Review: Endearing Species

In the search for livelihood in rearing cattle, Thula, the principal character of the novel, joined the Railway following a modus vivendi chalked out between a contractor and an engineer of the public sector organisation of the Government of India. Mr Palit, an engineer by profession, minutely observed the activities of Thula who at the outset worked with a contractor named Sardar Bhagat Das Chetri. The contractor, too, did not like to relieve Thula from his given assignment, because the latter was hard-working, obedient and sincere. However, he had to bow down upon the pressure of the Bhadralok (gentleman in Bengali) Railway Engineer.

The novel aims at highlighting the occupations adopted by the Nepali speaking people in India, starting with rearing cattle to work in the paddy field to the Government establishments, including Defense. The fiction also sticks out the hearts of Thula and Maila towards reflecting the subtle loyal nature of the community and people in their chosen profession, besides trying to highlight their heroism, sans recognition.

It highlights the worship of leaders in the aftermath of India’s independence while ignoring their confidante, who helped them solve many tricky problems. It comments on the sacrifice of some of the community people, besides pointing out the feeling of some of the kin of martyrs virtually getting branded as intruders in some parts of India.

It aims at reflecting the agony of good conscience to accept the bitter truth about the lack of any typical identity of citizenship for the Gorkha in India – where the majority of them live in the hilly terrains and have passed in many generations – even though his birth of being Indian is deep-rooted and genuine in his psyche as well.

It observes part of the problems have originated from the visible presence of Nepal as an independent entity, which has tagged the Indian Gorkhas as the people from its origin even though they are the bonafide citizens of India in pursuance of the Indian Government’s Notification of 1988. At the same time, it ridicules the idea of any Gorkhas having the feeling to have got no chance to live like the Bengalis in India vis-à-vis Bangladesh as another neighbor!

Frankly, the fiction invests a good deal of dissatisfaction over the failure of the Indian diplomacy, pointing out the establishment of the more profound relationship with China by Nepal due to the lack of better participation of India in the ever-growing demand of trade relations with the neighboring State. The Himalayan State seemed to aim at balancing the dominating attitude of some of our Indian leaders in the past by now creating better relations with China, though the Nepalis would not diplomatically admit it, the novel said, subtly suggesting the introduction of visa system for the to and from movement of Nepali speaking people between India and Nepal towards preserving the unique identity of the Indian Gorkhas.

Esteeming the patriotism or sacrifice of Gorkhas, the fiction tells of the loyalists of India who now feel downplayed when compared to the share of privileges they have got to enjoy, in the minds of some of them. The treaty of friendship of 1950 between India and Nepal stands as a prodigal entity created during the prime ministership of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and erstwhile king of Nepal.

At the same time, given the contemporary religious politics of Congress and BJP, who knows the past monarch and prime minister of Nepal and India respectively, jumped on the same political bandwagon before crafting the clauses of the treaty of friendship between the two nations. Moreover, it might also be that the two leaders had fostered the unpublished vision of one nation theory by way of unification; for which the novel opines a united nation would have indeed achieved much progress and prosperity in Nepal without affecting her spirit of originality – as for example, Sikkim which has unimaginably made progress and development ever since it joined with India.