Cradle of the Clouds

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About the Book I DANCED AND PRANCED AS I SANG AND DECLAIMED IN THE GLISTENING, LIFE-GIVING RAIN. I RAN AND LEAPT AND PIROUETTED. I SHOUTED AND EXULTED LIKE ONE POSSESSED... I FELT LIKE A SPRITE, ONE WITH THE ELEMENTS-THE FIELDS, THE HEDGES, THE TREES, THE RILLS, THE RAINS, THE CLOUDS, AND THE STARS.'

In the Penhari Parganas, a district in pre-Independence Bengal, a young man prepares to leave for Calcutta. Amidst apprehensions, and warnings about the perils of the big city, he revisits his adolescence-his search for a profession among carpenters, watch- repairers and potters, all of whom advise him to become a scholar instead; a summer spent teaching Santali children, and his first exciting brush with love at the school; a foolhardy pony-ride which broke his back; and his intense re-enactment of the legend of Lord Balaram and his plough which ended a harsh drought and brought rain.

Reminiscent of the Puranas and the great epics, full of diverse characters and digressions which seamlessly combine into one rich whole, Cradle of the Clouds paints a vivid picture of a child growing up in an Indian village.

About the Author Sudhindra Nath Ghose (1899-1965)-best known as Sudhin Ghose-was born in Bardhaman in Bengal. He moved to Europe as a student in the 1920s where he first studied science and art history before completing a doctorate in literature. Though he spent his entire writing career in the West, Sudhin Ghose, like his contemporaries Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao, based his work on India, drawing material from the villages and towns of Bengal. An impeccable prose stylist and a master of sprawling narratives which draw inspiration from myths, fables, legends and epics, Sudhin Ghose is among the greatest writers in Indian English literature.

Sudhin Ghose wrote journalistic pieces, a scholarly tract, and three volumes of Indian folktales apart from the work for which he is best remembered: a quartet of novels comprising And Gazelles Leaping (1949), Cradle of the Clouds (1951), The Vermilion Boat (1953) and The Flame of the Forest (1955).