The Preface of the book informs us that 400 years ago, Tulsidas wrote this prayer in Awadhi, an older form of Hindi. It also provides a succinct summary of Rama’s life, linking it with the festival of Diwali. In the next pages it provides a line of Hindi/Awadhi and below it, a transliteration in English.
Bansal skilfully makes and un-makes a mesh of actions and their reactions. While Lipika’s intuitive sense of foreboding sets the mood very early in the novel with her intense dislike of Rahul: ‘How could she expect him (Kartik) to understand, when she herself knew not why she detested him?’ (p. 21), the novel comes alive with a host of other narrative devices such as images that emerge and turn metaphoric. For instance, Lipika’s virulent rashes. Kartik finds them so shocking that he consults Rahul.
The stories are dealt as allegories that offer didactic elements. They question the moral scruples that are encountered by most humans now and provide a resource to try to undo their negative impact by creating an interface of collaboration through empathy. Storytelling since aeons has had the transformative power of regeneration through this empathetic approach. Ganguly, too, by painting the various mise-en-scènes in a delicate manner, has harnessed the power of storytelling through sensitive acuity.
The tragedy of the glorious Achilles who is a pawn of history, an Icarus whose fatal flight is immortalized in a Renaissance painting by Brueghel, and the boy David battling the giant Goliath are all taken out of their textual, monumental existence into a visceral world of imagination and reified there. Further, different civilizational ethos coalesces in a beautiful description of Buddha’s
Dream Machine’s menacing quality lends itself to the realization of Hugo’s potential to tread an ethical path. He meticulously considers the implications of his actions, even at the expense of time with Anna. At this juncture, AiDA becomes more of a constant in his life than his wife. His reliance on AiDA correlates closely to his own sucking into the world of power and a willing dependence on machines while ‘Realeyes’ might be keeping a watch on him. But all is not lost yet as Hugo turns out to be a multidimensional character.
A notable feature of Maitra’s translation is that most of the animals and birds acquire the names of their species in Bangla as a proper name, e.g., Tuntuni (tailor bird), Beral (cat), Chhagolchhana (baby goat), Bagh (tiger), Kumir (crocodile). These improvised proper names give an immediacy to the context and contribute to a fluent reading. But why are only the buffalo and the cow referred to by the common English names of their species?