Meri Pahadi Va Anya Kahaniyan is a collection of eight stories in Hindi for teenagers. All the stories deal with the heroic, exemplary deeds of the protagonists that would certainly enthuse young readers to do similar things if chance arises. The authors have kept the language simple and made contemporary issues interesting for the readers.
The first story in this collection is ‘Aaj ka Bhagirath’. As we all know, Bhagirath brought the river Ganga from the Himalayas to the plains of North India after doing hard penance. The protagonist in the story by Sanjiv Jaiswal, ‘Sanjay’, does something similar to ease the water problem in his village set in Rajasthan where people are having a hard time fetching water from a hillock. The son of the headman of the village resolves the water problem with grit and determination and earns the title of a modern Bhagirath from the villagers.
‘Roshni ki Nayee Kiran’ by Suryalata Jaiswal deals with a boy Amit who raises very pertinent questions about the harnessing of solar power in his class and earns the respect of his physics teacher as well as his classmates. The story then goes on to describe the boy’s struggles in proving his ideas and how the teacher helps him achieve his goals despite his travails. The story is a bit grim but an interesting read.