Review and other information below

 

A tantric guru, an autorickshaw driver who speaks in Sanskrit, a crooner called Napoleon singing in a bar in Calcutta's Waterloo street, book publishers with a sinister agenda, a detective who is losing his mind, an author of bestselling pop-fiction, spooks and salesmen come together in these tales offering a glimpse of strangeness, absurdity and improbabilities that seep unnoticed into everyday existence. The stories while plot driven foreground the spiritual vacuum of the present using satire, wit and sometimes black humour. A critic writing for the Bengali magazine Ekak Matra has written that these stories , `transport us to a symbolic plane of existence, perched between the possible and the impossible'.

ক্যালকুলাস (Calculus)
(Short stories and a novella in Bengali)
Gangchil 2014
ISBN: 978-93-84002-03-9
Book description in English

পলিটিক্স পেলে অবশ্যই পড়বেন 

রজত চৌধুরীর ছোটগল্প সংকলন ক্যালকুলাস’, গাংচিল 


আশিস চট্টোপাধ্যায়


সবাই কি দিবাস্বপ্ন দেখে? তাতেই বিভোর হয়ে থাকে কিছুক্ষণ? এমন কি কোনও কথা আছে আছে যে লাথি-ঝাঁটা খাওয়া ভাঙাচোরা মানুষেরাই জাগা স্বপ্নে বিভোর হয় বেশি? জানি না বাবা। কিন্তু এটা জানি, ঠিক দপুর বেলা, সময় যখন থমকে থাকে, কাছে-দূরে নানা আওয়াজের মাঝেও জেগে জেগেই স্বপ্নে ডুব দিতে বেশ লাগে। বাহ্যিক শব্দ-টব্দ কমে আসে, ডুব দেওয়া যায় রূপসাগরে। লেখক কী ভেবে লিখেছেন জানি না, কিন্তু রজত চৌধুরীর ‘ক্যালকুলাস’ ওঁর ইংরেজি উপন্যাসগুলো পরে কখন আলোচনা করা যাবে। পড়তে পড়তে কেন যেন মনে হল, অসম্ভব আর সম্ভবের মাঝামাঝি একটা প্রতীকী অস্বিত্বে ঢুকে পড়েছি। বেশ লাগছে। 

সাতটি লেখা। সবক’টিই ফিকশন। প্রথমটা, যেখানে কুলাস নামের প্রাণীদের সঙ্গে বহির্জগতের পরিচয় করিয়ে দেওয়া হয়েছে, সেটা অনেকটা ভূমিকার মতো। আমি কিন্তু এটাকেও ফিকসন বলছি। কুলাসরা অটোরিক্সা চালাতে চালাতে সংস্কৃতে কথা বলছে, এরকম একটা শুভদিনের কথা কোন ক্যাল-বাসী না ভাবে। যত ভাবে, তত, যাকে বলে কঠোর বাস্তবে, অটো-কুলাসদের ভাষায় বিন্যাস সংস্কৃত থেকে দূরে চলে যায়, আরও আরও দূরে। দারুণ দিবাস্বপ্ন, কিন্তু যা-ই বলেন। শুধু এটাই কুলাসদের পরিচয় নয়, আরও আছে। তবে যেহেতু এটাও একটা গল্পই বটে, তাই আর না ভাঙাই ভাল। 
দু-পাতার ক্যালকুলাসের কাচ্চাবাচ্চা ছাড়াও রয়েছে কয়েকটি গল্প। একটা বেশ বড় গল্প। যেটাকে ছোট উপন্যাসও বলা যায়।রিড Read the full review published by Ekak Matra.

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