Kaaj

This may be one of the few Sankar novels with a predictable ending. The novel encompasses the life of factory workers with a special attention to one of them, a Sadananda Majumder, a sincere staff completing 30 years as a factory hand in Ogilvy India and residing in a Coolie Town at Howrah. Indcidentally, Sudhakar Nandi, aBengali writer, in a turn of fate came to reside as a neighbour to Sadananda. A popular writer, famous for choosing foreign backdrops for his romantic novel-cum-travelouges, Sudhakar now got a chance to peek into the stark reality of the common man. Maybe this understanding already nested in his subconscious self as we find him not able to associate romance with these people of semi-slum area. Revelation dawned upon Sudhakar as he found out the hardships of Sadananda and his concern for his daughter and son-in-law. Sadananda as a rational family man, hated the idea of squandering money and was against any kind of credit and so it gave him great discomfort as he saw his son-in-law starting his life lavishly without paying any heed to savings. His uneasiness was justified as the factory in which the son-in-law worked went for a lock-out. It became clear that the opportunist union leaders that always took advantage of the administration had an indirect role to play for it. The new management, bent on discontinuing these undue benefits found that they were too late and the deadlock for the factory’s survival could only be broken by laying off several workers. In this condition, Sadananda was subjected to a strenuous mental stress and Sudhakar could rightly understand his neighbour’s feelings at this point of time. He could contrast this condition with the fictitious plots that he devised and he could understand that while in his story he always looked for a conclusive finish but in reality it may be markedly different. Infact, paradoxical at this juncture, when we consider Sankar to be the author of this piece, we find him critical of Sudhakar’s thoughts. In the final phase, though predictable of his actions, but the apparently unrealistic braveness in Sadananda’s character deserves mention and Sankar’s dexterity in arriving at a masterly finish deserves praise.