“Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible.” Leo Tolstoy
After the death of Nimma’s father may be Nimma’s love for Jhuppey also died, may be Jhuppey lost his sanity. After the death of Nimma’s father, the Novel “Fulangey” ends. Death is terrible, yes death is terrible.
With each passing time, every generation is battling with their account of hurdles, documenting hardships and their experience. We are talking about agitation, which is not last year or before last year’s chaos. To quote legendary poet Bhupi Sherchand here:
हुदैन बिहान मिरमिरेमा तारा झरेर नगए
बन्दैन मुलुक, दुई चार सपुत मरेर नगए,
Meaning: There won’t be any morning if stars do not fall in the dawn. There won’t be any region if two or four Martyrs do not die.
Here, it is not about 2 or 3 we have had enough of death scenes over the years.
Talking about personal experience, those scenes from 2017 still haunts me at times. My mind has photographed that horrific chaos so vividly that cannot be undone at any cost.
I could keenly recapitulate the gossips with my grandparents about the experiences they gained from 1986’s agitation. They shared their experiences through oral tradition to my father and me, we shall pass them to our younger generation, but hopefully, we have literature with us. As we all know “साहित्य समाजको दर्पण हो” meaning: Literature is the mirror of society. Long time back few writers emerged as the representative of the agitation faced by our people but in course of finishing the novel and in course of understanding the scenario from the different spectrum we were misinterpreted for example in “Inheritance of loss”. The world is running in a rapid fathom. We are developing at our own pace, hope is there that we are getting our representative in the forms of novelists, poets, writers, researchers. Though we lack proper leadership we have enough of good reciprocal voices that have been heard in the mainstream arena of their respective genres.
After the grand success of “Fatsung” within and crossing our region, our sensible young writer from Kalimpong Lekhnath Chettri served us “Fulangey”. It exactly feels like the experiences passed down by our grandparents, this masterpiece novel will give such personal touch to the scenario of 1986.
I feel such agony that my late grandfather DN Dahal who happened to be a very concerned reader could not read “Fulangey”.
When we come to chronological aspects of the novel, Fulangey starts with the introduction of the “time”, time of the belief in supernatural elements, time of organic forums and ideas, time where there were very less colonial hangover, a time where my grandparents lived. The stories of every chapter are webbed precisely. The homely village ambiance with the conversation of Basnet and Basnetni will lift our hearts, the soft romance of Jhuppey and Nimma will surely give a glee. The scenes of brutality and incoherent riot will proceed. Basnetni’s piercing and earring snatching scene gave literal goosebumps to me. Basnets plead for his son’s information represents every father’s tears for his son who have been chased down by the locals or the CRPF soldiers during agitation. Jhuppey’s survival stunt making all the readers and Nimma speechless is the catastrophe of the novel. In short Jhuppey’s life has been a tragedy since he was betrayed by Chyatery. Jhuppey’s unexpected turn keeps him slightly on the periphery of an antagonist.
The novel ends with: “Why Jhuppey killed Nimma’s father?” The readers have to go in reverse, inculcate the tragedies of survival to find the answer.
The open-ended novel Fulangey, gives readers to build Nimma’s fate, from the betrayal of her love to losing her father, what are other heights of calamity one young and innocent woman can tolerate. Nimma’s character reminded me of Catherine Barkley of ” Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemingway. (Farewell to Arms is a novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, set during the Italian campaign of World War I.) The selfless love and ideal romantic feelings of Nimma for Jhuppey are superior. Like the love of Catherine for Frederick Henry.
The scenario of 1986 is no less than a world war because for Jhuppey for Basnet for Basnetni their world was their small land, Relling. They were living their life happily, but they were forced for the trial, forced to abandon their home, forced to betray their love, forced to take a life for the sake of survival. Human sentiments had no value, for the sake of war, many were looted, deluded, killed, forced to flee, etc, Fulangey is documentation of what and how our ancestors witnessed the then so-called war for the sake of “Land” which is still in Delinquency.
When talked about “Fulangey” in the nomination of Madan Puraskar with the author Lekhnath Chettri, he said:
” As a writer, I never expected Fulangey will be the part of the nomination of huge Madan Puraskar but it is there so I feel it deserves everything. I have been getting overwhelming responses regarding Fulangey for a very long and It pleases me to know that my readers are loving my work Fulangey. Fulangey was mine till it was in my mind but now it is my reader’s property. I am happy they are liking it.”
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