Some books talk to the heart. The Alchemist is one example. It packages simple wisdom and highlights values precious to those who wish to live a life that is spiritual without being ritualistic or based on any single religion. Which is why despite the increasingly materialistic mindset humans tend to adopt, the book has consistently remained a best seller through decades.
Shyamchi Aie is to the reader of Marathi literature, what The Alchemist is to an entire universe of readers thanks to its various translated versions. The simply told stories that reach out to both children and adults, hold within them grains of truth that are perennial and can lead to where peace of mind and compassion walk hand in hand to pave the way for a better life. Sane Guruji’s home-spun wisdom has endured through two centuries and this translation may enlarge his reach to include young readers not only in India, but across the world.
Shanta Gokhale’s translation carries within it what I believe is the spirit of the original. The prose runs softly like a smooth flowing river that, even as it meanders its way through tricky terrain, manages to avoid any hurdles.
The short episodes, that are stories told every evening by Shyam to his young peers, centre around the simple wisdom contained in the life lessons his mother has taught him, through advice and example.
The stories range from the humorous to ones that are touched with sadness, but each narration has the power to hold the reader’s attention, and the simple style makes it acceptable to many levels of readers.
The rural backdrop of the book adds its own charm, and descriptions such as the one of a ‘night of crisp bright moonlight,’ when ‘the river in the distance looked like flowing silver’, transport the reader into a world far away from the chaos of urban living.
Shyam’s story-telling includes frequent personifications of Nature, as when he talks of the same river, as knowing no rest. ‘She only knows to keep flowing.
This is her prayer and it never stops. As she flows, she hums or gurgles with laughter, or turns playful or solemn, or even angry. The river,’ he adds, ‘is a profound mystery.’ The result is a lyrical and visually rich text that feeds the reader’s senses and fuels the imagination.
Stories are wound around simple everyday aspects of a way of life many of us have forgotten. The making of leaf cups, which were an environmentally friendly approach to the process of serving food and eating, becomes the base for a story on why one must undertake every task with dedication and concentration.
So, when Shyam resists having to join his family in making the plates and bowls they eat from, and does a shoddy job, a tack slips out while he is eating from a plate he has made and sticks in his throat. His mother tells him that he should make plates that anyone would enjoy eating from and till he learns to do that, he must eat out of the plates he makes.
It’s a simple lesson and safe advice, and soon results in Shyam making plates that draw admiring comments from his father. When his sister gives him an apricot, Shyam muses that it tasted very sweet, because ‘sweetness doesn’t belong entirely to the thing itself. It also comes from the work you have done to earn it. True happiness comes from doing the work well.’
As inspiring as the stories, is the foreword by Jerry Pinto, who speaks directly to the young reader who may have picked up the book to browse through it.
With the first few lines which begin with ‘Hi, I like you very much already. You are reading. That’s a good sign’, Jerry ensures his reader is motivated to read the book, at least one story at a time.
Keeping the reluctance of young readers towards a two-dimensional book, and with a view to weaning them away from multimedia the publishers have added tiny teasers on the back cover and a series of notes at the end of the book.
All told, a definite must-have book, to delve into when you want a quiet moment. A book to bond over as you read it around to younger folk, or leaf through at times when tough decisions need to be made. At such times, more likely than not, Shyamchi Aie will have a solution to offer. And it will come packed into a delectable story.