Chitra Banerjee चित्र बनर्जी ,“The Mistress of Spices: A Novel”, 1997 was the topic of an earlier blog post.
Here I present: Saratchandra Chattopadhyay শরৎচন্দ্র চট্টোপাধ্যায় ,”Devdas” দেবদাস ,1917 a Bengali language short story.
The book contains sixteen (16) untitled chapters that are shown BELOW.
The first sentence of each chapter is given BELOW.
Chapter #. “First Sentence.”
#1. “On a summer noon in the month of Baisakh, it was scorching sun, and simmering heat all around.”
#2. “The next day Devdas received a good bashing from his father and was locked up in a room for the whole day.”
#3. “Days rolled by: it was a happy pair of a boy and a girl.”
#4. “One year passed by that way but now the time was straining to move.”
#5. “Parvati was now thirteen – a favorite topic for grandmother to talk about.”
#6. “It was around one o’clock at night: the faded moonlight was still in the sky.”
#7. “The next day Devdas had a short conversation with his father.”
#8. “Judicious and experienced people do not express firm opinion about anything after only a cursory glance at it.”
#9. “And about Devdas: he spent that night sitting on a bench at Eden Garden in Calcutta.”
#10. “Parvati arrived at her husbands home and found it was a large complex.”
#11. “Devdas wandered around in the streets for two or three days almost like a lunatic.”
#12. “Two brothers, Dwijadas and Devdas together with many others came back home after cremating their father Zamindar Narayan Mukherjee.”
#13. “Devdas sat at home for six months after his father’s death and got totally bored.”
#14. “It was now about two years since Parvati had gotten married to Mahendra and she was feeling quite relaxed.”
#15. “It was now two years since Chandramukhi had settled in her new home at the village of Ashathjhuri.”
#16. “Devdas was living at Allahabad: one day he wrote a letter to Chandramukhi, ‘wife I have decided that I should not fall in love again’.”
Here I presented: Saratchandra Chattopadhyay শরৎচন্দ্র চট্টোপাধ্যায় ,”Devdas” দেবদাস ,1917 a Bengali language short story.
SUMMARY.
The story pivots a tragic triangle linking protagonist Devdas, an archetypal lover in separation; Parvati (Paro), his forbidden childhood love; and Chandramukhi, a reformed courtesan.
Devdas is a young man from a wealthy Bengali family in India in the early 1900’s. Parvati (Paro) is a young woman from a middleclass Bengali Brahmin family. The two families live in a village called Taalshonapur in Bengal, and Devadas and Parvati are childhood friends.
Strange was the fate of Devdas. Intensely loved by two women, who were never meant to be his. One (Parvati), whom he could never love; and, the other (Chandramukhi) whom he could never stop loving.
Chitra Banerjee चित्र बनर्जी, “The Palace of Illusions “, 2008 was the topic of an earlier blog post.
