Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury (1863-1915) lived during the heyday of the Bengal Renaissance. The scion of an educated, cultured family, he tried his hand at, and cultivated many interests and was passionate about some of them. He was a writer, painter, musician, but more seriously, an innovative block-maker, printer and publisher who had been trained in the UK. He was an entrepreneur who started the publishing company U. Ray & Sons, and also launched the children’s magazine Sandesh that was later revived by his grandson, Satyajit Ray.
The two collections of Ray Chowdhury’s stories under review here are intended for younger children. Lila Majumdar said about these that ‘Upendrakishore has employed the everyday language used by middle class people and all children even now…’. In realistic, rural settings, there is the odd king or queen here and there, lording it over common people. Yet they have animals, birds, ghosts,