Nalin Verma’s much awaited book The Greatest Folk Tales of Bihar is out now, drawing the attention of varied readers—academics, folklorists and common people.
Firmly grounded in Indian village life with characters—humans, animals, birds, gods, ghosts and demons, The Greatest Folk Tales of Bihar is an enchanting read to draw you into the world of its own.
Verma’s The Greatest Folk Tales of Bihar is preceded by the Gopalganj to Raisina—My political Journey, a memoir of Bihar leader and RJD President, Lalu Prasad Yadav which has been a runaway success dominating the bookstores all across India and several parts of the world. Both of his books have been published by the Rupa Publications India
Praising the book, highly respected author, diplomat and former Rajya Sabha MP, Pavan Varma says, “Folktales constitute the very valuable part of the intelligible heritage of India, but are under the grave threat as we hurl towards a new definition of ‘modernism’. Nalin Verma’s highly readable book that retells the folk tales of Bihar is, therefore, a most creditable and relevant attempt to take up back to our roots and retrieve what is in great danger of being lost”.
Acclaimed author and Roving Editor of The Telegraph, Sankarshan Thakur says, “For its sheer thought and effort, this is a stellar act......These are not merely stories, these are gems of our heritage that would have wasted away had Nalin not so passionately and painstakingly shored them up for us and our coming generation”.
An Assistant Editor with The Hindu, Amarnath Tewary writes, “Narration, characters, plot, structure, description and persuasion in these folktale stories are like anything the English kids might have grown up with reading in Cinderella, Snow White, The Golden Goose, Housel and Gretel stories. Verma has let his imagination fly without being frightened with experiment. For him, I guess, writing becomes an art when it comes from the heart”.
Though Nalin Verma has drawn stories them from his life spent with cowherds, shepherds and agriculturists in the mud fields of his small village—thrown carelessly on the map of Bihar-- the stories contain universal human values. They will satisfy the curiousity of the generation next youths living in America, England, Caribbean nations, Mauritius and several other parts of the of the world about the life and culture of their ancestors who migrated decades and centuries ago.
At the same time the book is a painstaking effort at rescuing the stories that are dying with the change of time. It contains several of the rare stories that were never the part of the recorded history but lived down the villagers’ lips from generation to generation. They stand endangered in the storm of change today.
Nalin’s literary agency The Book Bakers and its chief, Suhail Mathur—himself a novelist and an editor of great repute—too said, “We at the Book Bakers are proud to have represented the book which presents the stories that entertained the audience for centuries in the hinterlands but are on deathbed today due to fast paced changes taking place in our society”.
Nalin’s association with THE BIHAR TIMES too is as old as The Bihar Times is. Nalin has been the founding columnist of this portal. The Bihar Times has countless readers across the globe who have enjoyed reading him over the years. His story on a village cowherd, Sukath Choudhary on this portal had fuelled debate among the Oxford University scholars and was later reproduced by the NATIONAL GEORGRAPHIC magazine.
We at the Bihar Times are extremely excited to introduce Nalin’s upcoming Book. The book can been purchased on the following link:
https://www.amazon.in/Greatest-Tales-Bihar-Nalin-Verma/dp/9353336627/ref=sr_1_2?qid=1571670801&refinements=p_27%3ANALIN+VERMA&s=books&sr=1-2
