About the book
AUTHOR: Pratik Dey Sarkar
BINDING: Hard Cover
PUBLISHER: Itykatha Publication
YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2023
ORDER YOUR COPY: Here and Here
ORDER YOUR COPY IF YOU ARE FROM BANGLADESH: Here
My Thoughts
Just like the way sudden thunderstorms bring relief on a burning summer day, a beautifully penned romance book brings happiness and peace to a reader’s life.
No shade to anyone but the trend of books primarily focusing on violence and abuse shrouded in a “love story” made me despise the romance genre for a while. I couldn’t find the logic behind spreading the idea “your love will make a dark character hero”. No, that’s not how love works nor that’s anyone job to change an entire person.
Living outside Bengal and the unavailability of Bengali books here in Delhi, at least in the neighborhood where I live, made me feel uprooted. Thankfully my parent sent all the literary periodicals from home. It's surreal that the only romance books I enjoy reading are written in my mother tongue. Maybe it’s the fact that I could relate to the storyline and character's thought process so easily like it's almost mine.
When the author, Prateek De Sarkar approached me, I was shocked since I never talked about Bangla books before on my page. It also put me a challenge to express my thoughts regarding his book to people who belong to different linguistic groups. It's sad how regional books get lost or get trapped in a particular region due to a lack of translation.
Moving back to his book, Sudhu Tomari Jonno, just like the name suggests, talks endlessly about love. Not just one-dimensional love. The author skillfully expressed different shades of it. The first teenage crush, the warmth that one feels in a peaceful relationship, pains of unrequited love. He weaves stories and poetries with short essays which explore certain detachments we feel even when we are with our close ones.
Although each and every work has its own beauty and it's impossible to detect that this is a debutant work, one that stood out from the rest was the poetries where the author took us on a journey to understand different perspectives of Abhinav and Jaya. He painted distress and separation in a very elegant and soulful manner.
Overall, it’s an excellent piece of work and would recommend all Bengali readers to read this book at least once.
About the author
Pratik De Sarkkar currently lives in West Bengal, India. Follow the author here: