I first read Heidi, the widely popular story of a little girl and her grandfather in the Swiss Alps, in Bengali translation. I was eight, of the same age as Heidi. And I really, really, loved the book. The translation was excellent and had aptly brought out the beauty and serenity of the mountains, the sense of exhileration the girl felt among nature and her loneliness in a big city mansion where she was taken away. I did not read it in English later, as I did with some other novels.
But yesterday, at a screening of a movie based on it (organized by the Swiss Embassy at Oxford Bookstore), I could remember every dialogue and was feeling as happy as my eight-year-old self. It is just another children's book. So why do so many people like it so much? Probably many of us have a Heidi hiding inside us. We are stuck in a stifling situation, made of social obligations, rules and "system", and all we want is to break free and seek another life, somewhere else. Anyway, sorry for philosophizing and thanks to the friends who told me about the screening and went with me for it. (Pic: grandpa's cottage)
But yesterday, at a screening of a movie based on it (organized by the Swiss Embassy at Oxford Bookstore), I could remember every dialogue and was feeling as happy as my eight-year-old self. It is just another children's book. So why do so many people like it so much? Probably many of us have a Heidi hiding inside us. We are stuck in a stifling situation, made of social obligations, rules and "system", and all we want is to break free and seek another life, somewhere else. Anyway, sorry for philosophizing and thanks to the friends who told me about the screening and went with me for it. (Pic: grandpa's cottage)
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