One of the earliest and finest pieces of original writings in Bangla, Madhu Sadhukhan is a novella that has all the characteristics of the fictional mode typical of its author, Amiyabhushan Majumdar. The narrative has the meandering movement of a boat journey crossing several rivers, which is actually thematic as well as symbolic. The principal characters-Madhu Khan and Phirangi-during the journey occasionally get engaged in coolheaded exchange notes about Christanity and Hinduism. Though Madhu is deeply affected by what he learns from the foreigner, the narrator has the aloofness of a neutral observer. The novelist rather deliberately withholds vital information about so many characters and events that the reader is tempted to speculate in his own way. The language also suggests more that it states.
Amiyabhushan Majumdar (1918-2001), the novelist, wrote in Bengali, but unlike his contemporaries, he had little respect for the great tradition of Bengali fiction including Rabindranath Tagore. In fact, Amiyabhushan had been ruthlessly individualistic in his fictional experiments. He had something in common with Tarashankar Banerjee, if one remembers how his short stories and later novels accommodate a wider range of experience with multiple implications.
Buroshiva Dasgupta, who has painstakingly translated this fiction from Bangla to English, is the Director, Manipal Institute of Mass Media.
As a novelist, Amiyabhushan Majumdar (1918-2001) was somewhat of a puzzle for the Bengali critics, who found it rather difficult to pigeonhole him like other writers. He wrote mainly for the little magazines and lived in North Bengal, consciously avoiding the glamour of the literary world in Kolkata and its attendant media hype. Deeply attached to the feudal culture, he was ruthlessly individualistic in his fictional experiments. He had something in common with Tarashankar Banerjee, if one remembers his novels like Gar Srikhanda with a regional setting, but his short stories and later novels accommodate a wider range of experience with multiple implications. He was against sexual inhibitions, but he did not share the Freudian obsession which was a thematic concern in many works of Manik Banerjee. He had a strong distaste for politics in literature in spite of his involvement with the trade union of the Post and Telegraph Department of India, but his works are at one level a statement which is both political and aesthetic in a special sense. Individuals caught in the whirlpools of historical forces, the agony of homelessness and the dream of homecoming, the struggle for existence of the marginalized people against the invasion of modern urbanism-all these themes have an underlying pattern of micro-politics. He wrote in Bengali, but he had little respect for the great tradition of Bengali fiction including Rabindranath Tagore.
Deeply immersed in European literature, he imbibed something of the modernist spirit but made a sincere attempt to internalize the modernist techniques with typical Bengali sensibility. The result was a representation of rural Bengal with its natural ambience and social intervention, without a traditional reliance on story- telling designed to tempt the readers. Nevertheless, Amiyabhushan manipulates certain elements of the traditional narrative to leave textual gaps in his short novels so that the readers brought up on the realistic tradition would be hard put to locate the missing links. No won- der, he chose to remain a writer for the minority and never regretted the loss of wider readership. Recognition came slowly to him, but when it came, his camp-followers almost deified him and his fellow-writers were quick to find his feet of clay. Perhaps we have yet to wait for a proper evaluation of this great writer whose main concern was the craft of fiction, not its much-touted credo.
Madhu Sadhukhan is a novella that has all the characteristics of the fictional mode typical of Amiyabhushan Majumdar. The narrative has the meandering movement of a boat journey crossing several rivers, which is actually thematic as well as a symbolic. At times it is almost reminiscent of Conrad's The Heart of Darkness, but instead of a colonial consciousness of collective guilt, there is rather a coolheaded exchange of views on the burning of witches in the West and the sati in India. Madhu Khan and phiringi are engaged in exchanging notes about Christianity and Hinduism. Though Madhu is deeply affected by what he learns from the foreigner, the narrator has the aloofness of a neutral observer. He does not even offer a complete portrait of Madhu.
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