, an historical account of the political turmoil of the medieval India at the onset of the inroads of the northern and western tribes down to the middle ages.
The Annals was compiled from field surveys and chronicles; old ballads, oral traditions and conventions; rituals actually observed; genealogical trees and tables and maps, drawn or received. Its compiler, Colonel James Tod (1752-1835), an English born employee (political agent) of the British East India Company, had immersed himself so deeply in the Rajput culture that he felt he had become a Rajput himself. The book was first published in England in 1829-32, collected dust for several decades to be almost forgotten. It had become famous though, to get new print lines again in Madras in 1873 and in Calcutta in 1894.
Abanindranath Thakur (1871-1951), the creator of Rajkahini, blew away the dust off the dry bones of the Annals, and rejuvenated the spirits of contemporary national sentiments. Rajkahini was first published in 1909. Abanindranath's other major literary works include Shakuntala (1895), Khirer Putul (1896), Bhutpatrir Desh (1915), Nalak (1916), Pathe-Bipathe (1919), Khatanchir Khata (1921), Buro-Angla (1941), Jorashankor Dhare (1944), Apon-Kotha (1946), Mashi (1954) etc.
Abanindranath, a scion of the famous Tagore family of Jorasanko, Calcutta, was born into a rich legacy of multifaceted artistic traditions; Girindranath Tagore, Abanindranath's grandfather was a painter of portraits and landscapes, a dramatist and a musician as well. Abanindranath was admitted to Sanskrit College and then to St. Xavier's College. Abanindranath's career as an illustrator took off around 1891. He blossomed into a first rate painter and joined the Calcutta Government School of Art to be trained in Indian classical and Western painting. He became the most famous painter of the country, worked under Ernest Binfield Havel (at the Government School of Art) and later, went on to create the Bengal School of Art.
He took to writing later, afraid that he might demean his world famous uncle Rabindranath Thakur. But the great poet Rabindranath was quick to discern his nephew's talent, urged Abanindranath to cultivate his writing and referred to him, as Obin Thakur, the one who writes pictures, ""অবন ঠাকুর ছবি লেখে"". His greatness and originality as writer were acclaimed as soon as his writings on and of children were published.
Abanindranath's language is pictorial and facilitates long term visual retention of details in readers. His storytelling technique operates on descriptive digressions that are deftly weaved into the main storyline. Rajkahini is a prime example of this style. Abanindranath teases out unexpected joy, gloom, passion and despair from tales of oral tradition, and paints expressive vignettes of medieval Rajasthan. His storytelling is equally appealing to children as it is to adults because they resonate simplicity and spontaneity.
Another feature of Abanindranath's style is to narrate the plot in a conversational tone; this is infused with unexpected humor-even in the most dramatic situations-transporting the reader to an entertaining landscape of multiple emotions.
In Rajkahini, characters such as Bappaditya, Goho, Shiladitya and Rani Padmini are brilliantly resurrected through anecdotes of picturesque phraseology. Not only the pictorial qualities of his style, but also the genuine benignity of his humor, wins the heart of his readers. The texture of his style is apparently simple, but in fact, is a polymer of compounds of various kinds, shot with many shades of color and material. The basic ingredient of his style displays crisp or light expressions, loosely strung phrases or clauses, like short running stitches of needlework, or bold strokes of dry brush or wash, shining softly like three-piled velvet with a matt finish with the ringing of onomatopoeic airs. The little cameos that Abanindranath works into the fabric of the storyline enlivens the subaltern life of medieval India in Rajkahini. Episodes of Gambhirmal and Chuamal; of Munju the bandit, and Munja creepers in the kitchen of Harwa Shankel; of Ranamalla and Mokul's Nurse; of Moir and Chacha; of Lakshmi and Saraswati fighting for a higher place in the hierarchy; etc., are all cases in point.
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