One might wonder while picking up this slim volume, why people could not leave Devdas alone. Sarat (Chandra Chattopadhyay) babu wrote the story of a pampered, badly brought-up youth with an exaggerated notion of his own worth. A young man who was proved worthless by his actions that made him lose the women he loved and die pining for one while he allowed the other to live, pining for him.
If songs and actors of rare talent had not glorified him, Devdas may well have been forgotten, but as it stands, the filmmakers, viewers, readers, and most of all lovers, can’t seem to leave him alone. And now Gupta. In proclaiming his protagonist is not Devdas, he has summoned him yet again.
It is likely that the reader might flounder a bit at the start while trying to bring the old story in line with the new one Gupta has written. It might seem that the author is forcing it a bit. The narrative is told through the voices of the three main players–– has that not been done often enough before? The reader might also bristle a bit at Gupta’s ‘cleverness’—a trap the well-read and articulate fall into, of showing what they know.
The fact that the voices of the central characters have the same lilt, and the same rhythms might have a perturbing effect, but this reviewer would advise the reader to go on. For, though their accents merge, three distinct stories emerge, making it clear where the Devdas connection lay. What is refreshing about Gupta’s take on Devdas is that his central trio live on a campus and suffer the small joys and many horrors of living in the articulate, opinionated milieu of contemporary India. It is important that the reader doesn’t miss that, because soon the other little asides that the author slipped in, begin to reveal themselves.
These subplots shine like pieces of silver foil hidden in the sand. Blink, and you miss them, but catch them and they linger in your memory, having the potential to cause squirming in some quarters. Gupta’s passages are nicely drawn and descriptive, and he gets distinctly more in charge of his story as it moves forward. The stray strands drop off, and the telling is tauter, with sinews showing. When ‘not Paro’ is hurt by ‘not Devdas’, it’s obvious how closely you are walking in step with the original, and yet on a parallel track.
Gupta should have perhaps avoided words like gotten, and a couple of other Americanisms. Or perhaps they belong in the campus of his characters, but readers who went to school and colleges in another place and time would not know.