History in schooling days was "a few pages a king"
Their victories pithy lines, failings a few words
No interest the dead prose held, no joys it'd bring
For the wards looked for grades, all else blurred
I learnt such lessons, coming on top in memorising
Lacking an interest that glues in the learning
Forgot them easily when the next year's came in
For, the wards looked for grades, History was boring
And by a fortunate chance I outgrew that influence
as my interest spurred me and grew on feeding
on stories historical dependable research their essence,
bringing to life many that led great lives, king after king
coming on the heels of Kalki's magnum opus for me
reading Saradindu's story found me in delight giddy
A comment from a friend Suvojit while discussing historical fiction resulted in my search for Saradindu's By the Tungabhadra. The background information of the novel was interesting to begin with and a Bengali author of renown picking a South Indian Kingdom as backdrop piqued my interest further. To me, like with most Telugu people Vijayanagara saamraajyam began and ended with SrinKrishnadevaraya. His larger than life persona has permeated many movies, books and embedded itself in the collective Telugu people's memory to an extent that it eclipsed the brilliance of other greats who ruled Vijayanagara ably for many years.
Saradindu's novel is a fictional story of love and intrigue set in the times of the second Devaraya also known as Praudha Devaraya. I did not read any Saradindu's works prior to this though I was reasonably acquainted with Satya sodhana of Byomkesh Bakshi.
Reading the comments and praise the novel had gathered from those that have read the original version, especially the usage of classical Bengali with a great deal of precision to create Vijayanagara's atmosphere, makes me long for an ability to read and understand the novel in its true form. Adding to that were a few quibbles I found about the translation. More on that later.
Firstly, the story moves at a good pace right from the beginning and true to one of Saradindu's twelve tenets, it does not get bogged down at any place with elaborate or unnecessary descriptions of places or characters beyond the minimum required to conjure a real image in the mind of the reader. Historical details are cleverly embedded into the storyline and do not appear artificial or forced in any instance. The plot is very interesting with a good number of twists and turns.
The author's choice of names is interesting too. One of the key characters is called maNikankaNa which reminded me of 'maNikankaNanyAyam' (also called parvAtAdhikyatAnyAyam) which refers to stating the obvious by tautaulogy. Then it dawned upon me that this simple garrulous girl's name was probably an eponymous choice by the author. Also his usage of Jayadeva's lines and some linguistic feats like punning on danDapANi add to the beauty of narration.
That said, I found the translation a tad underwhelming at places. There is no sense of grandeur that Saradindu apparently induced into the original. Then the translator mentions danDapANi is a.pun on sticks and water when referring to the name of a person found floating in water with two sticks. Clearly the translator confuses paani (water) with pANi (holding in one's hands). Then in one passage describing sunset he refers to lotuses blooming and lilies folding when it should be the other way. These being some obvious slips on metaphor, I am not sure if he has made any transgressions on translation. With all this, it is a good deal of credit to the original material that the story still shines through.
The atmosphere created by the story is lingering that I wish to explore Kalki's Sivagamiyin Sabadam immediately.
Their victories pithy lines, failings a few words
No interest the dead prose held, no joys it'd bring
For the wards looked for grades, all else blurred
I learnt such lessons, coming on top in memorising
Lacking an interest that glues in the learning
Forgot them easily when the next year's came in
For, the wards looked for grades, History was boring
And by a fortunate chance I outgrew that influence
as my interest spurred me and grew on feeding
on stories historical dependable research their essence,
bringing to life many that led great lives, king after king
coming on the heels of Kalki's magnum opus for me
reading Saradindu's story found me in delight giddy
A comment from a friend Suvojit while discussing historical fiction resulted in my search for Saradindu's By the Tungabhadra. The background information of the novel was interesting to begin with and a Bengali author of renown picking a South Indian Kingdom as backdrop piqued my interest further. To me, like with most Telugu people Vijayanagara saamraajyam began and ended with SrinKrishnadevaraya. His larger than life persona has permeated many movies, books and embedded itself in the collective Telugu people's memory to an extent that it eclipsed the brilliance of other greats who ruled Vijayanagara ably for many years.
Saradindu's novel is a fictional story of love and intrigue set in the times of the second Devaraya also known as Praudha Devaraya. I did not read any Saradindu's works prior to this though I was reasonably acquainted with Satya sodhana of Byomkesh Bakshi.
Reading the comments and praise the novel had gathered from those that have read the original version, especially the usage of classical Bengali with a great deal of precision to create Vijayanagara's atmosphere, makes me long for an ability to read and understand the novel in its true form. Adding to that were a few quibbles I found about the translation. More on that later.
Firstly, the story moves at a good pace right from the beginning and true to one of Saradindu's twelve tenets, it does not get bogged down at any place with elaborate or unnecessary descriptions of places or characters beyond the minimum required to conjure a real image in the mind of the reader. Historical details are cleverly embedded into the storyline and do not appear artificial or forced in any instance. The plot is very interesting with a good number of twists and turns.
The author's choice of names is interesting too. One of the key characters is called maNikankaNa which reminded me of 'maNikankaNanyAyam' (also called parvAtAdhikyatAnyAyam) which refers to stating the obvious by tautaulogy. Then it dawned upon me that this simple garrulous girl's name was probably an eponymous choice by the author. Also his usage of Jayadeva's lines and some linguistic feats like punning on danDapANi add to the beauty of narration.
That said, I found the translation a tad underwhelming at places. There is no sense of grandeur that Saradindu apparently induced into the original. Then the translator mentions danDapANi is a.pun on sticks and water when referring to the name of a person found floating in water with two sticks. Clearly the translator confuses paani (water) with pANi (holding in one's hands). Then in one passage describing sunset he refers to lotuses blooming and lilies folding when it should be the other way. These being some obvious slips on metaphor, I am not sure if he has made any transgressions on translation. With all this, it is a good deal of credit to the original material that the story still shines through.
The atmosphere created by the story is lingering that I wish to explore Kalki's Sivagamiyin Sabadam immediately.
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