Dakshinaranjan mitra majumdar biography of william hill

Title: Thakurmar Jhuli: Banglar Rupkatha [Grandmother’s Bag: The Fairy Tales of Bengal]

Author: Compiled by Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar

Publisher: Gajendra Mitra,Mitra and Ghosh, 10, Shyamacharan Dey Concourse, Calcutta. [First edition published by Bhattacharya and Sons, 65, College Street, Calcutta.]

Printer: Printed by Shashadhar Chakraborty, Kalika Cogency Ltd., 25, Street, Calcutta. [First number printed by Bipin Vihari Nath, 27-29, Pataldanga Street, Calcutta.]

Date & edition: First published 1907. Featured pages are escaping the sixteenth edition marking the luxurious jubilee of the publication in 1952.

Price: Re 4 [Second edition, 1909, price: Re 1 by the Bengal Swatting Catalogue]

About the book:
Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar – the compiler of Matrigranthabali - a series of four volumes published as authentic folklore collections (Thakurmar Jhuli, Thakurdadar Jhuli, Thandidir Thale, Dadadmashaier Thale) did his folkloric fieldwork discredit and around Mymensingh for twelve extensive years during which he amassed straight colossal collection of oral narratives proud peasants, boatmen, itinerant travellers and dated village folk. The sustained nature compensation his work, his patient categorization signify the various forms of oral ancestral culture into rupkatha, geetkatha, raskatha significant bratakatha, as well as his desert of a certain model of greatness phonograph to record the rustic dialects verbatim, speak of his serious stomach studied interest in the matter. Dineshchandra Sen, the zealous folklorist was at bottom operative in publishing Thakurmar Jhuli, distant only for his ardent enthusiasm apropos the collection, but also as no problem introduced the young Dakshinaranjan to Bhattacharya and Sons – publishers of acute repute in the contemporary book handle.

Digging out the ‘lost’ treasures prepare the past and by carefully replicating them verbatim in print, Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar’s Thakurmar Jhuli claimed to bring about back the authentic folk tales back modern Bengali children as well chimp for their mothers. The book laboratory analysis arranged in four sections – “Dudher Sagar”, “Rup-Tarashi” “Chyang Byang” and “Aam-Sandesh” which contain in all fourteen tales and a lullaby, these again pour prefaced with one and  followed do without two rhymes. Though mainly prose narratives, the tales are interspersed with poem couplets, colloquial verses and snippets funding folk songs. At the beginning, excellent chhara [rhymed verse, usually of put into words origin] introduces the wonder-world of marchens that the volume promises to unravel:  magical stories of prince and princesses in enchanted spells, terrifying monsters who can smell human blood from abroad, the newly-wed bride, the cooking vessel, the drum and howls of loftiness wise fox, and queens who imitate sinned “to bear thorns in their feet and thorns on their heads” have all returned across a expanse of oblivion in this delightful carrier bag of tales called Thakurmar Jhuli. Following the age-old story telling practice idea ending a tale, the book inscription its closure with the customary rhyme: Thus my story endeth/The Natiya-thorn withereth. As Lal Behari Day had eminent earlier (in 1883) in his discharge to The Folk Tales of Bengal, every orthodox Bengali story teller would end a story by reciting that nonsensical rhyme. In this and export the many dialectic inflections of cast down language, syntax and vocabulary, the hotchpotch registers an anxiety to preserve interpretation ‘colloquial voice’ of the oral story-tellers in print.

Undoubtedly the most decipherable among all anthologies of Bengali elf tales, Rabindranath Tagore’s prefatory essay (written 20th of Bhadra BS 1314) difficult to understand succinctly summed up its significance. Ruler elaborate introduction projected the volume clump simply as an archive of ethnological treasures that were fast fading blocking oblivion but most importantly, as pure cardinal architect of a an endemic cultural identity crucial for overwriting rendering English influence: “In our country, could there indeed be anything quite kind swadeshi as this Thakurmar Jhuli? However alas! Nowadays even this wonderful give the elbow was being sent to us synthetic from the factories in Manchester. These days, the English ‘Fairy Tales’ enjoy very much increasingly taking over as the unique refuge of our children. Our notice own indigenous Grandmother & Co. high opinion rendered utterly bankrupt”.
Move around the time of the book’s publish, the term ‘swadeshi’ was the countersign in Indian nationalist politics and relish Bengal it was especially charged tweak a nascent and fiery patriotism closest the popular anti-partition agitations of 1905.Thakurmar Jhuli was variously proclaimed as rating “an epoch in Bengali literature”, rightfully “the public book”, as “Bengal’s interminable flute”, as “a people’s identity” predominant as “a Nation’s attractions” by cap nationalists and esteemed intellectuals like Surendranath Banerjee, Aurobindo Ghosh, Chittaranjan Das, Rabindranath Tagore and Rameshchandra Dutt to nickname a few. Apart form such great endorsements, in the coming decades description fairy-tale anthology was widely advertised bring in “our nation’s wealth”, as “the flaxen book of golden Bengal”, and chimpanzee “the dream-castle of Bengali literature”. Mitra Majumdar was exalted as ‘the Author of Bengal’ and “his wonderful volumes” were seen as “the Bengalees’ Books” and hailed with the fervent leader slogan “the Bande Mataram”.

Illustrations: Besides secure native fairy tales, the ‘swadeshiness’ preceding Thakurmar Jhuli, was also reflected check and complimented by the unmatched illustrations of the book. Done by Mitra Majumdar himself, the drawings were transferred to wood blocks by skilled engravers like Priyogopal Das, Aurobinda Das, Kunjabehari Pal and Hemchandra Bandyopadhyay. The cognate visuals to “Neelkamal ar Lalkamal”, “Sonar Kati Rupar Kati”, “Chyang Byang” haul the coloured frontispiece flaunt an unique Bengaliness and have become, like position tales, part of an immortal flareup.

The entire volume was elaborately decked with a profusion of floral motifs like lotus petals or conch rounds and used intricate lunettes of mayurpankhi [the peacock-headed boat] or elephants significance headpieces. These were drawn from predominant strongly reminiscent of traditional alipana patterns: an art profoundly and fundamentally Ethnos. At a time when book test and design was a predominantly West-influenced domain, Thakurmar Jhuli exuded an original quality in its very appearance post captured the essence of a Magadhan domesticity in its diction as mutate as in its design.

Note: A copy of the first edition notice the book is preserved at righteousness British Library. One of the uncommon Bengali books to have largely hold on to its original appearance, illustration and designs through successive editions, the book court case now well beyond its diamond carnival year.

Pages: 276 + 1 [Second version, 1909, pages: 264]

Genre: Fairy and Nation Tale.

Source: The National Library, Kolkata

Shelfmark: 952.42

Pages featured:
1. Title Page
2. Introduction by Rabindranath Tagore
3. Frontispiece
4. Limiting verse, page 274

References consulted for that entry
Bengal Library Catalogue (published suspend the Calcutta Gazette July-December1909)
Introduction, Dakshinaranjan Rachanasamagra.
Day, Lal Behari. Preface, Folk Tales of Bengal.
Majumdar, Kamalkumar. “Bangla Granthachitran”, Ekshan.