Book Review : Nirmala (The Second Wife) by Premchand

                                                     

'The Second Wife' a famous novel originally written in Hindi by Munshi Premchand  and translated by  David Rubin in English . In this novel writer described about social evils present in the society against women as dowry system, widow marriage, female as property of male, her exploitation and early marriage etc. It is a story of girl who dreams for her future life in thoughtless fantasies but his fortune didn’t allow these.

As title given by Premchand suggests, a woman is in leading role in this novel. The leading character is a girl whose first marriage was cancelled due to dowry reasons and then she was married to a man about 20 year older than her. Her husband has three children from his first marriage. His eldest son is about of the same age as her. She respects her husband but doesn’t feel comfortable to share her feelings with him. Her husband also tries to persuade her but all in vain. Nirmala feels comfortable with his children and is very affectionate towards them. So she spends her most of time with children. Seeing this Totaram, her husband suspects that something not good is happening between her and his son. When the son knows about this, he can’t bear this so died in grief. At this point destruction of the family starts. Both the other sons runs away from the house and finally she also dies in sorrow.

Author has specially emphasized on dowry system in society. he has started this novel with the preparation for marriage of a girl. Her father and mother are busy in arranging all requirements for dowry. After this due to her father’s death her becoming in-laws refuses to marry her because now they think they can’t get much in dowry. Her marriage was also fixed to an old aged man due to dowry reasons.

The translator David Rubin has given a title ‘The Second Marriage’. All the good or bad happening in this novel is due to widow marriage, the second marriage. All downfalls in his family occurs after coming of Nirmala in his house. Nowhere Nirmala and her husband are wrong. Nirmala, being a step mother, has to do everything in favor of his (Totaram’s) sons because otherwise she would have to hear sarcasms from the society people.

Premchand has written the whole story in a very interesting way without using difficult words such that after reading everyone thinks about the story again and again and try to realize the characters. He has used realism narrative stand for describing all these things. All the events in this novel are harsh realities of life and society. The theme of novel is social evils and how common are they in the society. It is a tragedy.

Nirmala plays a role of a housewife, the second wife of Totaram and step mother. Becoming second wife of an old aged man, initially she thinks this as her destiny but later the situations got worse and worse. The last statement of Nirmala before dying “I don’t know whom I sinned against in an earlier life that I have had to do this penance for. If I sowed in this life too then how would I find salvation?” is a heart touching statement. It shows the purity and nobleness of the heart of Nirmala.

At last I would like to say that novel is very good and interesting. Plot of novel is full of twists and side plots are also very good. Although it was written earlier in 20th century but issues described are most common today also. For me, Nirmala is a work of a great author. After reading this, I would like to suggest that it must be read.