Call Of The Land

The First Two Novels Of The Quartet, Collected Here, Comprise A Brilliantly Idealized Portrait Of Childhood And Early Adolescence. And Gazelles Leaping Is A Fable About The Innocent Pleasures Of Childhood, And The Evils Of The World Which Forever Threaten It. An Orphan And His Pet, A Manipuri Elephant, And Their Friends—Heera And Her Nanny-Goat; Mazdoor And His Donkey White Beauty; Tu Fan, A Chinese Boy, And Soetomo From Java—Attend Sister Svenska’S Kindergarten On An Abandoned Estate In Rural Calcutta. However, Their Seemingly Idyllic Life Is Disrupted When A Rapacious Corporation From The Big City Swoops In To Take Over Their School. In Cradle Of The Clouds, A Young Man Prepares To Leave For Calcutta. Amidst Apprehensions And Warnings About The Perils Of The Big City, He Revisits His Adolescence: His Search For A Profession Among Carpenters, Watch-Repairers And Potters; A Summer Spent Teaching Santali Children; His First Brush With Love At School; And His Intense Re-Enactment Of The Legend Of Lord Balaram And His Plough Which Ended A Harsh Drought And Brought Rain.

This Omnibus Edition Of Two Timeless Coming-Of-Age Classics Is Heart-Warming, Enchanting—And, With Its Dream-Like Narrative And Compassion, An Alternative Reading Of Indian Reality In The Mid-Twentieth Century, When The Country Was Negotiating Change And Modernity.