My Dad has an earlier edition. He read it way back in 1976 and he still has the copy. I first read Tagore's stories when i was 11, and found this book in Dad's collection. Loved all. Esp, The Kabuliwallah, The Postmaster. His stories have such a profound influence on the reader. They are simple, yet touching always leaving us to think more long after reading them.
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Many of the stories explore similar themes, of a good, hard-working but poor boy being bullied by his richer peers until he dies, and then it is revealed that the rich boy was unknowingly his cousin. ( )

This is a beautiful collection of short stories. Although the stories are somewhat driven by fates, the protagonists are original in their actions, and the themes linger in mind long after I put them down. Tagore has great insight in human psyche and behavior. ( )

"Small lives, humble distress, Tales of humdrum grief and pain", November 23, 2014

This review is from: Selected Short Stories (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)
Containing thirty very short stories, often only about six pages long, yet for all their brevity the author completely wraps you up in the world and the events.
Set in and around the River Padma (near Calcutta) in the late 19th century, Tagore writes of the ordinary people: deaths and marriages, children, poverty, the rich, the mean, the avaricious... Plus a couple with a ghostly touch. It's an era where women are definitely second-class-citizens; especially if they fall ill, when their husbands may well seek another wife; where the Hindus live alongside a Moslem population and the English governors....and where the river is a constant backdrop with its luxory houseboats and its monsoon flooding.
The collection includes a poem, 'Passing Time in the Rain' (from which I have taken title of this review) and a selection of letters written by Tagore. Also a comprehensive glossary of Hindu terms encountered, a family-tree of family and map of Padma River area.
Masterly storytelling, enhanced by a superb translation. ( )

I love India, and I love much that Tagore has written, but I also found a lot of these so depressing that they were not enjoyable. ( )