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Twilight & Mark of The Nose Ring
In Twilight Harjit’s emotional involvement with a colleague destroys her marriage. Torn between her need for conforming to society’s norms on the one hand and her newfound love on the other she gets emotional support from Sonal — an emancipated woman with rather nonconformist worldview. Ironically, Sonal gets married just when Harjit’s divorce proceedings begin. In the second story, Mark of the nose ring, Kiranjit’s husband — an army officer — dies in the war even before their marriage is consummated. She refuses to don the widow’s attire. This makes her vulnerable to barbs and undesirable attention. However, Kiranjit eventually makes peace with tradition by performing shraadh and sheds her nose ring. In both the stories women come into conflict with societal hypocrisy.
Mircea Eliade was born in Romania, exiled to France and settled in the USA, and had a strong India connection. He was historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor. He is known for his theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, thus dividing human experience of reality into sacred and profane. Moreover, his concept of Eternal Return has become one of the most widely accepted ways of understanding the purpose of myth and ritual. His noted works include the novels Noaptea de Sanziene (The Forbidden Forest), Isabel si apele diavolului (Isabel and the Devil’s Waters) and the Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent; the novellas Domnisoara Christina (Miss Christina) and Tinerete fara tinerete (Youth without Youth); and the short stories Secretul doctorului Honigberger (The Secret of Dr. Honigberger) and La Tiganci (With Gypsy Girls). In 1928 he earned a scholarship for studying in Calcutta University under Surendranath Dasgupta, a Cambridge alumnus and professor at Calcutta University. From him Eliade learnt the basics of Indian philosophy; he also studied Sanskrit, Pali and Bengali. He became interested in Mahatma Gandhi’s Satyagraha. In 1930, while living with Dasgupta, Eliade fell in love with his daughter, Maitreyi Devi. He wrote about it in an autobiographical novel Maitreyi (also known as La Nuit Bengali or Bengal Nights). Interestingly, along with many Indian and foreign contributors Maitreyi’s son, Priyadarshi Sen’s homage to his mother finds place in this volume of recollections.
Bhai Mani Singh had served Guru Gobind Singh and his family during some of the most critical periods of their lives. He had also accompanied the Guru to Paonta Sahib where the latter devoted some three years exclusively to literary work. Later on he was martyred by Amritsar’s Governor Zakaria Khan for refusing to convert to Islam. Mani Singh is credited with composing the Ardas, which is still recited in gurdwaras throughout the world. This volume is a
translation of Mani Singh’s Sikhaan dee bhagatmala, which
provides us with the various Sikh Gurus’ teachings as well as brief
bio-sketches of some of their prominent
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P
Professor Mircea
Eliade: Reminiscences
The Gospel of the
Sikh Gurus