A tale of triumph

Sunny Dua
For the love of a Man  is tale of a girl who rises to become a successful gynaecologist but during her prime youthfulness intends to break shackles of her ‘almost failed’ marriage only to fall for a man who never was on the same page but certain forbidden desires and obsessed similarities for freedom, love, lust, independence, revenge from life and of course success brings the couple closer only to part ways after everything including the ‘mirage like’ life collapses like a pack of cards.
In between, the main character Rosy takes readers back to her childhood days spent in schools, colleges and at her paternal and maternal homes where anecdotes ranging from humour, conspiracies, affection, parenthood, ancestral homes, infatuation and career building steers readers into a glorious and pious past. Finally, unable to find solace in worldly affairs she, somewhat like Buddha leaves home only to travel to hills for an introspection to bring in some relief to her soul and for inner peace and tranquillity that eluded her throughout these years of “Unrest”.
Advocating feminism, the book also revolves around how a woman singlehandedly takes on worst of the situations head-on and emerges strong enough to raise her children, stay in muck like marriage, discharges her responsibilities and simultaneously makes a career. Like Yashodhar, wife of Siddhartha Gautama – The Buddha who preferred to stay single and satisfied with the virtue that she needed no one to complete her, Rozy also tries to do the same but in the end preferred to imitate Buddha and heads towards hills to find consolation.
Strange are the characters, locations, relations and anecdotes in this book that overlap lives of several people in real life which the doctor writer, Amrinder Bajaj has dubbed as work of fiction. Still strange are the lessons of life that the lead role, which by chance imitates a real life ‘Hero’, prefers to learn by her own experiences and didn’t get a single shoulder to lean on. Had she found one, either there would have been no book or several sweet and sour stories of a joint family had flown out of the pen of author in an entirely different way.
The first few pages are devoted to paternal and maternal sides wherein the author had described grandpa of Rosy as debauch whose fidelity cost him his property and even a couple of few relations. This definitely is a subject that deals with genes telling how they are passed on to next generations and probably Rosy too, if not debauch, at least was woman of self respect but sexually active who needed an equally active partner to satisfy her lust and desire to live a complete life. And then this liberated woman instead of walking out of marriage or succumbing to social structure of a typical Punjabi family chooses to lead a parallel life with a nonentity.
This could be termed more a biography than a story telling novel or a book which has a message.  In today’s world when extramarital relations or walking out of marriage has become order of the day, the gynaecologist Rosy prefers to stay put and makes a real mess of her life till she gets to believe that she had also been let down by everyone. Woven into simple words for the convenience of readers, the book is about the sweet girl who, away from a joint family, grew up in an atmosphere where she fell for every second boy that she came across; be it in school, neighbourhood, college or adjoining official accommodations wherever her father got transferred.
What went wrong that forced this girl to stray into this mad-mad world where she learnt all that usually is learnt from others’ experiences is worth a read. The writer could not skip names of a Jammu mansion called Haveli or its Kothri or central courtyard where Lohri was celebrated. This all fortunately matches her ancestral home and its surroundings that might be a coincidence but it speaks of the fact that she has cared to pour her heart into the book. Turns and twists in the life of this girl that pass through strange, painful, joyous, imaginative and filthy world which preyed upon her have been articulately portrayed.
Contrarily, feminism enables her to break shackles in this male dominated society and when it comes to facing the weird world there’s nothing in the end that could be treated or considered as a gain. The well woven story takes one from her childhood spent in filthy lanes of Jammu to Allahabad and Nagpur where she grew to become a doctor and finally Delhi – her work place where she faced best and worst of her world alone.
The bravest part of girl’s life is that she lived and not committed suicide. She chose to live on her own terms – right or wrong, she chose not to be cowed down, she chose to buy her own happiness, she chose to put her life and even marriage at stake for the love of a man which she craves not now and she chose to lose the faith of father, friend, son or lover but lastly proved that she complete herself by just being what she was.
Real or imaginative, the uncle who returned after studying abroad also found a passing reference in the book. Having heard and seen that he was more of a friend, mentor, guide a support to his nephews and nieces than just being an uncle, anything revealed to him would have put at rest the anxiety that led to this long drawn battle against a failed marriage, against system and a failed relationship that could bear no fruits except drawing momentary pleasures. The loss that she suffered was indeed colossal.
Despite that sweet memories that she cherished or the ones which still haunt her are worth a read. Her journey is arduous as well as pleasant but the turbulent waters in which she sailed are worth a message. There is no point feeling pity because despite poor treatment by in-laws and husband she lived her life to the full and claims to be successful but having fished in deep troubled waters just to satisfy her ‘lust and love’ is a message for others who would understand how easily a doctor was lured into sex life by a nonentity just because he had got money and manly looks. This sounds little atrocious.
A diehard fan of Khushwant Singh, she presumably has chosen to make her life public which is not an easy task but somewhere heart in heart I believe that a true story (hopefully) has unnecessarily been dubbed as work of fiction which shows that the life she played with was not worth taking a chance. These five lines of book speak of themselves:
After elusive shadows, long I ran,
Never again,
Will I crave the love of a man.
From now on it just my dog and me
And a book beneath a shady tree.
She was fortunate to have learnt a lot from her father about her ancestors but this one sided story cannot justify her stance about the family and its internal affairs especially corrupt grandpa. Had she read stories of Tumbleweed Smith – Under the China-berry Tree and Blood Brothers by M J Akbar this book could have been little more fine and interesting to read. I reiterate that had she found a shoulder to lean on, this book would have ceased to exist.
(The author is a practising gynecologist)

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