‘Sapratibha’: A debut Novel by an Octogenarian
Dr. Dilip Chakraborty, a Bengali living in Brampton of Ontario of Canada, has earned much fame among the expatriate Bengali community for his unparallel zeal, extraordinary knowledge and enthusiastic involvement. An outstanding orator, Dilip, who was born in 1937 in Madaripur of Bangladesh, did his higher education in India and had taught English literature for decades. For long he has been contributing to different periodicals published from Toronto and Kolkata. His friends of both the cities are elated seeing this octogenarian young man’s first book published.
‘Sapratibha’, is novel. And as is generally found in many debut fictions of prominent writers, it encompasses the autobiographical elements of the writers. The whole story evolves around Sapratibha Majumder, alias ‘Sapu’, the protagonist of the novel. His family consists of his widow mother and minor sister, Samarpita, alias ‘Minu’. His father died at a tender age when the protagonist was an undergraduate student. Since then he had to struggle a lot to make both ends meet when Jeevan, a friend of his deceased father, came to his rescue by giving him full financial support till he completed his Master degree. Though he had acute financial crisis, he never compromised with his principles and self-respect. Ultimately he could get a job of his choice, which is of a college lecturer, on the basis of his excellent performance in the interview.
It was an irony of fate that though his name was ‘Sapratibha (meaning ‘unembarrassed’), fate made him the opposite ‘Apratibha ‘ (meaning embarrassed) in many walks of life – he missed first class by a few marks, his girl friend betrayed him and he had to marry a stranger girl under circumstances beyond his control. But by his dignity and self-respect, by his sincerity in helping students to learn and, last but not least, by obtaining Doctoral degree in a record time in a foreign university, he justified his name, ‘Sapratibha’.
In the prevailing atmosphere of corruption and nepotism there is an exceptionally honest, efficient and able administrator, Dr. Razia Hasan, the college Principal, who always stands by side of honest and sincere employees, Sapu included, not succumbing to the pressure of dishonest powerful lobby. Such a noble character is that of Jeevan uncle who is not having much formal education, but is enlightened from within.
Principal Razia Hasan is so strict in her principle that she does not welcome her only son, Mujibar, who married a foreign lady belonging to different religion. But when she realized that she had been unduly harsh to his son and daughter-in-law, she immediately embraced them in her family.
Although, ‘Sapratibha’ is the first novel of the writer, it has adopted all the qualities of a good book. Even in this first novel, Dilip has shown his excellence in style of writing and diction and thus the choice of words speak volumes of the maturity of Dilip Chakraborty as a writer.
In spite of its worthiness, the novel has got some minor lapses as well. Often it seems that story has motion but no direction and the plot revolves round one point.
Earnest Hemingway, the American author of many good books, has said, “All good books have one thing in common, they are truer than if they had really happened.” After reading Dilip Chakraborty’s Bengali novel SAPRATIBHA, I am of the firm opinion that this book belongs to the category of good books. The developments of incidents that create feelings in the characters of the novel produce similar feelings in the readers as well. The readers will feel the emotional ups and downs of the characters. It would seem that the incidents described in the novel have really happened. The characters’ pleasant experiences will make the readers happy and the unpleasant ones unhappy. American novelist Phillip Yancey has rightly said “one of the joys of a really good book is that you are so into the world of the book, you forget what you are looking at is words on a page.”
Though the author has written several poems, stories and articles- he has never before thought of writing a novel. About this he himself says, “I have a sense of fear about writing a novel. I can have disjointed and wild imagination, but I cannot say that God has given me the capacity of having sustained and consistent thought process.” But, after reading the book, I am personally of the opinion that God has already bestowed the author with that gift, though the author has been blissfully ignorant. I am of the further opinion that in this novel the author has amply proved his mettle.
The basic tenets of a good novel are that, like the sprouting of the seed into a plant, the characters also have their natural symbiotic growth. The protagonist of the novel is Professor Sapratibha
But, all said and done, the novel is an excellent one. I whole heartedly congratulate the author, Dr. Dilip Chakraborty, for his great success as a writer in his very first attempt. I congratulate Sri Aparup Ukil for excellent cover design of the book, the Bengali Literary Resource Centre of Toronto for publishing the book and Madam Mitra Ghosh Chatterjee for editing the book and Sahajiya Publishing House for printing the book. The book has already been successfully launched in Kolkata and it will be launched in Toronto in the near future.