A Journal of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya

actually a negation of historicity in this
novel. Similarly then Indian women were
participating in the freedom struggle (under
the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and
Subhash Chandra Bose) but Shashi does
not show an iota of social - political
participation or even any kind of
restlessness for the liberation of women.
This aspect negates historical circumstances
in no uncertain terms. Thus ‘Shekhar :
Ek Jivani’ depicts more of an ‘artist’ Shekhar
and less of a revolutionary Shekhar, who
is normally in the company of the rich
elite, not of the labour class. Obviously
the novelist fails to depict the ‘truth of
epoch’ and probably Agyeya later became
conscious of this fact as he admitted in
an interview that the language of this novel
was outdated and complicated. However,
despite such shortcomings it is a major’
novel that established its recognition -
not only in Hindi literature but also in
Indian literature.
His second novel ‘Nadi Ke Dweep’ is
a character - oriented, not an event-oriented
novel. All characters here belong to the
middle class, especially the educated
professional ones. Different characters like
Bhuvan, Rekha, Gaura, Chandra Madhav
and Hemant usually meet one another
in a coffee house in personal capacity,
not as family members. They behave very
decently as gentle men and women but
are quite egoists from within. The heroine,
Rekha, performs two roles, one as a woman
of good character and second as a bad
character. Rekha usually says to the hero,
Bhuvan- “I will move away before being
bored.” She is a matured and experienced
woman and Bhuvan accepts that talking
to her gives him mental energy. Rekha
tells him once. “I have no greed to reach
any destination, I am on such a journey
that leads to nowhere, endless —— I will
not become a cart before the horse I
will leave the day my luggage comes —
Bhuvan, I will come in your life and will
go away. I know the limits of my destiny.”
Obviously she desires to live every moment
of the relevance of life. “Whatever exists
now, let it be beautiful, Bhuvan; when
that is no more, its non- being is also
beautiful .. ,’” That may be snatched away,
but till it is, it is the best, that is joy.
“ Needless to say that it reflects the
philosophy of the phenomenologists who
talk of ‘here and now’ - believing in the
immediate present more than in the history,
or in the future. Thus Rekha wants to
live a given life happily without bothering
much about the future because often waiting
for a better life results into the loss of
the present life itself. Therefore in order
to become self - dependent, she takes
up small jobs but refuses to marry Bhuvan
at his request. To put in her own words,
“I had asked you for love. I did not ask
you for future, nor I will take that.” Why
does she decide so? Because she thinks
‘marriage as some kind of restriction,
because she had given her word to Gaura,
because Bhuvan did not express his feelings
clearly, because she did not want to be
dependent and because she is conscious
of Bhuvan’s future. The scientist Bhuvan
speaks a lot of literary idioms and loves
58 :: January-March 2012