BOOK REVIEW:THE WATCHMAKER

BOOK REVIEW: THE WATCHMAKER

My meek attempt at a review of this book is akin to holding candle to the sun and expecting to shed some  light on the sun. What is love? What's its definition? What is it all about? Although this novel gives an incomplete idea about love but it can be considered as a tale of unrequited love. The author Nanak Singh has described a really tragic story into that sound way that you can’t forfeit reading it once you have started. The story spans a time period of about 4 years and marks its tragic end with a lament on Kedar’s death. This story starts with a show of deteriorating wealth and mounting problems of a former well known businessman Panna Lal. First and biggest problem that he was facing was of his daughter Veena’s marriage. As she was 15 then, which was the marriage age in those times .Recently he had received a letter from her future in laws which was a big blow on their dream to marriage their daughter in that family. After that letter Panna Lal became that hopeless that he seems death to be his only possible virtue. This incident gives us a fairly good glimpse of hypocrisy over girl’s marriage in those times that keeping a single rejected marriage in your account shatters every chance of getting a good boy again. Although to the irony, a boy with many unsuccessful proposals is considered to have no faults at all which we can easily link to the extent of gender discrimination pursued in our country.

The biggest clouds of sorrow fell on them when to fulfil the demands of Veena’s future in-laws he decided to borrow some money out of some discontent but found that he had already lost his job to a new comer Kedar who was a B.A. holder and could repair watch which was Panna Lal’s  greatest weakness. As the story is called tragic as it is a tragedy at every end and corner of it. Kedar was also a orphan who left his home after the death of his beloved mother and was so poor that he didn’t have enough to eat so he couldn’t think of what he is doing by taking away anyone’s job. Nanak Singh as known for his approach have very wisely made us interpret many dark sides of our society in a very short span of words which are all somehow or the other related to the greed of the mankind. Firstly it shows how the system of dowry has made deep roots in our society such that nobody can even dream of giving their daughter without it, no matter what is the situation on both sides ? More importantly this incident teaches how a person shows no respect to an old employee only for sake of some money and can fire him immediately as soon as he gets a better option. There is no place for mercy, emotional attachments and emotions in this world of cut throat competition . Everyone just wants to feed their stomach of greed as more as possible.

Here in the story, rises the character named Kedar. After losing his job to Kedar, Panna Lal wrote a letter addressed to him and crowned him as the primary culprit of losing his job and all.  This letter has also enveloped in it the further plans of Panna Lal that were no better than suicide. Kedar found him in no situation to be able to sustain this remorse and immediately fled from shop to look for Panna Lal. But as he couldn’t find it anywhere, to make Panna Lal family a little comfortable, he created a false story about Panna Lal’s departure to Bombay for an urgent work and he will be returning only in some time. From that moment, he started falling in the cobweb of lies as to hide one of them, he had to speak a hundred more. He started considering himself responsible for all their sorrows and even started giving most of his salary to the family in a way that they thought it comes from Panna Lal. The character of Kedar is demonstrated as a complete mirror image of today’ man who have no feelings of any guilt and considers to satisfy his greed as his only noble purpose. As the time passed, he became an integral part of the family and came to know more about their miseries whose main highlight was the marriage of Veena .  This was the moment of time , he suddenly starts feeling  something for Veena, but ironically he considered this also as his problem and took the whole burden of marriage upon himself. He asked Maya to visit Veena’s  in laws and persuade them for the marriage. In the mean time when Maya departed  for their place and Veena as usual come to him room early morning for tuitions his feelings for Veena suddenly bounced back . The feelings of morality and lust were continuously haunted him and were tearing his soul apart. On that night, he couldn’t restrict his feeling from flowing out and confronted in front of  Veena the same day Veena passed thinking of her future at her husband’s house.  Although Veena  accepted his proposal, but  she only considered him as her brother. Next morning brought to him a blow when Maya came home with a win. This was the time when there was a continuous fight between his two mindsets one of which was pursuing Veena and the other one which made him think that he owe his life to the family as he was their culprit. Here comes the significance of the name given to Kedar by the writer Nanak Singh , Pavitra Papi. This was the era when one feeling was

trying to suppress other and finally he suppressed the feeling towards Veena although he loved her so much and  sold his house only to fulfil the demands for her marriage.  But for that he paid a high price as his health started deteriorating due to the affect of excessive cigarettes he started smoking so that Veena start hating him. But this attempt made an opposite impact as Veena  developed a feeling of pity for him . Our Pavitra Papi continuously tried to make his way opposite to her but come close and close after his deeds for her. This part of the story have shown two persons caught in the dilemma of their life ,on a point at which they can neither leave or pursue either of the two paths. The writer has very well shown that in our life we out of fear of society and sometimes due to our own conscience do the things which we don’t wish to do and cry in our heart while doing that. These deeds however bring us more sorrow than joy but we can’t get out from our mindset. The same happens in the story and both of them feels no joy by separating from each other and deteriorate from within after Veena’s marriage. Kedar fled away from their house as he couldn’t see Veena separating from him and Veena in return was waiting impatiently for him to return as he couldn’t carry the pain throughout her life.

Now, a new problem came upfront as they came to know that their house was mortgaged for some money and the balance has now mounted to twenty five hundred with a due date very close. Kedar now again showered his blessing on to the family by repaying fifteen hundred rupees and settling most of the balance. He fled away due to remorse that the Maya came to know that he was lying about Panna Lal and also he betrayed the shop owner Attar Singh of fifteen hundred rupees. He ran away to Amritsar in search for an employment so that he can repay Attar Singh the money taken from him and also settle the remaining debt of thousand rupees over Panna Lal’s house. He tried to earn as quickly as possible ,not caring anything about his fast deteriorating health as a person with no hope for himself left but devoted his life to someone else or for the purpose to serve anyone. Kedar Nath was devasted when returned Panna Lal told him that Veena died in his love and considered himself as a dead soul after that. He lost any hope for a living as for him it was Veena for whom he was living and he pursued her single mindedly. After then he cared nothing for his health and eventually died to mark a real tragic end for the story.

This story is a tale of real love and shown that the virtue of it is always in extremes either good or bad . No matter it is boy or girl, the one in real love always feels like that he/she owes his/her life to his/her partner, it is in human nature. On the other hand it is a tale of changing human natures according to the situation as Panna Lal couldn’t let himself die and returned to his house after a few years of religious deeds. Also Maya who considered Kedar her son, after knowing the truth about him and Veena  felt a great remorse and was ready to make him his son-in –law by marrying him to Vidya. Also in the starting of this story shows the condition of the society which can be seen as two hungry to death men are fighting for a piece of bread but another richer one is taking their advantage to exploit them because of their need as in case of Kedar and Panna Lal for their job. It is a tale in which the different dark sides of society are shown at different in instances.

At last, this book is a worth reading experience full of glimpses of society and human behaviour which is difficult to change but must change. This book is a great piece of art by Nanak Singh who always tried to reveal the secrets of human hearts and surrounding through very small incidents.