Tuesday, February 16, 2010

A question of options

Mridula Garg wrote Anitya set against the backdrop of Indian freedom movement 30 years ago in Hindi. An interplay of personal and political choices, the novel weaves in the ‘violent' form of the freedom struggle put forth by leaders such as Bhagat Singh and Chandrasekhar Azad and the non-violent movement led by Mahatma Gandhi with the lives of the protagonists.

“It is more relevant today,” the author says. Mridula was at Reliance Timeout, recently to launch her book Anitya- Halfway to nowhere, translated from Hindi by Seema Segal and brought out by the Oxford University Press (Rs. 395).

“It is not a historical novel and there is no dramatisation of historical events, it is about personal lives set against the freedom struggle,” Mridula says. There is angst, anger and frustration, as the characters feel responsible for the self-destructive choices they make. A kind of transition from “why not I” to “Why me?” “When I started writing about my central protagonist Avijit, he had to be a political being, because his personal life is co-ordinated with the political developments,” adds the feisty writer, known for her ‘audacious and lively' themes.

Full report here Hindu

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