A delicate construct of imagination

by Joy Goswami is the story of her life, her aspirations, and her relationship with the few people in her life to whom she is close.

Sanjhbati's Dreams is the English translation of the novel, by Rani Ray. The opening lines indicate the unusual nature of the story: "They call me Sanjhbati. Ma gave me that name as I was born at sunset, and Baba said I threw out light like a little oil lamp at dusk. He also said that light flowed from my body when I sat in the dark."

As one reads through the novel, one moves through a world balanced so delicately that the slightest disturbance might shatter it.

It is a world of fantasy that Sanjhbati's father chooses to live in, a world that is lit up by the two lamps""Pujarini and Indrajal, a world that her mother has to put up with since her husband would not come out of it.

Nandajethu, an old colleague and friend of Saikat, Sanjhbati's father, and Dipupishi, one of his (Saikat's) old students who shares an intense relationship with him (something that the reader half suspects but comes to know only at the end of the novel), are the only outsiders who are allowed to enter this world.

Why is Saikat such a recluse? Why doesn't he hold an exhibition of his paintings? The novelist tells the reader about the time when he put up an exhibition of his paintings at the Academy of Fine Arts with two of his friends. Responses from art critics and well-known painters were not at all appreciative.

While one art critic wanted to know why he never painted human beings, a well-known artist pointed out that his paintings were not in keeping with contemporary trends. His words, "It's not enough to paint; you must know what contemporary painting is all about. Knowledge of life must come first."

After all, he had no formal training in painting. A sharp dig at the establishment from a poet who has always been a nonconformist and against the establishment.

I have not read the novel in Bengali, but viewing the film based on it by Anjan Das gives one an idea of the lyrical and poetic quality of the language.

One feels it had been rather a difficult task for Rani Ray to translate. That she has done successfully, which marks her out as a sensitive translator.

Sanjhbati reminds one of the Lady of Shallott, the protagonist of Tennyson's narrative poem with the same title. She lives in her own world of fantasy, protected by the love of her dear ones.

Contact with reality with its overtones of greed, lust, and sheer physicality shatters her and it takes her some time to come back to normal.

Her greatest shock is the knowledge that her father, whom she had placed on a pedestal, is having an affair with Dipupishi. This traumatises her and estranges her from the person she had earlier idolised. Her mother, when she gets to know of it, has a stroke and dies soon afterwards.

One can read the novel as a conflict between imagination and reality. The voice of reason is that of Pujarini, one of the lamps that gives constant company to Sanjhbati and can tell her bitter truths that she would not take from anyone else.

When, angered by her plain speaking, Sanjhbati wants to fling her to the floor, it is only she who can challenge her saying, "Come on""hurl me to the ground. You won't have a single friend left who'll dare to speak out the truth." Ultimately, it is Pujarini who persuades her to go back to her father and look after him.

With her love and care, he gets better and starts painting again. Earlier, when his wife had been alive, he had never been able to paint her. Now he can, though her face is barred by a grill.

The experience enables her to recognise love as the supreme motivation in life and she is able to recall her dreams and cast them in the creative mode of a novel, the novel that one has just finished reading.

Viewing the film after one has read the novel reveals the limitations of the film medium, which can only depict the visual aspect of the narrative whereas there is much more to the novel that comes across even in the English translation.

Sanjhbati's Dreams
Joy Goswami (Translated into English by Rani Ray)
Srishti
Pages: 261
Price: Rs 195