In an interview on Bangladesh

Why did you choose Rabindranath Tagore’s Selection of Short Stories?

It’s a masterpiece and hugely read. If you go to any house in Bangladesh or West Bengal you will find a copy of this collection of stories. In it you will discover everything about the lives of Bengali families. It would be very unfair of me to single out one or two stories because it will undermine the others – the collection is so good.

Could you describe the plot of one story to give us a flavour?

If you insist, there is one story I’ll describe, called ‘The Wish’. A father tells his son that he must read and not play, and the boy doesn’t like this. The boy thinks if he could switch places with his father he would enjoy great freedom. And the father wants to be his boy, to enjoy youth again. The wish is granted, but suddenly the boy feels pain in his back and he has all sorts of problems. And the father, after so many years of freedom, finds himself being punished. It’s quite a funny story and also very interesting.

Was Rabindranath Tagore famous in his own lifetime?

Yes, he was a very famous man and he came from a very rich family. He had a home in Kolkata in India as well as a home in Bangladesh. He was one of the lucky few who didn’t have to worry about their bread and butter. He just wrote and what he produced was amazing.