The Observant Owl
by Kaliprasanna Sinha
translated by Swarup Roy
Black Kite/Permanent Black, 2007
At a time when Sanskritised Bengali was the accepted norm in literature, nakshas (sketches) broke new ground. Pioneered by Pyarichand Mitra (Tekchand Thakur), this genre was popularised by Kaliprasanna Sinha during the mid-19th century. Hootum Pyanchar Naksha (literally 'Sketches by Hootum the Owl') is a set of 10 satirical portraits, by Sinha, in Bengali of ordinary life in 19th-century Calcutta. The book is memorable both for its astute observations and razor-sharp satire that does not spare anyone – from the Brahmin to the untouchable, the housewife to the prostitute, the Bengali babu to the anglophile – including Hootum himself, the storyteller and the author.
Now translated into English by Swarup Roy, The Observant Owl is a brave and successful attempt at translating a 19th-century text – replete with colloquialisms, slang and idiomatic usage on the one hand, and culture-specific descriptions, innuendoes and comments on the other. Detailed footnotes and a comprehensive glossary enhance the translation to a great extent. Illustrations from that period, chosen carefully by Roy, make the sketches come alive.
The book includes a set of three interesting excerpts of reviews of Hootum Pyanchar Naksha that came out between 1862 and 1872. These give a glimpse of the responses to the book at the time, which, ironically, are laudatory and sharply critical of its crass colloquialism. The foreword by the Calcutta scholar Partha Chatterjee provides Sinha's biography – his works, along with the place that this collection of sketches occupied during a period that Chatterjee calls "early modernity in Calcutta, when new urban institutions, practices and arts were beginning to emerge that were not yet shaped by the forms of colonial modernity." While a wide range of characters have been meticulously sketched and attacked here, the nouveau riche are the main target throughout. Their indulgences include forgery, gambling and deception, all in the attempt to amass wealth.