Everything and Nothing by Nilotpal Dutt is the story of Damyanti a woman born and brought up in Dacca then part of Bengal and India(now called Dhaka, part of Bangladesh) tells us her story and going through the various milestones and tragedies and wars in her lifetime across the Indian subcontinent in a span of 70 years or more.
The book had me hooked from the fourth page itself. It has throughly been researched and traces back to the historic decisions taken from when Bangladesh and Pakistan were part of India.
The build up of the story starts from the young Damyanti’s journey and her childhood experiences and her family make who she becomes later on in her life.
At every step there are characters that start a new journey for Damyanti and forms relationships that make a difference in how she looks at her surroundings.
The occurrences regarding every war, every achievement and every setback has Damyanti as a central character.
Through the book one who didn’t see those decades someone like me will make you teary-eyed.
The chain of linking events with every incident keeps a check from not just perspective but what actually happened.
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The narrative is smooth-flowing and you see a new Damyanti in every part.
Damyanti is a metaphor and one of the few fictional characters who have seen what the people of the subcontinent have gone through.
In almost every religion there is one particular preaching in one form or another that tells us the same thing ” we will go back in the same land in which we were born.”
This book makes you realise that the land you will go back to will have the same soil that is shared by the entire Indian subcontinent.
SukainaWrites 