Though not one of his well-known novels, Three Days and Three Nights (Tin Din Tin Ratri) is one of Narendranath Mitra's most important novels. The psychological tension of two sisters of a struggling middle class family, centering a police officer posted in the rural area, has been deftly dealt with. A beautiful and truthful rendering has made the volume highly readable.
Always be positive, creative and constructive, no matter what you are experiencing. If you want to improve yourself and become creative, happy, satisfied and successful, take everything in life as a form of sadhana.
Narendranath Mitra (1916-1975), born in the district of Faridpur now in Bangladesh, graduated from Bangabasi College, Calcutta. A journalist by profession he tried his hand first in poetry and published a book of poems Jonaki (Firefly) with Bishnupada Bhattacharya and Narayan Gangopadhyay. An author of about fifty short story collections he earned readers' love and appreciation for his novels like Dvippunja, Chenamahal, Suryamukhi. A few of his short stories were made into film by Satyajit Ray, Rajen Tarafdar and others.
Lila Ray (neé Alice Virginia Orndorffa / 1910-1992), born in Texas, USA, came to India to do research on Indian music in 1930. After marriage with Annada Sankar Ray in the same year she got interested in Bengali literature and started translating from Bengali into English. Her translations include the works of Rabindranath, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Kshitimohan Sen, Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Satinath Bhaduri and many others. She has authored a number of books - Entrance, The Days Between, A Valley of Vission (all poems), Equities, A Challenging Decade (all essays) to name a few.
Though not one of his well-known novels, Three Days and Three Nights is definitely one of Narendranath Mitra's most important dense-textured novels. The psychological tension of the two sisters, Madhuri and Manosi of a struggling middle class family, centering around Asim, a police officer, posted in the rural area, has been deftly dealt with by the novelist. It was Madhuri, the elder one, who after a wrestle with conscience, with the help of a 'false' utterance (that Manosi and Asim have secretly registered their marriage), returned the 'gift' (Asim) to her younger sister Manosi as if to give Manosi her due. Thus Madhuri helped Manosi to rise above a mean jealousy which was tormenting her for the last two days. Then the third or the last of the three nights ended with silent tears flowing from the eyes of both of them. Madhuri wept to give Manosi her precious gift. And Manosi wept in gratitude to take the gift back. Most probably the skilful handling of the situation by the author prompted the translator to make it known to the readers who will enjoy the novel in English. André Gide once remarked that translations like women are either faithful or beautiful. I am sure his remark has been utterly disproved by Lila Ray, the eminent translator, once again. This translation is beautiful and faithful at the same time, as women could be.
There are some places where the translator had to add a few words to explain a bit clearly what is implied in the original text. For example, the original expression in the text 'Asche kal kil parshu dhue felis, tahalei sab thik hoe jabe' has been rendered into English like this: "Set it right tomorrow or the day after at Marriage Registration Office and it will be well. No harm done. The translation explains clearly what is implied in the original text (p.272). Similarly, to original expression "Rang, sudhu rangil! Has been left out as, most probably the next sentence contains the same reaction Madhuri is delighted to have. And perhaps for the same reason the expression (p.116) *But is it more wonderful when two different types unit? Is it not more complete?' has been omitted from the introspection of Madhuri.
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