Deosreviews

‘She would Pray yet again’ , true to the blurb of the book, this book is all about picking up on life and keeping hope and love alive!
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Grand daughter to an erudite man in East Bengal, Damyanti Ghosh believes in ties of humanity more than religion ever. All of her well educated family channelises the same spirit of staying together in a bengal as bengalis without the separation of Hindus and Muslims! The story traces her life journey from her birth in a beautiful Dacca of those times, her becoming of a lady doctor but mostly of her friendships with Samima, Salim, Parineeta, Arup..
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As situation has it Samima and she are sisters at heart and she desired unknowingly to marry her brother Salim but religious situations thwarts those childish dreams of marrying friends into families as those her dreams of staying forever in Dacca.
She marries Gautam, another elevated minded personality and returns to Dacca only to be faced with terrible riots and be forced to start a new life in Patna, India. She ignores all of her love for Dacca in hurt!
As life is a cycle, she is reconnected to Samima via her son and one of the most beautiful parts of the book is when having lost her husband returns to Dacca, to her friends.
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She still dreams of reuniting the families, irrespective of religion, via her grandchildren. The political situation of those times have been well depicted and how it affected the upper middle class lives described.
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This is my prompt from @jennysbookworld and @writingyouthereviewsyouneed prompt of a book that took you places on this world tourism day! Why I say this because this book took me to a Bengal that I have heard of, this is the story of many of our ancestors. Being from an affluent family Daam may have flourished but her mental wounds remained the same as many who faced the partition and the riots of Bengal. I could go back to my college, Presidency and a Calcutta of that time as well as India of that time, alongwith Dhaka, and some other places too!
A book that makes me travel to a past associated with my ancestry and heritage is definitely close to my heart.