Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

 Tagore has wider acclaim as a poet and novelist but he was no less a master storyteller and these dozen stories are ample proof of it. This book shows the power that storytelling once had on children and is still a wonderful medium in times of smartphones and modern gadgets.

His stories convey a range of human emotions and traits such as love, compassion, longing, belonging, loyalty, false sense of vanity, sorrow, separation and reunion which seem like a roller coaster ride as the reader goes through these emotions as well.

Two things appear fairly consistent in his stories, the rural surroundings and that a child's imagination transcend boundaries and is not constrained by a sense of logic that adults have.

The stories point to Tagore's highlight of society of those times such as class and caste stratification and conditions of women who remained in the confines of the house. Those who have read his " My Boyhood Days' ' can see the reflection of Tagore's childhood in these stories.

The Kabuliwala may well be the most widely read among the bunch having become a part of school curriculum, however the last one, The Post Office, written as a play act, is my favourite.