Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay: Ahead Of It's Time

Imagine that you are a well-known writer or novelist. On top of that, your works have been adapted into several movies and shows. Not just that, you have been one of the most modern writers of your time with strong female characters who were loving, kind, sometimes repressed, and sometimes rebellious. This all seems bold, crazy, and impossible. Fortunately, it is not impossible; all of this was experienced by a man named Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay.

Devdas - The Musical; Image Source: AGPWorld.com I

West Bengal produced notable writers and novelists who fueled India's nationalist movement before independence. Each contributed with their comments, which were written as stinging statements about an unequal society in need of social transformation.

Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay is one of the most respected names in that section of Indian literature.

Sarat Chandra was born on September 15, 1876, in West Bengal's Hooghly district, to an unemployed father. He attended a country school and was forced to drop out of college owing to financial constraints.

In 1903, at the age of 27, he moved to Rangoon (now Yangon, Burma) to work as a clerk in a government office and wrote his first short tale, Mandir, which earned him the Kuntolin Puraskar. He spent the following 13 years in Rangoon.

When he returned to Bengal, he quickly became popular among magazine readers for his contributions to Jamuna and Bichitra. Korel and Kashinath are two of his surviving childhood works. He also used the pen names Anila Devi (his sister) and Anupama.

Fame followed quickly, but it only served to make Sarat Chandra contemplate carefully the political and social landscapes at large and remark on them via his writings. He is recognized as one of Indian literature's outstanding writers of contemporary women. Paro in Devdas (1917), Hemangini in Mejdidi, and Kamala in Shesh Prashna are among his most well-known female characters (1929). Without concern for social ramifications, his women spoke their opinions.

His work was sympathetic yet also daring and brave, which grabbed his audience. The reader learns about the person he was, the circumstances that shaped him, and the society he desired to live in or oppose via his basic yet forceful character.

Most of his male heroes, whether Srikanta, Devdas, or Sabyasachi, mirror his bohemian self. His female

characters were all strong women – loving, kind, and chaste, sometimes repressed, sometimes rebellious.

In some of his most acclaimed pieces, he told stories of fallen ladies. Even if it meant censoring, he revealed their experiences in Charitraheen (1971), DevdasSri, and Danto (published in four parts between 1917 and 1933). Despite what society thought of them, his ladies projected a strong will of mind and heart.

In Devdas, the legendary Chandramukhi, a baiji (courtesan), was a social outcast, yet Sarat Chandra decided to depict her story of unrequited love. His ladies never conformed to cultural conventions, and if they did, it was always by choice.

Sarat Chandra's vibrant characters make his works popular for film adaptations in a variety of languages. Devdas has over 16 film adaptations, with Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas (2002) exposing the story to a younger audience. In 2005, Bollywood also adopted Parineeta.

Apne Paraye (1980), based on Nishkriti (1917), Gulzar's Khushboo (1976), based on Pandit Mashay, and Datta (1976), based on the novel of the same name. Srikanta was adapted for the film in 2004 as It Srikanto. Doordarshan converted it into a serial, Shrikant (1985-86).

Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay was a Bengali writer whose work crossed all linguistic borders, gaining appreciation throughout India and even internationally. The audience could readily identify with the topics he chose from modern society, the life-like characters he drew, and the distinct style of his storytelling, which is why a great number of his works were determined to be suitable for successful cinema and stage adaptations in different Indian languages.