This is one of the many things that I was busy with the last week. "यही सच है", a story written by Mr. Mannu Bhandari---------- I got to read this story on wednesday. This is one of my bhaiya's favourite stories and it was he, who sent me the online link to the full story to read.
No doubt, the story is quite realistic in all its senses portraying the middle-class character of Deepa who is baffled with her past and present, both playing a demanding game with her heart. Her heart and soul are completely bewildered whether to go with her past or to continue with her present. She is engaged with a man called Sanjay and they plan to marry sooner or later. She has left behind her past far back wherein she was in love with another man Nisheet. Something happened to them and Nisheet had left her and they had broken up. She is quite happy with his present in Sanjay and needs nothing more in life. To get a job she goes to calcutta where she finds Nisheet again. He helps her to get the job. Deepa had thought she had left behind her past in Nisheet well back but she turns to be wrong in that. She still had a lot of feelings about him and again her heart slips for him. At last, after so much of confusion she opts to go with the present leaving behind the past.
The whole story has been written as Deepa in the first person. Readers come to feel about everything that she feels and sees everything from her prospective. This is the largest drawback of the story as I feel. The reader comes to know nothing about Nisheet, why he had left her and why he didn't comeback to her when he got the chance. Nothing is told about this or even no clue about these things have been given in the story. Scrutinizing the character of Deepa, one feels that she is still an immature girl (at least for her age). She does not understand herself quite well and keeps playing with two other lives. At the start, though, a clue has been given that her relationship with Sanjay is not a deep feeling of her heart rather a compensation to what she had got in life by loving Nisheet. She was confused even then still she was planning to marry Sanjay and said that she hates Nisheet whereas she had always loved him and never could forget him.
Looking at Sanjay's character, he looks as a pathetic man to me. His lady love is not completely his own. He doesn't know but the girl whom he is going to marry loves somebody else more than him and is using him for forgetting her past. A real pathetic character who has nothing much to do in the story.
As far as Nisheet's character is concerned, I really feel sad about him. Watching with his perspective, he comes out to be a loser (but the real loser for me is Sanjay who even after getting Deepa does not get her completely). His character in the story is not complete----one does not know about his compulsion as to why he left Deepa. It is showed in the story that he loved Deepa even when they had met after so long in calcutta. Yet, he does not reply to Deepa's letter that she writes to him in the last accepting that she still loved her. Maybe, he was not able to forgive himself for what he had done to Deepa though he knows that Deepa had well forgiven him for that. We don't know about what really happened so we can't make any opinion on that but whatever it may be, with Deepa still loving him, it wasn't above love at least.
At last, a real sad story that ends with everybody as the loser. Deepa does not get her love of life but has to compromise it with Sanjay's. Sanjay does not get the love that he deserves in reply to his immense love to Deepa. Finally he gets someone who still loves somebody else. And the somebody else----------Nisheet is empty-handed at the last of the story. Neither he gets his love nor he even could clarify himself.
4 comments:
What you consider the drawback of the story i think is its greatest strength and what makes it "realistic." We are given access only to Deepa's inner thoughts and that's why we can understand her confusions and the reasons why she feels so indecisive. In real life also we can only guess at people's innermost thougts.. what we are given are only their actions and words which may or may not reflect what is going on inside them. that's why i really loved the Calcutta section of the story where she meets Nishith. He may just be helping her without any motives or probably because he still loves her or may be it is because he feels remorse for what he did... we will never know. Only from his actions we can't decide and this is the source of deepa's dilemma also and what makes the story so elusive and intriguing. if the author would have played god and described the thoughts of every character it wouldn't have had the same effect. I am not saying that only stories written in first person are realistic, but you should appreciate the strengths of this kind of narration.
this problem of indecision is a major problem of life because you have to take decisions without feeling completely sure and also considering the future which is always so unpredictable. in traditional societies this was not a big problem because you just had to follow traditions and rules set by patriarchal authorities but once you are independent one has to take all these decisions without being ever sure. I think the story captures this idea extremely well.
first of all, i think, the story is more of a diary-entry than being a story itself. no doubt, it is a fantastic way of making a story look very realistic. in all the senses of this word "realistic" this story stands through unoubtedly, and, i agree that it is the strongest point of the story. the story is a great one when it comes to its writing but when i try to relate myself to the characters without giving much emphasis on how the confusion of Deepa or the self-reproach of Nishith is expressed so beautifully in words, i am not able to relate myself or engulf some of the facts.
first of all, its not clear whether,after all, nishith has the feeling of self-reproach or not. why he doesn't reply to deepa's letter when he is given the chance to regret at the climax of the story is also not clear to me. there are some other points also that fail to stimulate some of the nerves of my underestanding.
So, what atually i didn'l like about the story was not that it was written in the first person but that this way of writing concealed a lot of things that could have been clear otherwise.
the calcutta section of the story is really wonderful with the fantastic game of words that mr. bhandari has played to express the feelings of deepa. i think that is really the best part of the story.
mannu bhandari 'mr.' nahi hain
Thanks Amit and sorry foe the mistake.
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