So now after
reading few detective novels I’ve decided to read a social novel to keep my
mind diversified with the different type of writing styles, and for the same
today I selected famous writer Gulshan Nanda’s Novel ‘Ek Nadi Do Pat’ and
finished it at one go. The good thing about Gulhan Nanda is again concise
writing which I like a lot. The novel contains 158 pages which is quite short in comparison to some novels who go upto 700-800 pages. But even in
these small number of pages the writer touches upon different aspects of life
and society as well as human emotions.
The Story
starts with the main character Vinod,an Engineer by profession Ready to come
back to his home in Lahour after fighting war for 3 years at Myanmar during 2nd
Word war, as he gets up in the Plane a beautiful girl [Madhvi, as he comes to
know her name lateron] sits next to him and was going to patna and gets attracter
with her beauty and charm. As he sees her Vinod thinks of his past time when he
was married to an un-attractive girl [Kamini] by cheating which has initially
hurt him a lot but slowly due to her beautiful nature he has started to love
her, and how when he was coming for the war she was pregnant with their child.
While in these thoughs Vinod is still attracted to this girl who is sitting
next to her. Slowly they start to talk and when the Airoplane suffers from some
problem in the Engine and had to be land in Assam for 3 hours for maintenance
they connect instantly. While waiting for the plane’s Engine to get shorted
they plan to visit nearby places, and by luck couldn’t catch the plane on time
at the time of returning. As luck would have it, the plane gets crash and these
two get saved from that.
Still as
they were in the plane as per the record at the time of plane’s initial
boarding and as no passenger were recongnisable after accident, all the
passenger were presumed dead. Although Madhvi who was from a rich family
informed her father and Uncle (With whom
she was going to live in Patna), Vinod doesn’t do so and senses this
opportunity to start this life afresh. He goes with Madhvi to her uncle’s house
to drop here their and decides to stay with them for few days on their
insistence. Both were falling for each other and during this Madhvi hears that
her Father died in a Attach in Verma [Myanmar], and confesses her love to Vinod
while he was going to her family in Lahour. Vinod goes to Lahour to meet his
family, wife and child but being weaken by his desire and love of this
beautiful girl Madhvi, he returns back to her without informing his family and
wife about his well being. Madhvi was everything he wanted, she was beautiful,
inteligents and smart and loved him unconditionally. He doesn’t tell her about
his past life.
After
Marriage Vinod and Madhvi decide to settle in Assam where Madhvi had a large
land of Tea plants inherited from her father. As at the time India was still
under British rule they oserve a really bad position of the people of the place
who were working at the state and Vinod works for their revival, also fighting
with English corporate. During this while fighting with English, they decide to
take their land from English company and not renew the rental agreement with
them. Vinod starts to run the operation of tea plantation and other activities
with the help of nearby people. But as luck would have it during an unfortunate
day ‘Brahmaputra’ Rivar gets flooded and distroyes nearby places as well as the
area at which Vinod and his workers had done their Hard work. This gives a
motivation to Vinod who starts to plan a model for dam which can be setup a low
cost and would be helpful for the whole area saving them from Brahmaputra
River’s anger at rainy season. His Ideas get struck down during the British
Rule and life goes on like this.
India gets
independent, and the government plans to setup a Dam at the nearby place for
the well being of the people at the place where Vinod and Madhvi living. When
Vinod hears about this, he gets exited by this news only and being an Engineer
goes to visit the place at which this plan is proposed to be done. There he
meets various people listening to their ideas about the plan. There He also
meets a young energetic Man named Raman who instantly impresses Vinod with his
energy and intelligence. After some time they become close and Raman comes to
know about the Vinod’s plan and likes them a lot. He also proposes to take
vinod to Delhi to meet the concerned department as in his openion Vinod’s Plans
were much better and achievable in much cheper cost, but Vidod decides against
it and gives the plans to Raman to show the concerned people.
Raman
informs Vinod about the success of his plans and how much everyone had liked
it, he also calls him to Delhi. They get the plans sanctioned and required
documentations were done. One day Raman who by then had become very close to Vinod
and well as Madhvi, invites Vinod to His house at Delhi to meet his mother with
whom he used to live and Vinod accepts the invitation. When He reaches Raman’s
house Vinod comes to know that the house is of Kamini [Who was still living her
life as widow] and Raman was his own son. Filled with guilt Vinod runs away
from them without informing anyone. Kamini doesn’t tell this to Raman who
continues to work with Vinod for building the bridge, but Vinod is not sure
what he should do or what he is feeling, he was stuck in a fight within Himself
with his conscience. Later Raman also brings Kamini with Him to Assam so that
he can take good care of her, Kamini knowing that Vinod will be also there
asked Raman that they live separately. Although thinking about her Son’s well
being, his future, and his state of mind if he knows the truth Kamini tries to
not express or say anything to Raman but she is troubled as well as disgusted
that how can a person be so cruel who can hide that he is alive and leave his
family on the mercy of others. On the third side is Kamini who is also not able
to understand the strange behavior of Vinod since he came back from Delhi and
specially since Madhvi has arrived Assam. One day Kamini goes to Raman’s house to meet Madhvi
as well as to know the well being, and on that specific time Madhvi unknowing
of her presence tells the truth about Vinod to Raman.
This brings
a havoc to all of their lives Raman stops interacting with Vinod and Madvi also
confronts Vinod after some time to why he didn’t tell her about this. On the
other hand the nature had some other plans and the heavy rain starts to pour
making the water pressure and level quite dangerous to Dam to sustain. Seeing
this Bothe Vinod and Raman decide that the Dam’s gate had to be opened manually
which are stuck due to non-working of Automatic lever and Vinod goes to do this
by himself stopping Raman, knowing that his could be his last meeting with his
son and later on leaving his two widows [Do Pat] and a Bridge [Raman] to join
them.
Ok! So first
and farmost let me clarify once again this is a social novel and you won’t find
any thriller or action content in the novel. The story revolves around the
Human Emotions and believes and also how they behave under different
circumstances.
As I’ve
already said earlier the writer has touched a long period of time in the whole
novel.
The
characterization of the Main character Vinod is Complex, who is although a nice
human being who tries to do good for people around him, but is still not
untouched from Human Desire. It shows although he is living the life with the
person he loves but still be is hurt thinking the position his wife and child
might be and faces guilt by this, but again he decides to go again his duty and
surrenders to his desire. We are attached with his character till the end
feeling and experiencing his good as well as bad deeds.
The writer
provides us two strong woman characters. One Kamini, a un-attractive but a
strong willed woman who spends her whole life thinking that her husband is dead
and does her every bit to make her son an engineer. Second is Madhvi, a
beautiful strong willed women who also loves Vinod unconditionally and supports
him through thick and thin.
A like
Novels/stories like this, and as per my openion Gulshan Nanda is one of the
best Socio-novel writer, although I might be a little biased towards him as my
mother has been a good appreciator of his writing all her life and I have been
brought up listing her praising his writing.
Still I am
sure you all will also like this novel as much as I did.
My rating-
4/5
