Chuck and Geck - down memory lane again

Wow!!! To read this story after nearly 30 years!! The magic was all still there.
I could almost smell the fir trees, feel the deep snow under my feet, glimpse the bears and wolves far off and see the long stream of steam trailing behind the train as it snaked thru the crystal clear Taiga morning.

Thanks to my friend Seema, who seems as much excited as I am by the quest for classics and my childhood favourite books, I managed to get hold of a volume of short stories by Arkady Gaidar. And Chuck and Geck (I had thought this was Chuk and Gek earlier- thanks to having read the version in phonetic Malayalam) is one of the gems in this book. Now I can hardly wait to finish the rest of the stories.

Seema managed this amazing feat with her usual flair- she just bullied some of her bookstore owner friends- and out pops the volume in 2 weeks flat. What I have been looking for, for the last 25 years!!

I had spent so much time in my childhood reading up Russian and other erstwhile Soviet states’ folk tales that Chudo-Yudo, Baba-Yaga and the Russian Bogatyrs, not to mention Ivan the brave and Vassilisa the beautiful had become as much part of my imaginary world as Vishnu, Shiva, Asuras, Devas etc. To be able to read these stories from the USSR from around 1935-1945 would be a great treat.

Thanks Seema.

History, Mythology et al

Apart from classics, my other passion are history and mythology. From the time I was a boy of 4, I was fascinated by stories of Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma, Devas, Asuras etc. I used to listed wide eyed when my grandmother used to narrate stories of celestial intrigue, incarnations of Vishnu, jealousies of goddesses, of brave and strong warriors and powerful sages. Somewhere this laid the foundation for a deep rooted love for understanding different cultures and their evolution. A little older, I started reading up other mythologies- Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Nordic, Celtic, Teutonic, Red Indian, Mexican etc. etc. Most of the reading initially was in translated Malayalam books (I studied in Malayalam medium schools till 15) There was an author called Mali who used to write these stories in Malayalam. Reading these was my obsession. Having read these,the next step was to try and understand from what historical and cultural contexts these stories emerged. So I started reading up history.
My father once quoted to me from the famous speech of Mark Antony in Julius Caesar. It was fascinating, how standing alone against an unruly mob, the man used his wits and his smooth tongue and turned the crowd around. I decided to read Skakespeare. Unabridged. I was 12, from a village where no on ever spoke even a word of English, having never conversed even once in English and I was attempting William Shakespeare - unabridged. I loved it - the archaic English - thou, thee, methinks, sirrah- but it took me a whole week to finish Julius Caesar. The next step was obvious- Antony and Cleopatra. Then came all the historical ones- assortment of King Henries and King Richards. A whole new vista was opening up.
English literature and History always fascinated me. Maybe because of the close ties with India.
Today I have a small library at home (Jayu, my wife keep complaining that we are running out of space at home) made up mostly of history, mythology and classics. (and science and science fiction- more about that later)
I work for HP as a director. I come across many people of different nationalities. It is fun to constantly amaze them with just how much more I know about their cultural and historic roots than they themselves do!!