Volume-XII, Issue-II, March 2026 |
ননী ভৌমিকের গল্পে মারি ও মড়কের আর্তরব: একবুক দীর্ঘশ্বাসের বিষবাষ্প মহেন্দ্র নাথ পাল, গবেষক, বঙ্গভাষা ও সাহিত্য বিভাগ, কলিকাতা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়, কলকাতা, পশ্চিমবঙ্গ, ভারত |
Received: 20.03.2026 | Accepted: 21.03.2026 | Published Online: 31.03.2026 | Page No: | ||||
DOI: 10.29032/ijhsss.vol.12.issue.02W. | |||||||
The Cry of Pestilence and Famine in Noni Bhoumik’s Stories: The Toxic Vapors of a Chestful of Deep Sighs Mahendra Nath Paul, Research Scholar, Department of Bengali Language and Literature, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal, India | ||
ABSTRACT | ||
Among the numerous calamities and disasters that have repeatedly devastated Bengal, famine and starvation stand out as the most significant. The dark clouds of famine have repeatedly gathered over the skies of the lives of the people of Bengal. And in those moments, as their existence was torn asunder, even the steady, slow rhythm of their daily lives came to a complete standstill. The brutal impact of the Bengal Famine of the 1940s—the ‘Panchasher Manwantar’—fundamentally altered the landscape of life for both Bengal and its people. Lamentation and anguish filled every household; deprived of food and subsisting on starvation rations, thousands of people were then on the brink of death. The emaciated bodies of the barely living became fodder for jackals and vultures. Villages emptied out as people migrated to the cities. Driven by the desperate hope of merely sustaining life, they sought to survive as pavement-dwellers and parasites on the city streets. In this turbulent phase of lives swept away by the current of events, they consumed even the most inedible and repulsive substances simply to stay alive. The villages of Bengal were transformed into desolate graveyards. This harrowing imagery of a Bengal held captive by death has been vividly and extensively portrayed in Bengali fiction, particularly in the short stories of Noni Bhoumik. With a journalistic precision, yet imbued with meticulous artistic brilliance, the author presents to the reader the various facets of famine and pestilence—and the dark, hidden recesses of suffering born from their devastating impact. Through his various stories, he also brings to light the underlying, man-made causes of these famines and epidemics—causes that often lie concealed within the annals of history. Noni Bhoumik demonstrates in several of his short stories the historical truth that the hoarding of grain by capitalists and moneylenders was a primary factor that significantly exacerbated this famine. The famine also loosened the bonds of familiar human relationships, causing individuals to stray from the cherished values they had long upheld. Men capable of earning a livelihood abandoned their wives, children, and families, driven solely by the imperative of self-preservation. Confronted by the harsh realities of existence, the characters in Noni Bhoumik’s stories repeatedly found themselves prioritizing their own primal instinct for survival above all else. Conversely, in some of these stories, we observe that in their desperate struggle to survive the catastrophe—regardless of caste, creed, or religion—people retreated deeper into the embrace of conservative religious rituals and beliefs. Ultimately, having failed to fulfill even their most basic human needs for sustenance and survival, people turned into their own worst enemies. Within the human psyche, a bestial rage—a murderous instinct—has awakened. Conversely, certain representatives of the capitalist world—individuals blinded by self-interest and consumed by a predatory lust for women—have sought to exploit the plague and pestilence as a pretext to gratify their sexual cravings. The author portrays this devastating epidemic not merely as a localized phenomenon, but across the entire expanse of Bengal—encompassing the South, the Rarh region, and even the North—while also vividly depicting its profound impact on the lives of tea plantation workers. Yet, Noni Bhoumik’s stories are not confined solely to being vignettes of human misery; rather, they occasionally ignite the latent embers of resistance— a theme that emerges distinctly in several of these narratives. Thus, standing amidst the desolate, charnel-ground landscape of famine-stricken rural Bengal, the various stories within Noni Bhoumik’s collection ‘Dhankana’ weave a poignant chronicle of the plague— one that ultimately manifests as the collective, heart-rending sigh and anguished cry of a Bengal ravaged by pestilence. | ||
Keywords: Death-stricken villages, The Quest for Survival in the City, illicit Hoarding, The class of Moneylenders and Capitalists, Sexual Lust, The Erosion of Traditional Values, Conservative religious Beliefs, The Thirst for Life, The Pervasive Onslaught of Famine, Passive Resistance. |