Book Review: The speaking ghost of Rajpur by Priyonkar Dasgupta

Ghost anecdotes with a Bengali touch!

The Speaking Ghost of Rajpur

Author: Priyonkar Dasgupta

Publisher: Thought Balloon Books

Rating: 3.5/5

Remember those wonderful days of Enid Blyton and Ruskin Bond books? Those were the days that successfully blew away the cobwebs. But alas! The sweet pleasures of life do not last for long. With the increase in the number of authors and their debutants, the only hope that the readers can have is to wish for a genre and a story that really is out of the box.

‘The speaking ghost of Rajpur’ is the first novel by Priyonkar Dasgupta, who hails from Kolkata. With this book, the author has successfully proved his caliber. Writing with the heart of a child is not a piece of cake. But Priyonkar has aced the test. The book appeals to the light- hearted people like me who prefer reading books that are picaresque.

The story begins with lucid and simple narration of the events. With exemplary vocabulary, the first person narration by the protagonist- Shoumo, acts like a cherry on the cake. Shoumo is a cordial teenager, who seeks solace in his brother, Shoumik’s company. Shoumik, unlike Shoumo, is an intrepid kid who seeks adventure. It is when these boys meet in the city of Rajpur and decide to spend their summer holidays in a unique way that the things change from being funny to being supernatural.

The plot is woven finely, but the lengthy descriptions acted as a speed blocker for me. The characters have been given due weight age and the chronological selection of events is also good. Amidst, minor punctuation errors and a different (not so legible) font, the story is one that helps you reminiscence the childhood.