A Classic Novel || Padma Nadir Majhi || Manik Bandapadhya  (Hardcover, Bengali, Manik Bandapadhya)

andopadhyay’s 1936 novel, Padma Nadir Majhi, narrates the story of a poor fishermen community residing on the banks of the River Padma in a fictitious village called Ketupur in present day Bangladesh. Perennially dependent on the river for fish, the lives of the fishermen community form the focal point of this river centric novel. The novel revolves around Kuber, a poor fisherman. Sole breadwinner of his family, he resides, with other members of the fishermen community on the fringes of Ketupur where he lives with his wife, daughter and two sons. In his daily quest for survival he befriends a local businessman Hossain Miya, a small businessman suspected of human trafficking and other clandestine activities. At the heart of Hossain Miya’s ‘rags-to-riches’ story stands Moynadip, a remote silt bed island or char. It is to this char that Hossain Miya takes settlers from different parts of the region to build up a settlement. The settlers, hapless victims of either natural calamities like floods and cyclones or social ostracism, accompany him in search of new beginning.