Book Review: Of Grandfather’s Tiger Tales

Anjana Basu’s fascination with tigers, demi-gods and this time cricket has found its way into a delightful collection of stories titled ‘Grandfather’s Tiger Tales’. One of the silver linings that children may have found during the time they were cooped at home and schools were closed were the joys of being told a story. I’m not sure how many Grandfathers are still around and not shunted off to some old-age home and whether children still pester them for stories, but Anjana’s stories will strike a chord across three generations. Rohan’s Dadubhai is a gentleman shikari and the teller of tales in this book.
Driving down Gurusaday Dutt Road, one would hear the crack-crack of cricket balls, cries of ‘Howzzat’ just before one saw figures in white flannels racing across the greens of the Calcutta Cricket & Football Club (CCFC). If you had the right connections, you could sprawl in a chair and watch the game from the marquee. In Anjana’s story a tiger did come to watch the cricket match (the story is authenticated by the venerable old Club’s records). His reaction when confronted with cricket bats? You’ll have to read the story to find out.

Anjana’s flying machine then takes us to the Sunderbans where we meet a sad little fellow called Dukhi whose search for adventure nearly lands him into the hungry jaws of the fierce tiger-god Dakshin Ray. There is of course, a vile and scheming uncle who nearly offers him as sacrifice. At the denouement of this tale – the entire celestial family consisting of Bon Bibi and her brother Shah Jongoli, complete with magical weapons – comes to the rescue and in the process teaches the denizens of Sunderbans a lesson in co-existence. Anjana’s protagonists – one must remember – are ardent conservationists as well.

Those who are used to ghosts in Anjana’s books will find one here too, in the third and last story in the collection. This true story is actually bizarre incident and though there are ghost tigers – they have a cameo appearance when compared to the actual one that settled in for the night in a poor man’s hut. The author’s depiction of the honey gatherers, those who eke out a living in tiny huts at the mercy of tigers, cyclones and floods amid the deteriorating and fragile ecosystem is a very authentic one.

Reading the book one is at first intrigued, then amused and somewhat nostalgic. Then one is transported to the land where deities arrived on winged horses and justice is meted out for tigers and humans alike. The final story is pure pathos – set in the backdrop of a cyclone and a man who either went out of his body or out of his mind, who knows? 

As always, the cover illustration and the drawings are enchanting as is Anjana’s commitment to spinning a good yarn for youngsters.

(Vijayluxmi Bose taught at the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi, India for 11 years. A health communication specialist by profession, she has published in peer-reviewed journals)