Ring of Panchatantra

GERMAN SHORT STORIES FOR INDIAN CHILDREN: Translated by R. Jawaharlal Paul; Pattakulam, Villupanoor Post, Srivilliputtur- 626138. Rs. 25.

THE BOOK under review, a collection of 18 German short stories, translated into English, have the ring of Panchatantra tales with a quotation or proverb at the end to drive home the moral to children.

In ``Dial 100 - call police'', a pair of binoculars gifted to Jennifer and her friend Monika are used as a communication tool by the young girls to nab a gangster who had taken away Rs. 50 lakhs from a bank.

In another story the chief of a large business firm on one of his rounds is infuriated to find one of his employees reading a newspaper and immediately sacked him paying him 500 marks as his monthly salary, only to be informed later that he was merely waiting for his receipt for the amount remitted at the cash counter and he was not employed by the firm after all.

``The costly hen'' shows how a miserly farmer's greedy wife kept up her ``promise'' made to her husband of donating the amount she obtained from selling one of her cows.

Similarly ``No pain no gain'' is all about how a family doctor, known for his goodness, had to pay a heavy price for his laziness. Equally interesting is the story ``Haste brings waste'' where the owner of a pretty car runs over a pet dog and offers to pay the owner of the dog with the gun 100 marks as compensation which is gladly received by him. But it turns out that the owner was taking his dog to the jungle not for hunting, but to kill it as it was sick. Yet another story tells how a little innocent mouse learns a lesson from the fat cat the hard way.

This slim volume could have been made better with tighter editing.

N. MEERA RAGHAVENDRA RAO

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