Lost in the Known Path

By Chandrakant Dhyani

fiction: On one fine evening, Paras asks his grandmother, "Are we Untouchables?" Suddenly, it makes the old lady’s mind stunned for a while. She does not want to be quiet and leave her grandson unanswered. She then says, "We are the rose. And the rose can’t be touchable until someone does keep in their mind that it could be touched. We are not untouchables, my dear. We are like a rose. And one should always hold in their mind that it could be touched with love and care, not with fear and hatred."
Sometimes young children’s questions convey significant meaning, and to answer them becomes very difficult. Even though, the adults find it hard to respond to them. Sometimes it may take quite a time to consider that what and how to explain them. And sometimes adults choose to be quiet or ignore them or bow down to the children in embarrassment. The novel narrates the story in two parts. The first one is through the eyes of a nine-year-old, Paras, who doesn’t know his surroundings thoroughly, and the second one is from the perspective of his mother, Jyotsna Kumar, who did not talk to her unconventional neighbour for years. Of how they face the social favouritism, caste discrimination, gender inequality, domestic violence, prejudice and religious obstruction. And how these all have been establishing like a black curtain over women. Some hideous truth that everyone knows but no one wants to discuss it or to put an end to it. But it all changes when Paras meets his neighbour.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BlueRose Publishers
• Release date: Sep 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9789390034895

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