বাওবাব
Author – Mati Nandi
Genre – Fiction, Bengali
Source - Print
Rating - 4
Read - December 2015
Mati Nandi gave me sports. And I will be eternally grateful to him for that.
But even beyond his sports-writing, he was an exceptional writer of novels and novellas. And here in Baobab is a master of the written word, at near his peak. Suneet, the chief protagonist of the story, is probably quite the most heinous, morally destitute main protagonist you will ever encounter in a story, and yet somehow, Nandi is able to humanize him. Not by glorifying him, that would be gangster simple and it is easy to love pure evil; but by etching out this disgusting, disgusting human being with a level of finesse that you eventually get it - this is nonetheless a human being. With human thoughts, human urges and human passions. You cannot look away.
This book is the work of an utterly skillful artisan.
I have a theory as to why Mati Nandi is not as famous as say Shirshendu or Bani Basu as a writer. The minor, and oft-stated answer is that the snobbish literary circle cannot and could not take a former writer of mere sports books seriously. The major answer, I think is that the Bengali reader is an emotional reader, and most, nay all of her favorites are stylistically emotional - Nandi's staccato, journalistic style of prose is not her natural habitat.
But even beyond his sports-writing, he was an exceptional writer of novels and novellas. And here in Baobab is a master of the written word, at near his peak. Suneet, the chief protagonist of the story, is probably quite the most heinous, morally destitute main protagonist you will ever encounter in a story, and yet somehow, Nandi is able to humanize him. Not by glorifying him, that would be gangster simple and it is easy to love pure evil; but by etching out this disgusting, disgusting human being with a level of finesse that you eventually get it - this is nonetheless a human being. With human thoughts, human urges and human passions. You cannot look away.
This book is the work of an utterly skillful artisan.
I have a theory as to why Mati Nandi is not as famous as say Shirshendu or Bani Basu as a writer. The minor, and oft-stated answer is that the snobbish literary circle cannot and could not take a former writer of mere sports books seriously. The major answer, I think is that the Bengali reader is an emotional reader, and most, nay all of her favorites are stylistically emotional - Nandi's staccato, journalistic style of prose is not her natural habitat.
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