The Good Old World

Book Review

Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate

Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala

Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal

Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023

Pages: 314

If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19^th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style.

Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her husband’s last wish as a sacred obligation and encourages Jehangir to make necessary enquiries about his lost brother who must be in his twenties now. The Bahadurshah family shifts from Surat to Mumbai.

Pareen belongs to an aristocratic family in Mumbai. Dadiba is a handsome young man who is Pareen’s teacher. Pareen and Dadiba are in love. But Jehangir falls head over heels in love with Pareen in their very first encounter. Pareen’s father is determined to get her to marry Jehangir. Dadiba loses his job as Pareen’s teacher.

After many twists and turns in the plot and tricks played by the cunning father, Pareen’s heart is won over by Jehangir whose wealth has no match in Dadiba who is an unemployed and impecunious man now. In the meanwhile, Jehangir’s sister Aaimai falls in love with Dadiba and Ratanmai has no objection to her daughter marrying a refined and educated man like Dadiba though he has no money. After all, Aaimai will inherit enough wealth from her family.

Then the plot becomes complex with Dadiba’s hidden personal history coming to light and its consequences on the romances. The reader will have a lot of surprises too. Too many ironies come together like an overwhelming deluge. If this novel were written today, it would be laughed at. But people were indeed quite different a century ago and there were people as ideally good as Dadiba and Ratanmai. Morality did have its worthy place in that good old world.

The world belonged to men by and large in those days. Men made most of the rules and women were supposed to obey. There are many places in the novel where patriarchal biases overshadow the feminine potential for goodness. When Pareen’s heart tilts towards Jehangir, the narrator laments: “Alas! How inconstant is Woman! Who would have imagined that just a few days would bring such a transformation in Pareen’s feelings! As the famous English poet Alexander Pope has so rightly put it, ‘A woman’s promise is writ in sand.’”

On the occasion of Pareen’s wedding with Jehangir, the narrator goes out of his way to offer a counsel to “modern Parsi girls.” “If you girls hold on to our ancient values, virtues of faithfulness and forbearance will follow. It is a woman’s understanding and her unwavering loyalty to her husband that makes married life a heaven on earth. Parsi girls! May you be as beautiful as Pareen, but may you never be as fickle as her! May the wrath of God smite those who, like Pareen, run after money. Follow her example and you will bitterly regret your actions. Even Nature cannot tolerate such deceitful behaviour.”

Halfway through the novel, karma catches up with each character. Goodness will eventually be rewarded and wickedness will duly be punished. It is a neat world run by a just God.

The plot is too perfect with a deus ex machina making its appearance at the appropriate times, and its world has an equally perfect morality guiding it. We may find it all rather incredible if not ludicrous today. But back in those good old days of a century ago, readers enjoyed the novel. The Translators’ Note in the beginning of this edition says that when this novel was originally serialised in a magazine, “families started ordering multiple copies… so that no member need wait to read the new instalment.” When the novel was first published in a book form in 1913, the publishers were inundated with advance orders for copies.

The novel reminded me of the popular works of a Malayalam writer, Muttathu Varkey, I read in my childhood. What I mean to say is that even in 1960s and 70s, the world in the novels was a very different place with love and goodness winning in the end and wickedness being punished by some divine force. The world has ‘progressed’ much from those days. If you are ever capable of imagining that sort of a world, you will find this novel charming. I loved it for the simple nostalgia it evoked in my heart.

I must point out also that the translators have done a good job. The reading experience is smooth and it never gives the feeling that it is a translated work. But why do the translators use Mumbai when it was Bombay in those days? That’s not an issue really. Go ahead and make your rendezvous with the angelic Dadiba.