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NARRATIVES
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She had to give in for another reason: she had her eyes on Ekanta, the brilliant boy, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and liked by everybody. Where could she get a better husband for Pari ? It almost looked as if destiny had stepped in and thrown them together. The only fly in the ointment was the Temple, but after all one could not have everything. So she had to encourage Pari to be trained in music along with Ekanta and all her alarm faded when she thrilled to the prospect of the perfect' marriage. She didn't realise the irony of the paradox:that she at once objected to God installed in the Temple and thanked
Him in heaven for being such an ideal matchmaker."30
Many characters of Wings and Bonds are dynamic. Almost all of them, like Nandaraj, Ekanta, Sushanta. Pari are progressing spiritually. But Goswami, Mahesh and Fullara are static characters as they, it seems, have attained a higher spiritual status because of their one-pointed aspiration and asceticism from where they can guide others to achieve similar heights. In this short novel, there is no scope for the author to show the full development of his characters with abundance of details. Moreover, almost all the characters are good at heart, though there prevails difference of opinion between the husband and the wife and also between the father and the son. Fullara and Pari are 'blondes' in the sense suggested by Wellek and Warren, that is, the blonde is the "... home maker, unexciting but steady and sweet'31
Roy lacks an insight into human psychology. And his characters look like puppets, mostly the embodiment of ideals. They don't have 'roundness' and flesh and blood realism.
Moreover, as Dilip Roy has proclaimed, Wings and Bonds is an autobiographical novel: “...broad-based by and large, on our experiences."32 So, he has drawn almost all the characters of this novel from his first hand contact with the people around him. Hence, all of them are based on real persons. The novelist has merely changed their names.
After the study of Pilgrims of the Stars, the autobiography written by Dilip Roy and Indira Devi, one can tell with certainty that Fullara, the central figure of this novel, is none other than Indira Devi. She, too, was an ardent aspirant of Krishna. She, like Fullara, was tirelessly singing songs of Mira. She was getting experiences of samadhi. She was also suffering from angina and low blood pressure and also from many other diseases. She was unable to sing songs because of her ill health. Like Fullara, she also felt that Dilip Roy was her destined guru. Indira Devi's husband, like Nandaraj, was very rich and intelligent. But he, too, was sceptical about the reality of spiritual experiences of Indira
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