Sweet stories

This week I had the pleasure of reading my first Telugu book of this year  – Poleramma Banda Kathalu by Mohammad Khadeer Babu. And God, what a book it is! It is a collection of 25 stories about 4 friends(boys) in their high school. The stories certainly make one nostalgic about one’s childhood and school days. And they are so hilarious. I usually read most of my books straight-faced, but I couldn’t stop chuckling to myself and often times laughed aloud while reading these awesome sweet stories.

These stories are in fact taken from the author’s life and can be considered as autobiographical.  All the stories take place in Kavali town of Nellore District and the title of the collection alludes to a landmark in the town.

The author has written the book in his native slang of Telugu (Nellore slang) and that makes the stories and also the characters all the more real (of course they are real, but what I meant to say is that the writing makes you connect to them more). Reading the book made me feel like I was watching the scenes from my window. My association with Nellore might also have helped. (Nellore has been my home town since I was in 9th grade.) 😛

It was very aptly compared to the modern Indian classic Swami and Friends by R K Narayan by one lady in the preface of the book.

I recommend this book to all Telugu readers. This one is not to be missed! And kudos to the author. He used to work for Andhra Jyothi (Newspaper & Weekly Magazine) at the time of writing these stories. I think he has also written another series of stories for the magazine, called Dargamitta Kathalu. I vaguely remember reading one of them long time back. Even though I don’t remember anything about it, I’m sure that series rocks too.