Kolaboti, Apur Ma o Panchu

This is during the schooldays of Kalabati when she is growing up amid the loving ambience od his granddad, Rajsekhar Sinha, the food loving barrister uncle, Satyasekhar, the caring Apur Ma and the rest of the household of the Sinha family of Atghora amid the occassional amusing conflict with the Bakdighi family which is incidentally home to Malaya who is the teacher of the same school where Kalabati studies. It all starts with Apur Ma making up her mind to prepare bori after Kalabati praises the dishes that she tasted from her friend at school. But the preparation involved a crucial step of guarding the bori as they dried in the open sun against the attacks of crows. So Apur Ma thought of procuring a catapult for the purpose. Meanwhile there comes Panchu, a stray monkey left lonely by the demise of his master, whom Kalabati picks up from the street deciding to keep him. Thus the days go on at a gentle pace in the household. But then comes crisis in the form of three dacoits who breaks into the house while fleeing from the public. How the inhabitants deals with the situation forms the crux of the theme and the readers will suddenly find the pace accelerating. But throughout the story, the various subplots will keep the readers smiling. The signature Moti Nandi, with his crisp storytelling, seems always to excel himself while relating adventures of Kalabati and this is also another of those.

Tales of Mystery & Terror

The first part contains stories which had been a part of a larger volume already discussed. These being the Tales of Terror, contains The Horror of Heights, The Leather Funnel, The New Catacomb, The Case of Lady Shannox, The Terror of Blue John Gap and The Brazilian Cat. But the inertia of terror continues in the first two Tales of Mystery bearing the names The Lost Special and The Beetle-Hunter. The former is the mystery of a special train seemingly vanishing into thin air while the later is a curious anecdote of a doctor witness to a strange behaviour of a seemingly sane scientist. Though there is mystery in each but the strain of terror predominates to make them horrifyingly gripping. The next is the story of The Man with the Watches who is found murdered in a first class carriage without any tickets but with six watches in the dead man's pockets. A gleam of scandal seems to lurk in the the residence of a widower with the entire household doubting the master when a chance situation reveals the truth in The Japanned Box whose content had been the centre of speculations to all. Again an apparent murder of The Black Doctor causes much stir and it remains to be seen whether the accused can be acquitted in a courtroom drama. The curious apparent desecration of The Jew's Breastplate torments the curator and he sets a trap to catch the perpetrator only to reveal a painful truth. But drama is at its extreme in the final piece of The Nightmare Room where everybody will be held unguarded when the mystery is spawned with the last line giving the solution so refreshingly beautiful. Only one bad thing about the publication is the confusion in closing page sequences along with orientations that will cause a bit of a bother to the flow of reading during the finale otherwise so tersely grand.

Chadmabeshi

I had seen the movie, both the Bengali and the Hindi version, so I was actually biased about its humour. Also, as I was going through it I could actually visualize the events which actually showed how cleverly the theme was adopted. But having said that, one thing is certain, the directors of either versions, especially the Bengali filmmaker had trimmed the script to perfection which allowed it to become a masterpiece. But the book itself, though had a humorously thrilling finish and witty dialogues but is not overly enjoying. This is chiefly because of a laboriously lengthy descriptions at places and loquacious dialogues which could have better been avoided. So excitement during purchase actually did not remain much after the initial few chapters but smiles will return during the climactic sequences.

Abduction

What would you feel if someday you get to know that aliens are not coming from outside earth but actually they are living deep inside the ocean floors and they are human beings, only a bit too advanced. That there had existed human race long before dinosaurs will also be a surprising revelation. Besides cities inside earth with technologies so much evolved that people do not die in the usual way will also grip your imaginations. But if all these come as an exciting revelation it will also be surprising how much boring life can be in these technologically advanced place. These and much more awaits a group of deep sea explorers, divers and a businessman when they suddenly find themselves abducted by these human and find themselves classified as the less evolved variant. With the option of spending life without actually the pain of death and with an intellectual abundance in the offing at the luxurious paradise it remains to be seen what choices do each make. A point comes where it feels that good and evil might be the same thing but depends on perspectives. With a surprising twist at the very latter stage, the novel is an easy paced adventure with unique plot that is sci-fi at its best.