BLiterature-Apratim

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He died a premature death out of poverty and hunger; and the loss caused by
a writer’s untimely demise cannot be ever fulfilled. The literary style that a writer
nourishes through his life-time can be taken to its perfection by no other than
him/herself. Manik’s early departure too has made this mission unfinished.
But what he has given us in this short literary career is really astonishing. His
novels are like documents; portrayal of characters and presentation of stories and
dialects are so realistic. Among the Modernist fiction-writers, his place is in the first
rank.
Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay (1898-1971)
Tarashankar is one of the greatest Gandhian novelists. He was born in a time
while Bengal Renaissance reached its peak. Vidyasagar and Bankim had already
died and Tagore was in the middle of the sky like the shining sun.
He saw two great wars as a result of which there were great upheavals in
social, political and economic spheres of the world. The old order changed to the
extent never thought of and the new waves of change rolled through life in remote
corners of Bengal. At the same time, Mahatma’s Satyagraha speeded up the Indian
nationalist movement. His movement for the country’s freedom was accompanied
with his struggle against inhuman cruelties with the so-called untouchables.
Tarashankar saw the new polarization in the society which was vividly
depicted in his vast literary works. He could feel the mood of the age and wrote
rather documented life on the edge – life and struggle of marginal people like
‘Santal’, ‘Dom’, ‘Kahar’, ‘Bagdi’, ‘Bauri’ i.e. so-called untouchables. He amazingly
penetrated the hearts and minds of such people and drew their lively pictures.
Also Tarashankar was a member of the decaying land-lord aristocracy. He
has described the gradual fall of the feudal system, the continued exploitation of the
poorest of the poor, and the contemporary contradictions of the rural society. His
works remained mostly confined to the dry desolate western part of Bengal and the
characters were mostly drawn from the downtrodden and exploited people of that
region for which he is sometimes referred as Bengal’s Hardy.
He professed his political ideas through his novels. He included sociopolitical
problems of Bengal in his novels. War, famine, communal riots, economic inequality
– these are the subject-matters of his novels.
Especially Tarashankar depicted the subtle conflict between feudal
traditionalism and bourgeois modernity. Among his vast works, Jalsha-Ghar (The
Dance Room), Dhatri-Devata (Goddess Mother), Kalindi, Kavi (The Poet), Gana-
Devata (People’s God), Panchagram (Five Villages), Hashuli Banker Upakatha (The
Legend of Hashuli Bank), Arogyoniketan (The Hospital) are the principal ones.
Especially Hashuli Banker Upakatha can be regarded as a grand masterpiece
of Realist fiction. Here the writer, like a sociologist, tells us the tale of a local tribe’s
own life-style, primitive culture, faiths, internal conflict and tragic fall. The writer also
narrates the story of struggle of two opposing generations and the rule of eternal
victory of muscle-power.