Love comes and Love goes, I thought And I was still so wrong!When the sky lit with the rising dawn, I see, Love is the most omnipresent part of creation.Love is God, Love is here- there, Everywhere!!!And the City of Joy is no exception. It must be 2 years, I read this book. Its memory has not left me till date.
So I thought about, telling one and all that this the City of Joy is one of the finest effort to understand the power of Human soul and its will to survive against all odds. Be that atrocities, filth, illiteracy, dreaded diseases like leprosy and so much more.The plot revolves around Anandnagar, which is a lepor colony in the city of Calcutta. The story has two protogonists to be precise.
Hasari Pal, the rickshaw puller and Stephen Kowalski, a monk who lets off his life in the west to render his services to the social ladder’s most offended and rejected class- the Lepers.Othe rcharacters that certainly catch attention in this true to life story are Max Loeb, an affluent doctor by profession and Bandona, a resident and nurse residing in Anandnagar.
But more than the cahracters it is the situations and realities of extremes that make the City Of Joy an exemplary masterpiece. There is one such situation I would like to shed light on.Hasari Pal leaves hic village along with his family to earn his bread in Calcutta.
But the sad part is that life is tough in Calcutta. Poverty brings a host of uninvited elements. A rickshaw puller’s life, to say the list is HARSH and FULL OF ATROCITIES. Disease often finds way in this kind of life, where the brow sweats more and bread earned is minimal. There are times when Hasari coughs blood. Seeing this, one of his friends advise him to chew Paan.
According to this friend, who is facing similar situation, the colour of Paan will camoflauge with that of Blood and this way Hasari will not understand the urgency of consulting a doc, he needs so much, but cannot afford. This part of the story actually shows you the dark side of life and the tumultous weather it can bring along.Again, celebration, joy, smiles, happiness are not conditional.
Hence its not surprising that the lepers of Anandnagar find it in their very own filthy shack, which is manifested with cockroaches, lizards, excreta, disease and death.This book makes you cry at certain levels. The Victory of Human mind here is unthinkeable and difficult to believe. Its very true that we do not realise our potential and our ability to smile until the most trying and testing times arise.
City of Joy is a reflection of that testing time.I say, read it only if you have a strong heart that can endure the most helpless man’s pain. Otherwise, this book is strictly unadvisable to those sitting at the pinnacle of practicality. Byeee!!! BEST OF LUCK!!!*