Pashando Pandit

Narayan Sanyal’s novel starting with the death of the young wife of the aged Nayaratna Prashanta Bhattacharjee, the 3rd pandit of a school at Chetla is based on how the Nayratna maintains the purity of his soul amid all the enticements and the obstacles presented to him by the society. Akin to his novel, Parabola Sir, I don’t know which one was written earlier, it is draped with all the emotions and sentiments that, at places, seems quite unrealistic. That he has to bring his daughter decently, seems to get the lower priority as compared to his responsibility as a school teacher. True, the purity, innocence and truthfulness of the pundit is, no doubt, praiseworthy, but I don’t think impracticality in actions can be at all considered to be a virtue. It is nice to see that the pundit never show any lust for earning easy money and also destiny plays a major hand in one instance to shove him in the right direction, but earning money deservingly too seems to be a wrong path for this pundit. So those who had read the other novel will find the closing more or less predicable.