At the 208th anniversary of the birth of Danish fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen (1805- 1875), three Indian literary critics have taken a look at the contemporary relevance of Andersen's work through the columns of local daily The Telegraph on Wednesday.

Anusua Mukherjee, a Kolkata-based critic, traced the parallels between the characters of Andersen's fairy tales and his own life story.

She specifically talked about his world renowned tale "The Ugly Duckling" and suggests that the "ugly duckling" is a portrayal of Anderson himself with his humble proletariat origins who was nevertheless determined to succeed and join in the ranks of the rich, suave and sophisticated "swans". "Being a favourite of Europe's aristocrats, he spent holidays in palaces, walked arm in arm with the grand duke at the Ettersburgh Castle in Weimar, conserved with kings and queens, and also with princes of the artistic world like Victor Hugo, Heinrich Heine, Mendelssohn, Schelling and Dickens. Yet ambition, which had landed him in the glittering drawing rooms of royalty, came with the same Giddiness who attends upon the Ice Maiden (or death) in Andersen's tale of that name", she said.

But ultimately it is Andersen's seer like vision that makes him discover joy and beauty in the smallest of things and put forth the cruelties of life -- violence, death, torture to the page for his little readers in a sensitive, sympathetic and imaginative light, concluded Anusua.

Uddalak Mukherjee, another Kolkata-based critic, analyzed the role of "fantastic" and "other worldly" in Hans Christian Andersen 's fairy tales and argued that children are more receptive to the bizarre, the irrational, the other worldly phenomenon as compared to their adult counterparts.

Uddalak pointed out how the make belief world of a nightingale with a dulcet voice, a spinning top that fell in love with a ball, a daisy that befriended a bird and the one legged tin soldier who had set sail on a paper boat are taken by the children in a matter of fact way.

The third Kolkata-based critic, Nayantara Mazumdar, argued that Andersen pioneered the style of writing children's stories that interwove comedy, satire, philosophy and social critique meant for adult readers. She places children's writers like Roald Dahl and JK Rowling in the league of Andersen whose stories are widely read by adults as well.

She further detailed how Andersen's stories function at multiple levels -- they can be read as simple stories of thrill and adventure by children but "for the astute reader they bubble with characters culled from his own life and travels".

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