Book Review – ‘To Naddiya’

Blurb

It isn’t very hard to fall madly in love with your own wife and even though Durjoy was deeply embedded to this reality and the one his father imposed on him since his childhood, Nadia was already a part of another one. While Durjoy grew as the mad child of the misty hills, close to poetry and his mother, Nadia was the traditional, internally strong-headed woman of a motherless home. None of them revolted each other’s love and yet they ended up crossing each other at a threshold there was no coming back from. The story captures an endless wait on a mad lover’s part and his wife’s failed realization of the same. A series of attempts, hidden letters, awkward emotions and grave family secrets end into a loveless insanity behind the bars of a mental asylum Nadia and Durjoy share their fate in. What follows is a flashback they wish they could go back to, what’s left, is a longing and a life, without each other.

Plot

The story starts when Nadiya is broken free from the asylum and is welcomed by her son, Iman at the doorstep. Loneliness has permanently resided in her heart. He entrusts a bunch of letters in her hand which he claims to be written by his dead father. The letters are a symbolic of Durjoy’s love felt for Nadiya. He longs for her loving glance but is weighed down by sadness of not receiving one. Outcast as a lunatic by his family and others alike, he spends his days recounting his sorrow with his birds which he could call his own. Nadiya is tear stricken as feelings of guilt, regret, forgiveness wash over her.

Review and Rating

The writing style has a lyrical quality.The paragraphs were like a lines of sonnet tugging at your heart strings. A lot was conveyed through unspoken words. Love was served on a platter in its purest form which is hard to fathom and difficult to comprehend. It doesn’t embrace you like a warm blanket but will leave you with a haunted feeling. The beautiful soul that Durjoy was, his earnestness found a place within me. I smiled with him when he was happy, grieved with him when Nadiya didn’t reciprocate his love. Nadiya was a woman who looked at a person with her eyes pierced into their soul yet had her own imperfections which Durjoy embraced gracefully.The way their relationship bloomed was beautiful to witness. There were instances in the book where the attention was drawn to adverse affects of domineering patriarchy over the other gender. The nuances of human relationships were wonderfully articulated in words.

Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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To Naddiyaa