In four mesmerising chapters, we hear four voices: the convict, his father, his mother – all of whom are also in jail – and his brother each tell their versions of the same story. It is his last night in jail before he is to be hanged at dawn. During the freedom movement, a young revolutionary is sentenced to death. A true pathbreaker in the the way the novelist wielded his tools, 'The Boatman on the Padma' is a creative landmark whose deftness and detailing have seldom been matched in the huge oeuvre of Bengali fiction. Centred on the attempts of a rural businessman to build a utopian commune on an island in the delta of the river Padma, this exploration of the psyches of human beings and the impact of individual choices on society weaves through romantic, commercial and social relationships in the course of telling its tale, building into a magnificent climax. Marking a sharp deviation from the romantic literary inheritance of nature as a participant in human lives, this novel about lives in a fishing community focuses on the psychological workings of the human mind, capturing the existence of machinations, spite and meanness alongside lofty ideals, passion and desires. Padma Nadir Majhi: The Boatman on the Padma Manik Bandyopadhyay. Very few novels can forge the kind of bond with readers that this one does.
A lyrical and yet down-to-earth style marked a significant departure from the effusive prose favoured by Tagore and the dramatic format that Chattopadhyay had picked as its own. Both bitter and sweet in its accounts of life and relationships in the village and then in the city, the novel provided a cast of memorable characters both representative and individualistic. Taking up the lives of the Roy family – the father an itinerant priest, the mother the classic housewife, and their two children – in a Bengal village named Nischindipur and then in the city of Benaras, this multilayered novel is a superb depiction of the struggle of an entire generation of rural Indians, not just to survive but also to overcome the hardships imposed on them in order to find their true selves.
Like Satyajit Ray's celebrated film that was based on it, the novel was its creator's first work – and, as a result, all the more astonishing for its maturity and depth. Along with Tarashankar and Manik, Bibhutibhushan was one of the three Bandyopadhyays whose works dominated the era in Bengali fiction that followed Rabindranath Tagore and Sarat Chandra Chattopdhyay. Pather Panchali: The Song of the Road Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. Award-winning translator of Bengali fiction Arunava Sinha, who has translated 19 Bengali works into English and is working on 14 more, gave Scroll his selection of novels you simply must read. But Bengal has a rich history of fiction well beyond the bearded bard.
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