Of Pirs, Fakirs, Speaking Tigers and Bonbibi

Straightforward Indian fantasy, Needle at the Bottom of the Sea, which includes classic Bengali tales from the Sundarbans, teems with ghosts, fairies and gods

- Priyanka Sarkar

I come from a Hindu, Ghoti Bengali family (i.e., one native to West Bengal) that migrated to Rajasthan three generations ago. I moved to Delhi for college and stayed on for over 20 years and now live in Bengaluru. The world of the Sundarbans is far away from the worlds I have inhabited and I have never set foot there either. Most of the stories in this collection feature pirs and fakirs while, as a child, I grew up amid my grandmother's Shaktiism and grandfather's Vaishnavite faith. And yet, I can relate to the stories in this collection.

Why? Because they are about faith, honesty, virtue and bravery—fairly universal qualities. Although, that's not quite the end of it. Included here is a story, Wayward Wives and Their Magical Flying Tree, from Satya Narayaner Puthi of Kavi Vallabh. Our family continues to hold Satyanarayan paths at home and an uncle who is unabashedly right-wing is a great believer in Satyanarayan. In this book we find that Satyanarayan was Satya Pir. In fact, "All of the texts assert that Satya Narayan and Satya Pir were more than synonymous—they were simply two names for the same figure and were used interchangeably."