REVIEW
TELUGU
Yuga Sandhi, a novel, by Sri Bhaskarabhatla Krishnarao.
Published by the Adarsa Grandha
Mandali, Vijayawada. Price. Rs.
4.
This
interesting novel was published more than a year ago, and, as the title page
tells us, it is woven around the socio-political situation in Telangana before and after the grand strategy of Sardar Patel in the erstwhile dominion of the Nizam. It was a meeting point of widely–differing eras. It
richly deserved proclamation in a tale.
The
tale is itself well told. Most of the characterisation
is real and powerful, but some of it (judged by modern standards) is unreal and
immature. Rukmini, the forlorn young woman of an orthodox Hindu household, who
elopes with Visweswararao, is seduced by Ramanadham, and takes Rashid as
her lover, is neatly depicted and is real to the readers. Not so real is Padma whom the hero, Raghu,
marries. She and her great home, her opulence and generosity, look like Dickens
and the Brothers Cheeryble. The characterisation
of Ramana whom the hero loves (to begin with) and who
has not lost her charm to him (even to end with) is a beautiful but not too
successful attempt to reveal the shades of a difficult and complex type of
person. Rashid in love or in lust with a Hindu, and
therefore in grief with the Razakars, is limned and
touched with just enough care and grace to make him possible. But Visweswararao and Ramanadham are
far too much the conventional type to be quite real in an artistic way. The
characters of Suman and Ayesha,
the Maharashtrian and Muslim girl friends in a Cosmopolitan Hyderabad, appear
and disappear in the novel with a casualness which leaves the reader with a
regret that the novelist did not care enough for them to show more of them and
to show them better. The incidents round the Police Action are mingled with the
story and narrated with commendable reality. But chapter 19, a mere ten pages
no doubt, stands outside the story as a mere combine of news items.
Modern
world fiction is Freudian, and takes us into the dark labyrinths of complicated
human nature, and except with gifted writers; fails often. Yuga Sandhi is not quite modern in that sense. And it is not
quite a failure. It is a simple tale, and mostly tells us about elementary
human nature in the unvarnished manner of earlier centuries. It lacks
complication, and avoids sophistry. It is a neat story, told with ease by a
novelist who definitely has the gift of conjuring up characters and situations.
The
writer’s ease was what I liked most about the novel.
–BURRA V.
SUBRAHMANYAM