Shankhatla Manus

Rangnath Pathare has a natural inclination to explore and experiment with the various possibilities of story construction. Very few writers in Marathi seem to have engaged with the short story by exploring its structural dimensions. For Pathare, a story is a quest for essence and an intense response to contemporary reality. It is also an expression of the life-and-death turmoil unfolding within oneself. This inner turmoil can be experienced in every story written by Rangnath Pathare. It draws readers deep into its vortex, taking them into the innermost recesses of thought and experience.

Pathare is taking the Marathi short story back to its original form. For those accustomed to conventional and traditional approaches to literary criticism, this kind of storytelling may be somewhat difficult to comprehend. However, when a reader encounters the story Gandhiji, September 11, 2001, fifty years from now, they may be able to appreciate the maturity and extraordinary creative genius of this writer.

Reading this collection makes it evident that Pathare has absorbed the storytelling tradition that evolved as a medium for transmitting knowledge through oral culture and is using it to create stories rooted in the soil and lived realities of this land.