BLiterature-Apratim

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His early attempt Devdas, although poor in structure, gives a little hint to his
progressive and revolutionary mind. It is the story of a young man who dies out of
anguish for his fatal love-affair. His Palli-Samaj (Country-Society) is a good portrayal
of an unconsummated love-affair in Bengal’s rural society.
Arakshaniya (The Eligible Girl) is the story of a girl of dark complexion, whose
mother finds it too difficult to marry her off. It results in her pitiable humiliation in the
society. This novel questions the anachronistic values of the heartless society that
considers physical beauty (and fair complexion) a must for the female.
Chandranath is the story of another girl’s disgrace – this time, for being a
‘dishonest’ mother’s daughter.
Charitrahin (The Characterless) questions the character of a society itself
which suppresses its members’ carnal desires due to traditional and outdated
concepts. It tells us two stories alongside; one of them is of a love-affair between a
babu and her maidservant; the other tale is of a similar relationship of a widow and
her distant brother-in-law. The first one ends in the beloved’s disapproval of a
possible marriage (as she honors the class divide) and the other relationship ends in
tragic consequences as the widow loses her mind.
Grihadaha (Burning of the House) suspects the very existence of a society
which finds itself helpless while perverted and contaminated by the betrayal of its
dishonest members. Here Sarat shows how marital bond loosens for economic
inequality amid a man, his wife’s parental home and her extramarital lover. In it he
masterly depicts illicit love and its consummation through adultery by a lustful man
(Suresh) and his friend’s (Mahim) disloyal wife (Achala). At the same time the writer
portrays the conflict between emotional love and physical impulse. However, with
due apology to his memory, I convict him of corruption in this context; the reason is:
he does not give the reader any scene of intimate relationship between Achala and
her husband Mahim, which he does in case of her and her lover Suresh. Does Sarat
make this bias for commercial accomplishment?
Marital bond loosens due to economic difficulties in Birajbou too. This novel is
also a mirror of physical persecution on those days’ Bengali women. A village
housewife, who is devoted to her husband, endures long days’ poverty and
persecution with great patience, a virtue which those days’ Bengali Hindu women
were believed to must have. Excessive torture forces her leave her in-laws’ house for
what she later repents.
Sarat professes his firm belief of the insignificance of marital bond in Shesh
Prashna (The Last Question). Love, if is based on trust, loyalty and sincerity, does
not need social approval; it is this novel’s motto.
Many of his works focus on family values, for example – Shuvoda, Bamuner
Meye (A Brahmin’s Daughter) etc. Datta is a love story where the writer prefers the
choice of heart to formal socio-religious convention. And his Pather Dabi (The Claim
of the Road) is a political novel that was banned by the British government.
But he excelled in Sreekanta which is regarded as a great picaresque novel. It
is the story of a vagabond man (a writer), observing the complexities of the Bengali
Hindu middle class society and commenting about those in first person narrative. In
reality, Sarat himself appears as Sreekanta as this work is recognized by him as an