Sumanta Banerjee Marx adda

In one part of the recently translated Spooky Encounters, Sumanta Banerjee chats with the picnicking ghostly Marx and Engels about Indian food in London:

‘Fish-and-chips has almost disappeared from the scene. Its exclusive position has been now taken over by chicken-tikka-kebab!’

They glanced at each other in sheer astonishment and said, ‘Really?’

Moor spoke with his usual fervour: ‘We must get to taste your food. But can we find the genuine stuff here? Most likely we will have to go to youir Calcutta to sample them.‘”

P25

I am so very pleased to see this and would have happily used it as a preface to my essay ‘Marx in Calcutta’ in City. Seems like we have always been tempting Marx with Mishti Doi:

https://hutnyk.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/marx-in-calcuttacity2018.pdf

4 thoughts on “Sumanta Banerjee Marx adda

  1. I’ve just this minute finished reading the book and am impressed to find it is translated by the woman who as a girl was Durga in Satyajit Ray’s “Panther Panchali”. Excellent to know she went on to do such things, since so many will have grieved for her on screen demise. Well, I did – and defy anyone to not shed a tear at the end of the first time they watch that film. This feels like a reprieve of sorts. – her name is Shampa Banerjee. Long life.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Uma Das Gupta played the grown-up ‘Durga’. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0201871/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t4
    Did Shampa Banerjee play a younger version of her?

    I was more heartbroken with Durga’s death when I read the book (when I read it, me and my elder sister were roughly of the same age as the characters). Her on-screen death was just a rerun.

    I am trying to locate a copy of the Bengali original of this book. Failing which, I have to settle for the English translation. :(

    Like

Comments are closed.

Up ↑