Vipradas by Sharatchandra

I had read Sharatchandra's Devdas, Parineeta, Charitraheen and Baikunth Ka Daanpatra earlier and I liked them very much. This was the only reason that made me and Rajeev jump over Jabal's (Arun sir) collection of Sharatchandra. I picked up Vipradas last week. As you must be expecting, its a Hindi translation of his Bengla book with same title (I hope so, I don't have an idea about the original book.) Publisher of the entire collection is Raja Pocket Books. The books are quite different from they are expected to be. These books look like more of station-chhap books, with shiny names and all. Price is quite economical, 50 rupees per book. Paper quality is above average and there are not much printing errors etc. There is one major problem, you don't know who the translator is. Book doesn't talk about the translator at all.

This novel too, like maximum Sharatchandra novels, has very much influential, mostly Brahmins, jamindaars and well-educated people. Like Premchand, poverty is not an issue with Sharat Chandra. Our protagonist, Vipradas Mukhopadhyay is the eldest son of Dayamayi, jamindaar of the village Balrampur. He is well educated, has enormous physique, is very much influential and is very kind. Villagers, his family persons respect him from bottom of their hearts. He is step-son of Dayamati but is the main person of the family, looks after all the property and business. Story of the novel rotates around him only mainly, though his younger brother, his wife, his wife's cousin sister etc are other people in supporting roles.

There is not much to talk about the story, its small, straightforward but involving. Its written in typical Sharatchandra-literature-style, a complete family drama, love story with very good depiction of society, its values, its narrowness and peculiar rule-regulations. What I feel about authors like Sharatchandra, Premchand and other authors of their time is that they were not completely fictional. They presented us a real picture of their time, society and people. They tried to solve many of traditional, superstitious problems, they tried to move people by their work. They didn't write bull-shit just to make people feel good. Perhaps money wasn't on top of their minds. I feel very good after reading such books, believe it or not but they influence me a lot. Sometimes I start feeling like if I am doing nothing for my country, my people. This book wasn't revolutionary like Godan of Premchand or Ganadevta of Tarashankar Bandhopadhyay.

Overall a satisfactory read. Would say nothing was great, but everything was above average. 6/10 would be my bid for this book of Sharatchandra.

Book Details:
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Vipradas by Sharatchandra (Hindi Translation)
Publisher: Raja Pocket Books
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 182
Price: INR 60
ISBN: 8176041149