Review :- Those days

Raj Kumar

Entry no:-2011EE10474

Hul232

Review on the novel “Those day” by Sunil gangopdhyay.

This novel “Those day” is really strange and affected me. The real novel is in Bengali written by Sunil gangopdhyay and translated in English by Aruna chakravarti without losing any reality. This novel was written on time of 19^th century when whole India including Bengal struggling for independence. the real pictures of Bengal's society  of that time are tried to draw though this novel. About 70-80 characters are built (may exit) that itself indicate colossal descriptions of the novel. This novel arise social  issue like widow marriage, Brahma samaj, Women education, child marriage etc through various event and characters very keenly which touch can touch any heart. The life of zamindar and peasant and their thoughts, their living style and conditions of that time all are described in gorgeous way. Mainly characters in the novel are from rich two families of Singhas and Mukharjees.

In starting a child in form of womb about 7 mouth born named Nabin kumar,later on become one of famous the social player of that time. He also translated the Mahabharata. Ram kamal Singha a wealthy zamindar father of Ganganarayan and Nabin. His wife Bimbabati loved both sons equally.  He always love his mistress kamala sundari,  but at death time she tell truth about nabin’s father is someone else  named Bidhusekher. He get deep pain. Although Nabin grew up in zamindar family but he familiar with problems of peasants and feel their feeling , later on he lead them and known as social revolutionary of that time like other Iswar chandra vidyasagar, Madhusudan Datt(poet). lot of work done by Nabin for society. The adopted elder son of Ram kamal, Ganganarayan is also one of the broad character. From begin he was good in study and sharp minded. He was always obedient to his parents. He comes to know about love and affection through his first love Bindu daughter of Bidhubhushan Mukherjee a famous lawyer. Actually Bindu was a widow. And about marriage of widow was the one of the bad thought of that time.  So many peculiar things done by him for getting his love due to afraid of her father but he never succeed till last. Her father sent him  to kashi for  live like a proper sanyasi for more than 2 year. After returning he married a widow through her he comes to know dark side of women and familiar with conditions of women. Through every character author tried to aware us of circumstances and condition of that time. Women education, widow marriage, Bal vihah, views of society towards women etc  in every topics there are a deep thoughts and enormous discussion.

Another important character is extremely brilliant person named Michal Madhusudan Datt who belongs to very wealthy family. He used to write poem because he love to poetry. He changed himself into Christian as that time often people’s passion. With time he came toward to English  from Bengali . These type of event implies that most of people affected from English culture and language. It begin to grow as a global language. The young of that time affected from poetry of him.

There are marvellous description of freedom fighting at 1857 when our country was struggling for freedom and justice. Author introduces some real character of that time too like Raja ramamohan rai, poet Madhusudan Dutt and Iswar Chandra vidyasagar etc. Several parallel stories and events are described which make novel more impressive. These are familiar us about behaviour and relationship between Englishmen and Indians, between zamindar and peasant, between Englishman and zamindar.

Another interesting thing in the novel is introducing Englishmen as a major character like David Hare and John Bethune. Both were educationist. They roamed around the country and saw many of people in India were illiterate so they decided to teach children and people of India. They spend whole life here for education of people. They also effected from Indian culture. These both English characters were in real. The narrator took some real character of that time and some are imaginary. Its narrative style is so fictive that both real and imaginary seems real and so effective.

The central message of this novel is for arising social awareness among us, understood the present time, know darkness and bitter truth of life, and do best job for our country and society as people like Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, the reformer; Michael Madhusudan Dutt, the poet; the father and son duo of Dwarkanath and Debendranath Tagore; Harish Mukherjee, the journalist; Keshab Chandra Sen, the Brahmo Samaj radical; David Hare and John Bethune, the English educationists in the novel.

Brilliant translation by Aruna Chakraborty! It didn’t realise me as it is translation.   All make this novel make marvellous.