Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay was one of Bengal, India’s most prolific and popular novelists and short story writers of the early 20th century. He wrote over 30 novels, novellas, and stories.
Born in a poor family, Sarat Chandra based many of his novels on his own experiences. His topics were revolutionary at the time and included social consciousness and turbulent societal traditions which made readers sit up, notice him and eventually made him iconic. Many of his popular novels include ‘Palli Samaj’, ‘Choritrohin’, ‘Devdas’, ‘Nishkriti’, ‘Srikanta’, ‘Griha Daha’, ‘Sesh Prasna’ and ‘Sesher Parichay’.
Stories from Saratchandra: Innocence and Reality
This collection of short stories is divided into two sections. First section deals with the innocence of childhood and the second section deals with adolescence. In the second section the stories relate to growing up and coming of age. There is a marked deroute from innocence and the protagonists have a clear sense of duty towards self, their family and the society at large.
While Saratchandra dwells in the duty aspect of every individual and puts the readers too in a state of silent protests against social evils such as casteism, racism, poverty etc. ,he does make us readers think of how childhood is a beautiful pool of innocence where we all must take a dip lest it dries up when the world around us changes.
The themes represented and portrayed in the collection are people’s feelings and state of mind regarding the colonial era, the rule of British, the Zamindari system and the plight of women and their role in the household.
Image - Courtesy - British Library - In India, caste is a system of social hierarchy based on hereditary occupation. This vintage painting shows the different people representing the various castes.
No comments:
Post a Comment