Lingering Shadows

Distressing but startlingly evocative Andhere Band Kamre, chronicles Harban’s andNeelima’s painful marriage against the backdrop of Delhi in the early fifties.

A master in portraying pain as a result of a dysfunctional personal relationship, Mohan Rakesh beautifully projects the duality in this novel. The elite civil mind of the present Indian society is divided into two parts: one is steeped in western modernism while the second clings to a hereditary ritualism. This duality creates a gap between society and class, and a barrier between dark and light, a barrier for progressive thinking in a regressive environment. As a result, the central character is torn between the two thought processes leading to anger, envy, suspicion and eventually becomes a stranger to himself. Here’s an impressive depiction of an empty spouse life with mutual honesty, emotional attachment and mental perception through Harban and Neelima – the central characters. This novel, which opens the dark rooms of the physical, intellectual and cultural ambitions of the Indian elite is one of the most famous Hindi stories.   From India Novels Collective