Gunahon Ka Devta (novel)
The book i completed in a single day for the first time in Hindi language. Hindi Sahitya is a feeling of a warm hug for me. Reading English fictions is not that much difficult than understand Hindi language and Hindi Sahitya. There is a feeling of homeliness while reading. Perhaps, one can be the reason that we know the places and it's culture, geography, people, food, rituals and social backgrounds. When we read something what we know these things about then on next level we expect the reality of all layers into deepest sense from the authors within the highest level of fictionalism.
Dharamvir Bharati is the one of them to whom we can call great writers in Hindi Sahitya. The Author of the novel 'Gunahon Ka Devta'. This book is not one those books that you can experience it by reading reviews and watching adaptations. If you want to experience it you must dive into the ocean of the pages which are penned by Bharati himself.
Firstly, I must mention here the paradox which was in my situation when i was reading a novel by Amish Tripathi, Sita : Warrior of Mithila, i suddenly got an inspiration to read the novel Gunahon Ka Devta. I stopped and got a whole day to read that novel and back in my mind there was a constant conflict between Amish's Sita and Bharati's Sudha. It is the advantage of reading and watching the adaptation that you can imagine characters together and switching the authors we can create a new world of our own. By end of the reading i reached at the point where i found that Bharati's Sudha is not meek and weak but she is as strong as Amish's Sita. Both women characters are portrayed so deeply and detailed with their own world, either Ram or Chander, at last women in their lives makes them on the highest form of humans. which is near to Godliness or God!
Coming to the novel 'Gunahon Ka Devta', There are main four characters like, Chander, Sudha, Pammi and Binti, also i should count the character of Sudha's father Dr. Shukla. Allahabad is the place where the story took it's place with the very ordinary lives of these characters. Chander is an young man who is doing research and his guiding light in academia is Dr. Shukla, Who is Sudha's father. Binti is Sudha's cousin sister and Pammi is a friend of Chander.
By summarizing such novels, one commits a murder. So i won't summarize it so properly but will give the outline of the story. Cause i don't want make it soulless.
Story gets start with a description of the 'Allahabad' and 'Prem' so artistically. It feels like the scene is talking to the readers itself. Chander enter in the story with the conversation with Thakur Saheb about research, politic studies, economic studies and philosophy. Bisariya, who is a poet who write poetries according to situations. Sometimes for 'love' and sometimes for 'nation'. The story goes further with the entry scene of Sudha who comes by the car and Chander approach her to the library. The bond between Sudha and Chander is a very close, witty and spiritually connected. platonic!
It becomes so usual for him to visit Dr. Shukla's home, to do his all given works and some help to household, being a trusted person of Dr. Shukla, Chander slowly became the part of the life of Sudha. Sudha is not a girl who totally fits into the given ideal frame of daughterhood or womanhood. She is one who stands and ambitious with all her heart without being under the pressure of any kind of force. I can say she is the representative of each woman who is in non expressive love.
Chander and Sudha, Both were in love with each other. They shared the deepest part of themselves into each other. To fulfill Dr.Shukla's wish Sudha gets married to Kailash. Where she is not happy at all. She went to Kailash's home but later on she got an abortion and died in the end of the novel. Here Chander Lived with so many phrases and in the end he found that He truly in love with Sudha.
By them or by the help of their love story Bharti tried to put us in the realm of conflicts as an ordinary human beings we face in our lives. The character of Chander is more expanded to explore the realities of society, the layers humans carry to hide some real and unknown feelings, the suppressions we lead to some horrific circumstances, to understand the core meaning of life and philosophy, the lenses we use to look at the aspects like sex, love, and relationship. Sudha's character is more great on basis of how she is making Chander a great human being by Chander's point of view. The Character lives in the story in the form of the strong spiritual factor of someone's life.
Chander and Pammi
Chander and Pammi has shared a bond where intentionally we can see that by that bond Chander dive into the conflict of physical needs and it roles in human life. It helps story to portray many aspects of womanhood in many senses like, what are the general and naturalized points society think about women, how her personal life is being in the center to justify the all woman in the world.
Chander and Binti
Binti is an another woman who is connected to Chander thorough Sudha. She comes in the light with her own struggle as her mother never treats her well. She comes to the home of her maternal uncle and started to study there only. She witnessed the whole journey and love story of Sudha and Chander. The bond between Chander and Binti is so effortless cause it got shaped more when Sudha gets married and Chander takes care of Binti and Binti rewards that too by taking care of him. By the time, When Chander is not able to being his real self at that time Binti reminds him to be the real Chander. There are many incidents of their which help the narrative to justify the core ideas about the conflicts and confusions Chander is facing during the timeline.
Chander and Gesu
Gesu is a friend of Sudha. Chander and Gesu does not usually being in the scene together. But at last, When Gesu comes to the Shukla's house and find Chander, at that time there a conversation between them. Which tells that, How some parts of our people we carry with us. And she tells to Chander that the part of Sudha is saying to you. The tiny parts playing a major role here to put a very important part in the novel.
The novel is a very magnificent moment to understand the extra-ordinary human world by the ordinary medium. Very often, Sudha and Binti is addressing Devta to Chander. And Chander thinks at last that how he has committed Gunah during all this happenings in his life. He thought he has done wrong to Sudha, Pammi and Binti. So by that this title becomes apt for this story that is 'Gunahon Ka Devta'.