A conversation between stepfather and stepdaughter could be imaginable as a family discussion, or advice for an ordinary reader. Being an ordinary reader myself, I too expected the same from the book. But author Sabarna Roy has put forth an awe-inspiring piece of literature through Etchings of the First Quarter of 2020. The father-daughter duo has an impeccable intellectual calibre.
An extraordinarily abnormal book:
The letters should not be approached like that a father-daughter conversation. This is the analysis of two intellectually high individuals. The second part, the letter to Suranjana, has a complicated analysis of two individuals a pedophile, and a child in the story Lolita. As much as it repulses to visualize the scenario, the author’s consummated account of right and wrong emanated a perception that changes how we view individual idiosyncrasies. The author has shown immense courage in questioning the majority view by quoting but it travels through the thin line of objectification and prejudice. But I liked it for the fact it gave me a brain exercise.
Babazula and Tulip – An unusual friendship
The conversation between Babazula and Tulip touches on several topics, from economics to duality. Babazula is reading out a copy of the presentation made on Schizophrenia at the Literary Meet. The reference to the generalization of Schizophrenics as split personality disorder patients is an eye-opener and pointer to how half-cooked our information and ideologies are. The discussions and conversations between the stepfather and stepdaughter are never on the same topic and the variations which the topics represent is wide. The hidden love stories of T.S Eliot is another topic of discussion that held my attention.
Poems or Pearls of Wisdom
Further, the readers are presented with exemplary poems by the author. I hail from a state where there is no winter. But the author, through the poems held my hands and made me walk through every experience associated with winter. And there I find Babazula’s poem for Tulip. It excited me and then I realized how much I was attached to the father and daughter.
The poems have an unconventional style of musing. He tells numerous stories through his poems.
I enter the trench
Eat some loaves with marmalade
Pull the quit over my body
And, look up at the sky
The only negative if could point out if I may, which critics would use against this book, is that there are bumps in the transition from one letter to other. A conclusion of each letter could have solved this.
Don’t go for the book if you don’t enjoy a slow-paced book with literary value because then you will be doing an injustice. The book is not an easy read, short it is but deep.
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