Výbor z povídkové tvorby Suníla Gangopádhjáje (*1934), jenž patří k nejpublikovanějším a nejoblíbenějším současným bengálským spisovatelům. Je autorem zhruba 250 knih všech žánrů, ale právě ve svých povídkách dosahuje podle západních měřítek světové úrovně. V tomto výboru se autor představuje jako vynikající pozorovatel pestrého světa současné Indie. Ocitneme se v prostředí hinduistickém i muslimském, na vesnicích, maloměstech i ve velkoměstské Kolkatě, mezi spořádanými Bengálci, ale i mezi levicovými teroristy, zloději a prostitutkami.
Those Days (Bengali: সেই সময়) is a historical novel by Sunil Gangopadhyay set in 19th centruy Bengal against the backdrop of the Bengal Renaissance and the 1857 uprising.. It was first published as a serialized novel in the Bengali literary magazine Desh. Gangopadhyay won the Sahitya Akademi Award for the novel in 1985.The story centers around the life of Nabinkumar (character based on Kaliprasanna Singha), along with legendary historical figures including Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, the reformer; Michael Madhusudan Dutt, the poet; the father and son duo of Dwarkanath Tagore and Debendranath Tagore; Harish Mukherjee, the journalist; Keshab Chandra Sen, the Brahmo Samaj radical; David Hare and John Bethune, the English educationists; Dinabandhu Mitra, the playwright; Radhanath Sikdar, the mathematician; Bhudev Mukhopadhyay, the novelist; and others.Yugantar, an Indian television series that aired on DD National in the 1980s, was based on Sei Somoy. The novel was translated into Gujarati by Uma Randeria as Nava Yugnu Parodh (2002).
He lay flat against the bed of wet earth and fallen leaves and stared at the sky. He felt euphoric, lying totally naked inside the forest. Baring the body had achieved baring of the soul. Set in the turbulent 1960s Days and Nights in the Forest (Aranyer Dinratri) was the second novel that a young Sunil Gangopadhyay wrote. Largely autobiographical, it is the story of a whimsical, impromptu journey that four city youths — Ashim, Sanjoy, Shekhar and Robi — take into the forests of Palamau. The four friends blithely imagine that their escapade into the wilderness will distance them from ‘civilization’ and take them closer to pristine nature. In reality, the solitude and austere majesty of the forest force them to look deeply into themselves and confront their all-too-human follies and ‘civilized’ foibles in new, unexpected and frightening ways. As they hear the ominous sound of one tree after another being felled, encounter mercenary traders bent on milking the forest for all it is worth, and see the simmering unrest flickering in the eyes of the tribal inhabitants, they are compelled to look well beyond their own time to a plundered and violated world where the forest can never be a pastoral utopia —a world that is, inexorably and inescapably, our own. They return to Calcutta ineffably changed — sadder, older, more introspective.
