BANKIM Chandra Chatterjee is revered throughout India for writing the soul-stirring Vande Mataram, India’s national song. But it is not widely known that he is the author of one of the first novels in Indian languages, Durgeshnandini. (He has written three more novels. And his first was in English). The novel, first published in 1865, has been translated into most Indian languages and its first English translation appeared as early as in 1880. A hundred and fifty years later, the book has again been translated into English for Random House India, as part of its classics series, by Arunaya Sinha.
This is a historic novel set in 1592, during the reign of Mughal emperor Akbar. Although the theatre is Bengal, the characters are Mughal and Pathans with a few locals thrown in. In Durgeshnandini, the hero, Jagatsingh, son of Raja Mansingh, is a great, handsome warrior prince, who in the course of his military campaigns in eastern India, happens to get introduced to Tilottama, the beautiful daughter of the chieftain of Fort Mandaran, and what follows is a torrential love at first sight.Though initially, the Prince succeeds in containing the Pathan insurgency, through deception the Pathans, capture the Fort, the chieftain Virendrasingh is taken prisoner and later executed. His daughter is a captive of the Pathan chief, Katlu Khan. Khan sends Virendrasingh’s wife and daughter to his harem and takes a seriously wounded Jagatsingh prisoner. However, Khan’s daughter, Ayisha, develops a liking for Jagatsingh and with extra care and medical attention nurses Jagatsingh back to health. Katlu Khan doesn’t harm Jagatsingh calculating that with the Prince as his captive, he will bargain for peace with the Mughals. But Bimla, widow of Virendrasingh plots to get Tilottama rescued and take revenge on Khan in the course of a birthday party for the lecherous Pathan chief. Ayisha, a profile in extreme goodness and superb sensuous attributes gets irresistibly drawn towards Jagatsingh, adding to the dramatic effect of the novel.
How the love triangle is settled? The plot of Durgeshnandini is, as the introduction to the translation notes, the consequence of a history of unbridled though not emancipating lust. Here the passions enslave and take on the role of something akin to fate. In a sense it is both a potpourri of sentimentalism, melodrama and wild fantasy, equally true is that it’s poetic in narration redeeming in the portrayal of emotions, characters, particularly strong, accomplished and confident women.
The translation has successfully retained the élan, vitality, drama and sensitiveness of the original. It has retained the classical prose style without losing the narrative verve which is the novel’s most exceptional feature. More poetry than prose in spirit, more prose than poetry in letter. It’s a pleasure to read Bankimchandra again and again in any language.
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-RB
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