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A LOVER OF LIGHT AMONG LUMINARIES : Dilip Kumar Roy
more than what is evident, and likely to exaggerate what he finds. Coincidence could be interpreted as miraculous timing of certain events, for example, one may read without justification a Divine design in ordinary drifts of events. How far could miracles be trusted or regarded as true events ? We should rather suspend our judgement about them than speak anything in defence or opposition of them. Moreover, we must admit that we adults do not cease to be children altogether and find delight in fairy tales and magic. It must be admitted that Dilip Roy serves this kind of delight in abundance. (C) Wings and Bonds
Like Upward Spiral and Miracles Do Still Happen, Wings and Bonds is one of the spiritual novels written by Dilip Kumar Roy. He wrote this novel in Bengali in 1976 and later on translated it into English in 1977.
Here, the novelist shows how Nandaraj Chakravarti, from the man of reason and self-complacency, turns miraculously into a believer in the Divine Reality and a devotee of Maheshji, their guru. Fullara, Chakravarti's wife is instrumental in his transformation.
Nandaraj, after building a large fortune for twenty years, has retired from his business. He lives luxuriously in a garden house on the bank of the Ganga a few miles away from Calcutta. Fullara, his second wife, is very pious. She passes her life as a dutiful wife also. She frequently sings devotional songs which, at times, are composed by herself in their private temple as well as in the Radha Krishna temple, situated near their house. She gets absorbed in samadhi while singing and improvising her own singing in diverse 'ragas' of the Indian classical music. Such fits of bhakti perhaps have caused her angina and low blood pressure. Neglecting the doctor's advice she goes on singing her songs and also teaching her songs to Ekanta, her step-son and Pari, her neighbour's daughter.
Nandaraj is very much against Fullara's devotional activities. He considers them as illogical, sentimental fits of the Indians. He frequently argues with Fullara in favour of the Western rational approach to life and he, like his friend Sushanta, believes in the superiority of the intellectual attitude of the Western people to the emotional attitude of faith and devotion of the Indians. Nandaraj is also against Ekanta, who, under the influence of Fullara, has decided to live the life of spirituality and not of the successful life of any practical man of this world. Fullara always asks Nandaraj not to impose his view on his son who is cut out to be a free thinker.
Moreover, Fullara's strong determination to rely only on God for all of her physical troubles and not to rely on any human being proves exemplary for Nandaraj who was saved from a serious accident by the grace of God in Kashmir when he fell down while stepping out of the boat-house. When Maheshji comes
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