Unforgettable depictions of turn-of-the-century Bengal
All Bengalis--the ones who read novels at any rate--are familiar with the broad outlines of Saratchandra Chattopadhyay's life. Born into rural poverty--poor as only the rural poor can be in Bengal--in Devanandapur on 15 September 1876, a village in West Bengal meant that it instilled in him a lifelong empathy, or perhaps the more appropriate term would be solidarity, with Bengal's dispossessed and marginal classes. He was almost entirely self-taught. After spending some of his youth in Bhagalpur and Muzaffarpur. Saratchandra left for Burma in 1903, and it was from there that he began to send his stories and novels to magazines in Kolkata. Sensitive and daring, Saratchandra's writings almost immediately earned him an adoring readership, and he soon became Bengal's most popular novelist. Saratchandra returned to Kolkata in 1916, and dedicated himself to writing. He is also famous for being India's first successful professional writer--an author who earned his entire livelihood only from writing, whose income solely derived from writing. Saratchandra died in 1938.
Srikanta recounts the story of a man with a wanderlust who is an acute observer of people as well, and it is through them--especially the women he encounters, the women who make up the heart of the story aside from the main character Srikant, ranging from the sacrificing Annada Didi and the rebellious Abhaya to the housewife Rajlakshmi and the courtesan Pyari Bai--that he attempts to arrive at an understanding of life. Devdas, on the other hand, is the tragic tale of a man who drinks himself to sickness and death when he is unable to marry his childhood sweetheart Paro. In Parineeta (Espoused, and here perhaps the title has been deliberately chosen to retain the flavour of the old vanished order), the orphaned Lalita is secretly in love with her guardian Shekhar, but circumstances conspire to drive the two apart. Palli Samaj (The Village Life) has Ramesh, an engineer, coming back home to the village of his birth to try and rid it of the backwardness, even as he tries to revive his childhood ties with Rama, now widowed. In Nishkriti (Deliverance), the strong-willed Shailaja, the youngest daughter-in-law in a joint family, is made an outcast as a result of a misunderstanding; much later, her elders realize their mistake, just in time to save the family from falling apart.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Each of the novels showcases the qualities Saratchandra is famous for everyday stories told in a simple yet gripping style, strong characters, meticulous plotting, true-to-life dialogue, and unforgettable depictions of life in turn-of-the-century Bengal, as can be seen in the extract published below. These translations, done especially for Penguin, should broaden his readership even more.
Aruna Chakravarti is principal of Janki Devi Memorial College, Delhi. Her translation of Srikanta was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award. Her novel The Inheritors (reviewed in these pages last year) was published in 2004.
Sreejata Gupta has translated the writing of Saratchandra, Tagore and Taslima Nasrin.
Malobika Chaudhuri's translation of Parineeta was published independently in 2005.
Farhad Ahmed is a free-lance editor/translator.
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