I have
heard of this novel long since, but only recently had the chance to read it
through. Gripping from the very first line, original and serious, it is a great
read. I have enjoyed every page of the novel.
Based in
Murshidabad, a backward and Muslim-dominated district of the then undivided
Bengal – it offers a vivid and real
portrait of the Muslim cummunity of the time, divided by different religious
cults and their leaders, and their multitude of suckers against the backdrop of
independence struggle that was then brewing across Bengal. But I read into it a
heart-wrenching love story between two pristine souls who by a streak of fate were
never united.
Safi,
the protagonist, was a rebel, and though born of an orthodox family – his father
was a “pir”( a saint) - left the family
in school-going age, lived in different places, came in contact with different learned men, and studied different religious
texts, literature and western philosophy
to finally morph into an atheist. He was
greatly influenced by the philosophy of Henry David Thoreau and strongly
believed that the state is a torture machine, the officers in the
administration are complicit, and the police and the military are the
state-owned hooligans.
Safi
got to be a mythical hero in his own right. In course of his life, Safi
murdered some notorious men and lived like a sage, attracting a huge following
from both Hindu and Muslim communities. Finally, when he was going to kill his
hypocrite father, someone called in the police and got him booked. He was
subsequently tried and hanged. Massive crowds attended his cremation.
I’m not
sure why the author calls him an “ALEEK”(unreal) man. He’s very much a flesh
and blood creature, and even adorable despite his anarchist strait. His
tumultuous life, so palpable without his dream womanRuku, resonates long after I was done with the book.
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