ORANGES from NAGPUR and OTHER STORIES

 Authour : Krupa Sagar Sahoo. Translated from original Oriya by Monalisa Jena

Publisher : Kusumita Publications (Bhubaneswar) 2010, Pages 106

 

Excerpts :

( ) We who work in the Railways find it easier to get the fruit. You simply have to make a call and the basket of oranges would be delivered at your doorstep by the earliest express train by some employee of the Railways. A basket of oranges reached my home one morning, delivered by one of the staff. He left after taking money from me. That was the first basket of oranges we had that year.

          When I reached my office, there were some visitors from my village waiting for me, obviously seeking some favours. The village people are very naïve really, they cannot be convinced about the red-tapism of government functioning. I asked the person “ will you carry one basket, and hand it over to my father at the village ?” He was only to happy to be of help to me. I rang home, asking not to unpack the basket of oranges, as I was sending a vehicle to send it to father through Jagu. There was some rumbling, but it was done. There were angry scenes later at home, but they blew over by next day.

Next day on reaching home in the evening I saw that my sister and her children had arrived. I was very happy to see her as she had come for the first time.    My sister's husband is not well off financially, so my father keeps sending some things to her. When my basket of oranges reached him, he sent it to her home. She not wanting to come empty handed, had brought the basket as gift to me.

The oranges had come back in that sweet aroma of love. To me they appeared more fleshy, juicy and delectable.

( ) Bholanath Ghosh was the Station Master of Ledo Station which was a small hilly railway station on the Dibrugarh-Ledo section of the North East Frontier Railway. Bholanath was an ardent fan of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose,and used to scan the newspapers everyday to find even a slight mention of his hero. He spent his days in the nondescript small station in the hilly area, waiting for his hero’s homecoming.

          At the booking window there was an iron net with a small opening to collect the fare and hand over the tickets. Bholanath saw there was one gentleman at the window waiting to buy a ticket. He asked in a sombre voice, “Please give a ticket for Dibrugarh.”

          After taking the ticket from the ticket tube, Bholanath stared at the gentleman who was now searching through the folds of his chaddar to give him the money. Bholanath peered at his customer once again. In that faint light, he saw that the customer had a slightly balding head. He had a round face and wore spectacles and it seemed to him as if there were two streaks of bright light flowing out of those eyes.

============

My Take: The authour is a senior official in the Indian Railways, and the stories are based on his reminiscences of his village life in Dhenkanal district of Orissa and events in his railway career. He has written short stories, children’s books, novels, poems and travelogues in the Oriya language, and his works have been translated into Hindi, Bengali and English.

========

Subject type : Reminiscences

Narrative Style : Keeps up the interest

Readability : Good

Reader’s Interest : Average

========

 Available at

========

Available on Amazon  at the time of posting the blog

Available on Flipkart at the time of posting the blog

====

Would change depending on sale & stock. Check current availability and  price