3 Review(s)

Written in a compelling story-telling style, ‘Raja, Jungle and Black Moon’ is the translation of a well-known Hindi novel, ‘Raja, Jangle aur Kala Chand’. This tale of Bastar is an old story that begins in the 13th Century. The Raja who reached Bastar, one of the most secluded jungles, an abode of the primitive tribes of our time, had to become the king of that area – a place wherein the local dialect didn’t even have the word ‘king’ in it. The small, princely kingdom of Bastar was destined to have a dramatic end due to its endless desires and greed for power and wealth. It was the threshold for the beginning of a new era of the uprising of the people of Bastar against the British rule, against injustice and the acceptance of their King or Raja as the ruler of Bastar. Rendered in English by a well-known translator, Naresh ‘Nadeem’, this novel is a long saga of many small intertwined interesting stories of Bastar. This story presents the sufferings, pain, simplicity and happenings in the world of the Bastar tribes, using short affluent sentences combined with the flair of pure story-telling, to make their life, values and their way of living understandable to a common reader.