Book overview of "Aahe Manohar Tari"

I was always interested in reading. I am getting more time to read these days - may be cold winter of Nebraska and "read something other than Java" is driving me back to reading again. I recently read one Marathi book called as "Aahe Manohar Tari" by Sunita Deshpande. She is wife of famous Marathi author P. L. Deshpande. This book gave me great insight about her life, her experiences. This book of 239 pages is an amazing read. I wanted to read it since I was 10-11 year old. Sometimes you get the opportunity just kinda little late. God offers you that chance though :)

Who am I to review the book? No one!! I am just going to write down the stuff I liked in this book. Sometimes due to language constraint we cannot enjoy the literature, this will be my attempt to express the content of this book in English.

She tells us that this book is not a autobiography but just a free journey through the memories. She has written this book in the span of years, so there is no continuation like a story but I think the author has done a very good job. There were times when I started reading for few minutes but continued for hours :)

She starts the book with the death of her dad. Both her dad and mom died at older age. She definitely had their company for at least 50 years. She seems to be disturbed about her parents death. I think she is proud of them, she can think of good and bad things but her parents who possesed some of the amazing qualities. It surely seems to be the most troublesome time for her even though author is very independent lady. She talks about her hard working nature. She thinks that she inherited from both of her parents. In the married life when one person is hard working and other is lazy, it becomes bothersome. There are two things that happen hard working person gets haughty and also continues serving. I thinks its 100% true. As long as there is a equal contribution to the marriage, it works happily.

She tells us there is no thought or logic behind generosity. To give somebody something without expectation has clear happiness. When you start getting happiness through the giving it becomes indivisible part of your personality. Her mom had this generosity. Even when they faces poverty, her mom still continued her generous behavior.

The time frame she describes is around 1942-47. She is freedom fighter, an avid reader, poetess. She is surely different than most of the girls at that time. Her fierce nature, extreme self reliance is something to look upto. She describes how she managed with small amount of money and still continued to be a freedom fighter. This time definitely instilled almost hatred for the collection of money and fame in her.

She was brought up in beautiful area of Konkan. Her love for nature has sprang from that. She loved reading poems. I think good surrounding when children are growing up helps them to see good in everything. This actually accompanied all her life.

She fondly describes the courting period of her and P.L. Deshpande. One funny incidence she tells that he used to write her long love letters and she used write a reply of one line, "Karmanyeva Dhikaraste ma Faleshu Kadachan" meaning that one should continue doing his/ her duties without thinking about outcome. Author surely had advanced thoughts about the whole marriage thing. She opposed to the idea of getting married. I think it wonders me that she did it, but our author is independent and has her own thought process. She finally agreed to get married. She tells us that her husband's nature which is like a child- dependent and her opposite nature of hardworking and nurturing mother helped them to be together. One of the great asset her husband had was 'adjustment'.

She talks about the book "War and Peace" By Leo Tolstoy in which he says that when we look at the history, we look through the consequences of that incidence. We never see the history considering just the facts. She also looks at her life but does not take a firm stand what happened.

One time she simply talks about the difference between man and woman. She tells that in young age, they get attracted to each other just because of the difference but when they stabilize in the relationship, the thing that matters is how "forgiving" you are.

Her involvement as assistant, adviser with her husband is memorable to her too. She managed his finance, drove is car, acted with him in the plays and movies, read proofs of his articles. I think, she played a major role in shaping his career. She explains two different aspects of her husband's personality. One is creative artist and other one is helpless child. Of course usually people always see the great artist in him but then she tells that after such a long married life, she cannot picture his colorful personality. Its black and white. Black signifying helpless and white signifying creative person. Many a times she had accepted that people don't like her presence, they just want to be with her husband - chatting with him or listening to him. She had accepted that gracefully but continued her lifetime support for her husband's career. His mature personality is visible to outsiders but she has sustained his childlike behavior. I don't know whether we remember the supporters like her!

She explains, sometimes a simple thing like home is not up to the expectation. She tells that she lived in hundreds of place but never found anything that attracted her but once in Konkan, she saw something that she wanted. It was situated in small island quite far from sea shore. She was watching that from the top of mountain. The house was red colored with slanted roof. This was something she wanted to have all her life. She was watching the sunset, sunlight, rainbow with hemisphere shape and that house situated on the horizon of the sea. She recounts it must be the good deed of last life that she witnessed this moment. Now she says that she will never ever go to that place as she will never really see it the same way she saw first time. She just wants to keep all that in her memory!!

She describes her 50+ years of married life. Her husband and she had some same interests like poems, nature but fundamentally they were different people. They stayed together. I think it cannot be attributed to single person. She recounts that she had fulfilling moments and she attributes to her husband's compromising nature.

After reading the whole book, you get the idea of her life in which she has experience the loneliness even after being in the group of her husband's fan. When we read any of articles written by P. L. Deshpande, we feel that he had a great fulfilling life. He experienced all different people and loved being with them, entertaining them. After reading this book, all we see that the other side of his life was lonely even he being there with her!!!


Note: This is my personal overview of the book. I do not intend ridicule.