I have read this book yesterday and felt how fortunate I was to pick up this book. It is a story of the marvelous people who dwelled in the poverty stricken slum called “Anand nagar “ of Calcutta (City of Joy) .The remarkable thing to be noticed here is it was written by Dominique Lapierre, a French novelist. When I say “SLUM” I don’t know how many of us have the true understanding of this place for I should confess I had failed earlier to grasp the real meaning of it until this French novelist made me to realize. It is not just a SLUM rather it has an implied meaning a hellish, dejected, deprived, and indeed one of the most miserable place in the face of the earth one could dwell but yet that is proudly hailed to be “City of Joy “.
There are many remarkable characters to be mentioned in the book. To mention few …
Harish pal (our protagonist), a poor peasant migrates from his village to Calcutta with the hope of better survival of his family. Soon he becomes a rickshaw wallah with his friend help and begins his earnings. The suffering he undergoes, injustice he faces and the terrible fate that takes him at the end is heart breaking.
Stephan Kovalski a polish priest wants to serve human kind and chooses Anand nagar (one of the crowded quarter of Calcutta) to place his home (not exactly home instead a hovel). Soon he find himself get acquainted with the poorest, sickest people he had ever met in his life. But yet they astonish him by their determination to live, their attitude to celebrate and the humanity they show among them even in the midst of injustice, atrocity and depravity that chase them till their grave.
Max Loeb, an American doctor interested by Kovalski’s service visits the slum and helps to ease their pain. Rises as a real hero when he delivers the baby in the leper colony, when he gives treatment to the lepers (Inspite of him being fainted) and provides hope for the people in despair.
There are so many other unforgettable characters too. Bandona, Ram Chander, Kalima (a eunuch) ………….
There is a passage in the book…
“It is easy for any men to recognize and glorify the riches of the world. But only a poor man can know the riches of the poverty, only the poor man can know the riches of the suffering…"
This is precisely true for I would have never known the real meaning of poverty neither do the meaning of humanity if I haven’t got a chance to read this book. “City of Joy” is not just an attempt to enlighten the views of poverty that prevailed in post- independent India but an extraordinary journey in to the human lives ultimately to strike a chord in the reader’s minds how indestructible human spirit can be.
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