My Favorite Author -Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay
I have gone through novels and stories of many renowned writers of Bengali literature of all writers, I like Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay most. His simple style and lucid language replete with humor, wit, and satire have attracted me. He gave the rural Bengal a character in itself, a character of simplicity yet strength.
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay was born on 15 September 1876, in Debanandapur, a small village two miles northwest of Bandel in Hooghly, West Bengal. He was brought up and educated at Bhagalpur but had to leave college halfway due to poverty. In 1913, some of his best-known stories were published in some periodicals. As the success of these stories assured a steady income, and as he was not well, he came back to India and settled down in Calcutta to take up writing professionally. He was a prominent Bengali novelist and short story writer of the early 20th century.
His writing aimed at criticizing the evils and superstitions of the society which still prevails in the rural areas. Most of his works deal with the lifestyle, tragedy, struggle of the village people, and the contemporary social practices that prevailed in Bengal. So, his novels and stories reflected oppression of the Zamindars land-lords, feudal lords, rising capitalists and industrialists over the poor class in the villages. He came to maturity at a time when the national movement was gaining momentum together with an awakening of social consciousness. I like to study his novels and stories. All his writing appeared to be a golden treasure to me. His novel ‘pather dabi’ played an important role in the National Movement (jatio andolon). I read mindur chhele, Mejdidi, Barodidi, Mahesh, Palli Shamaj, Charitrahin, Griha Dah, Ramer Shumati, Devdas, Pather Davi, and many other novels written by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. Among his stories, Mahesh, Ramer Shumati, Malar Fol are the most remarkable for their human apple.
Sarat Chandra wrote novels, novellas, and stories. His style is simple but very upright. His subject matters are taken from the real-life which we observe in our day to day life. The men and women of his stories and novels are, as if, our nearest one and we are very much acquainted with them, his dialogues are captivating. Much of his writing bears the mark of the resultant turbulence of society. His characterization is really charming and appreciable. We can never forget the characters like Gafur, Gaya Ram, Barodidi, Devdas, Parbati, Chandra Mukhi, Rajlakshmi, Shrikanta, etc. All these characters stir our filing and influence our mind very actively. Sharat Chandra was not only a writer but also a social reformer and humanist. He wrote of the women very highly and talked about their situation in a patriarchal society frankly and honestly.
His books have been translated into almost all Indian languages, and some foreign languages too. He received several awards for his contribution to Bengali Literature. ‘Kuntalin puraskar'(1903), ‘Jagattarini Svarna Padak'(1923), membership of ‘Bangiya Sangeet Parishad'(1934) and an honorary D.litt by the Dhaka University in the year 1936.
He had a strong desire for ideal women for heavenly peace in family life. All his female characters are created as ideal women with an extraordinary quality of patience, tolerance, endurance, sympathy, simplicity, sincerity, truthfulness. He had great sympathy for the poor and oppressed people. He was in favor of the downtrodden people. He aimed at establishing justice in society. He wanted to remove disparity and inequality from society. He advocated for removing evils, superstitions from the society. Bengal suffered an irreparable loss when he passed away on 16th January 1938.
So I admire him from the core of my heart because he was a real humanist. He remains the most popular, most translated, most adapted, and most plagiarized Indian author of all time.
