Ray Bradbury and a podcast

Short stories aren’t for me. Or so I believed.

About a month back my sister, who is a great discoverer of wonderful podcasts, suggested I listen in to a short story podcast called Pannon ke Jharokhe (PKJ),

The host curates some of the best short stories from across the world and narrates them in Hindi. Tolstoy, Saki, O Henry, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, James Thurber – diverse authors, diverse genres, some familiar some I hadn’t ever heard of.

I had a bunch of reservations and began rather reluctantly.

‘I’m not one for short stories, I like my novels long and sprawling’, I thought.
Wrong.

I came to love them despite my definite preference for full-length novels. Just because I enjoy my paneer-roti-pulao-raita, doesn’t mean I’m not always up for a samosa.

‘Why should I listen to Hindi translations. I’ll just read the original‘.
Wrong again.

To begin with I’m not as great a curator of stories. Moreover, I’m enjoying the sweetness of my mother tongue even though I occasionally find myself translating the words into English. I have to confess though, I have looked up some stories in the original. Nothing wrong there, I am only increasing my reading repertoire.

‘I’ve already read most of the best ones‘. 
Wrong Wrong Wrong! Also, what conceit!

And that’s how the podcast became a part of my daily walk.

On to Ray Bradbury now

The first story I happened to pick at PKJ (again, at my sister’s insistence) was Ray Bradbury’s There Will Come Soft Rains. ‘It’s a story without characters’, said my sister and left me to puzzle that out. She wouldn’t tell me more, no matter how much I pleaded. ‘Listen to the story,’ she said cooly.

And so I did and I was hooked to the podcast, fully, completely. I could give you a synopsis but then where’s the fun in that? After all, I am my sister’s sister. Go listen to it. Or read it online (I am leaving links to all stories mentioned in the blogpost at the end).

That said, I was no stranger to Bradbury, having read his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451.  Read the review here.

I stumbled upon him again in my daughter’s English textbook with a story called All Summer in A  Day about a young girl on planet Venus where the sun hasn’t shown up for seven years.

Then I read another one called The Veldt. It’s a frightening tale about the dangers of technology, specifically television — how addictive it can be and the way it dulls our emotions. 

I recommend you read them all. They won’t take more than a few minutes of your time but will remain in your head for a long long while.

More about Bradbury

Reading about authors is one of my favourite leisure activities. I find it interesting because they have amazingly diverse journeys. And also because lady luck often plays a significant role in their lives.

I know not many share my enthusiasm so I’m picking five small snippets from Bradbury’s life and what I love about him.

1. As a tween Bradbury met a magician and was so inspired that all he wanted to do was follow in his footsteps. He says had he not become a writer, he would have been a magician.
   
2. Some magic certainly happened during that encounter because that’s when Bradbury started to write full time. In an interview he gave some 69 years later, he said, since that day, he had written every single day.
   What I’d give to meet that magician and be similarly inspired!
   
3. I love that Bradbury loved libraries. He said they were ideal for students with little or no money. It was in libraries that he spent much of his youth. He went there three days a week for ten years.
   Consistency seems to be his strong suit!
   
4. He won the O Henry award for his short story called Homecoming. Interestingly, after being rejected by a publication, Bradbury submitted it to another one called Mademoiselle. It would have remained in the slush pile there had it not been rescued by Truman Capote, which led to its publication and then the award. I love it when my favourite authors cross paths. Truman Capote is a well-known author himself (you must have heard of his short story Breakfast at Tiffany’s) and also, he was the childhood friend of another one of my favourite authors, Harper Lee. She is believed to have modelled the character of Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird on him.
   
5. Bradbury wrote science fiction stories but he believed in ‘humanistic science fiction’. He believed in being ‘human’ rather than ’mechanical’.

If you know and understand Hindi, I do hope you give the podcast a chance.

Link to the Spotify podcast Pannon Ke Jharoke

I hope you give Bradbury a chance too. Click on the links to sample his stories.
Caution: These stories are dystopian and have rather dark themes.

The Veldt

There Will Come Soft Rains

A Sound of Thunder

All Summer in a  Day