I have long been a fan of Vikram Seth, that apart, this is positively Seth’s most enjoyable work and surprisingly not in the list of reviews on MS. It’s probably not as celebrated as A Suitable Boy or publicized as An Equal Music or Two Lives but among all the novels, novels in verse, poems and librettos, this somehow always stands out.
No one my age would have gotten past 7th grade without parroting Seth’s’The Frog and the Nightingale’ in Book A of English in CBSE curriculum. Beastly tales…is a compilation of some of the authors’ short tales in verse, one of which is the above mentioned. I read it in my early teens, when VS was neither Indian Literatures OTHER golden boy nor had Booker Glory created a feeding frenzy in the Indian backyard. It stuck with me and years later I accidentally picked up the book and have ever since returned to it time and again.
It begins as always with an interesting introduction(lovers of A Suitable Boy please remember the fantabulous contents page) by the Author talking about the history of the 10 poems published under the title. Apparently they are his take on Indian, Chinese, Ukranian and Greek mythological/local lore. Two though, we are told have traveled directly’from the land of GUP’.
The Jataka inspired CrocodileandtheMonkey sets the tone with:
‘On the Ganga’s greenest isle, Lived Kuroop the crocodile:
Greeny-brown with gentle grin, Stubby legs and scaly skin,
He would view with tepid eyes, Prey below a certain size –
But when a substantial dish, -Dolphin, turtle, fatter fish –
Swam across his field of view, He would test the water too.
There is also the authors version of the very well known The Hare and the Tortoise(we all know the moral there) the fabulous tale of friendship in The Cat and the Cok., a David v/s Goliath in The Eagle and the Beetle and many more. The last The Elephant and the Tragopan is a LONG tale of animals…humans prime among them, and their greed for ‘development’.
My personal favourite though has always remained the wonderfully childlike ’The Frog and the Nightingale’. Sample this:
Once upon a time a frog, Croaked away in Bingle Bog
Every night from dusk to dawn, He croaked awn and awn and awn
Other creatures loathed his voice, But, alas, they had no choice,
And the crass cacophony, Blared out from the sumac tree
At whose foot the frog each night, Minstrelled on till morning night.
They make good reading for anytime and any place.
These are also available in audio book form(in Naseeruddin Shahs voice in Karadi tales) and absolutely a great gift for children too.
There are morals, if you have the liking for those but read them for the freshness and simplicity.