Sunday, May 5, 2002		Books

A novel’s rebirth across time, language
Manju Jaidka

The Final Question by Saratchandra Chatterjee edited by Arup Rudra and Sukanta Chaudhuri. Ravi Dayal Publishers, Delhi. Pages 313. Rs. 395.

SARATCHANDRA CHATTERJEE, began writing under the influence of literary giants like Rabindranath Tagore and Bankim Chatterjee but managed to cut across class and caste distinctions, becoming far more popular than his contemporaries. His work struck a responsive chord in the readers of pre-Independence India with their thrust on contemporaneous issues and their strong emotional commitment. To be more specific, his writing appealed to the Bengali readership of the first half of the last century. After Independence, interest in his writings was kept alive by a committed readership in West Bengal. His works have been frequently translated into other languages and successfully adapted for the stage and screen. The Final Question, a translation of Sesh Prasna (1931), is the collective effort of several members of the Department of English, Jadhavpur University.

Set in the early 20th century, the novel may best be called a period piece, recreating the life and society of bygone times. The main characters belong to the expatriate Bengali community of Agra: the upper-middle class with its literary and cultural aspirations, its social gatherings at dusk, its regular soirees, some intellectual talk, some national politics and the inevitable community gossip. It is all very genteel and refined, even if it has a touch of decadence. History seems to be arrested at a moment that lingers indecisively. Somewhere in the background there is a national struggle taking place but on Saratchandra’s canvas the concerns are narrower, more personal in nature, revolving around the relationship between the individual and the society.

The novel moves with slow-paced deliberation. Instead of action we have dialogue. Instead of physical movement we have thought-provoking discussions. For these reasons, it is not one of the quick reads that may be accomplished in a few hours. The Final Question asks to be accepted on its own terms: the reader has to make a conscious effort, following the labyrinthine progress of its characters as they interact among themselves.

And characters there are in plenty. There is Ashu Babu who lives in a rambling old house with his daughter Mani. There is also the affluent Harendra who runs an ashram for brahmacharis. They are pivotal figures in the closed Bengali circle of Agra. Others come and go, among them the controversial Shibnath and Kamal. Ripples of change are introduced into the placid calm and we see signs that times are a-changing when harbingers of a new epoch enter the scene. But, as in all phases of transition, change is not an easy process. If there are some troubling the conservative milieu with revolutionary ideas, there are also those who resist all innovation and would rather exist in a limbo where everything remains eternally the same.

Perhaps it is the woman protagonist, Kamal, who is the most memorable of the lot. Clearly, she is emancipated, much ahead of her times and manages to jolt the polite Agra society out of its complacencies. It is she who makes them (and also the reader) take a second look at patriarchal norms that go unchallenged in society, questioning traditions that have been followed blindly. Upholding the banner of female emancipation, she lives by no rules but her own, frequently changing partners, ripping apart the fabric of social hypocrisy, flinging reality in the face of orthodoxy. Kamal is the one who gives life to an otherwise placid narrative, highlighting the problems of the individual in relation to love and marriage, nationhood, society, and womanhood.

Here, perhaps, lies the answer to a very pertinent question that may confront the reader: why was this novel, first published in 1931, not translated earlier? We are aware that Saratchandra’s popularity has been unflagging right from the beginning of his career. Sesh Prasna, however, was an exception: widely appreciated by women readers, the conservative (read male) reader strongly disapproved of the avant garde ideas presented through its heroine. Perhaps for this reason the novel had to wait for 70-odd years to be available to the reader in English.

Despite the bold portrayal of its heroine, The Final Question is a text which aims at mental stimulation rather than rabble-rousing. Such a work must wait for the right point in time to reach out to the world. Now that it is available to us we have the double advantage of not only reading it in the present but also in retrospect, surveying the changes that have taken place in the socio-cultural history of the country over the last century. It is against such a backdrop that the prophetic overtones of the novel may be fully appreciated.