Journey of a Freedom Fighter is a new novel by Westchester Writers Workshop member Subrata Das.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Subrata Das is the fourth of seven children of Natendra Nath Das and Monorama Das, of Contai, West Bengal, India. He graduated with a Bachelor of Electronic Engineering degree from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, a MTech degree from IIT, Kharagpur and a PhD. in Electrical and Computer Science from the University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona. From 1966-2005, he led cutting-edge speech recognition and speaker verification research at International Business Machines Corp. He has garnered multiple awards, secured numerous patents, published widely, and led significant scientific advancements that contributed to the foundation for human speech recognition by computers. He is a senior member of the Lipilekha Bengali Association of New York, where he served as its first president. He directed and acted in many Bengali plays, including one staged in a Las Vegas convention center. Dr. Das is a published adult and juvenile fiction author. His work has appeared in Confetti online magazine, Northern Virginia Bengali Association magazine, AMEYAA, and Lipilekha Bengali Association magazine, Lipi-o-Lekha. His debut novel Journey of a Freedom Fighter is inspired by his late father’s Bengali memoir, capturing how, as disciples of Mahatma Gandhi and Subhas Bose, he and his family persevered under the sufferings of the colonial rule in pre-independent India.
INTERVIEW
confetti: Who or what inspired you to write?
Subrata Das (SD): Books and magazines, in Bengali and in English, I admired the stories in them and drew inspiration from them. As a child, I created a comic strip called From the Mars that my siblings looked forward to reading. Many more stories and poems later in both languages, I was ready to write Journey of a Freedom Fighter. My late father Natendra Nath Das’s memoir in Bengali, capturing how he and my mother, Monorama, suffered under the colonial rule in pre-independent India, influenced me in crafting this novel.
confetti: How would you characterize your writing style?
(SD): I like to plot a novel like Journey of a Freedom Fighter tightly with as little loose ends as possible. All characters play a significant role. For instance, a relatively minor character like Paglu returns near the end of the novel, almost bringing down the protagonist of the story. I probe each character’s mind, how he or she thinks and reacts under different circumstances.
confetti: What are you currently reading?
(SD): My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante; Sei Somoy by Sunil Gangopadhyay (in Bengali). (An English translation of this book is available here.)
confetti: What are your three favorite books?
(SD): Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore (in Bengali); Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain; Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.
confetti: What are your three favorite movies?
(SD): Victor Fleming’s Gone with the Wind, story by Margaret Mitchell; Raj Kapoor’s Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram in Hindi for the imagery and the songs; Satyajit Ray’s The Apu Trilogy, in Bengali.
confetti: What is your favorite song of all time?
(SD): Salil Chowdhury’s Bengali song, “Bujhbe Na Keu Bujhbe Na,” sung by Lata Mangeshkar.
confetti: What advice would you give to young writers?
(SD): Persevere and you’ll succeed. Embrace the criticisms that will help you improve your writing. Plot your stories with care and your characters with empathy. Read as many books as you can, analyzing how their authors developed their stories and characters.
NEW NOVEL: JOURNEY OF A FREEDOM FIGHTER
How do you free a country that has been under colonial rule for more than a century? You fight like hell.
In a remote Bengali village in rural India, a boy growing up in the 1920s comes to the haunting realization that he does not live in a free country but rather is under the thumb of British colonial rule. Inspired by his grandfather’s fighting spirit, he strives to free his country from the West’s oppressive rule. Unexpected contact from a group of seasoned revolutionaries—including a budding love interest—sparks his journey towards meeting his goal of a free nation. The explosive end will grab your attention and won’t let you go.
EXCERPT FROM JOURNEY OF A FREEDOM FIGHTER
A modest two-story brick and mortar structure with a tiled roof—this is my home in Contai, a township seventy miles southwest of Kolkata. A flower garden in front sets the house apart in a community of middle-class families who would not devote a precious parcel of land for such frivolity.
The garden was my pride and joy. I tended to it whenever I could spare a little time from my busy life. In one corner of the plot, my jasmine plant drooped with the weight of tiny white sparkling blossoms every spring. Its fragrance wafted far and away in the wind. In another corner, my tuberose patch was the envy of the whole neighborhood. There were tiger lilies and marigolds, and a vine of bougainvillea that crawled up a concrete arch, framing the garden entrance. The iridescent violet bloom of the bougainvillea rivaled the night sky of a million stars.
I installed a four feet high fence around my garden to keep animals and flower poachers away. Goats and cows occasionally got in when someone left the gate open by mistake. Flower poachers routinely breached my fence under the cover of early morning darkness and stole my jasmine, tuberoses, and marigolds to sell them in the flower market.
The gate was painted bottle green years ago. Now the paint is peeling and cracked. I walk through this tottering gate and stroll through the garden. The entire plot of land is in a sorry state. No one waters the plants anymore. Weeds strangled them in a chokehold. My favorite jasmine plant has perished. One single tuberose survives against all odds. My prized tiger lily wilts near death in the left corner of the garden.
I reach the front door of the house and step inside my old office. Cobwebs hang from four corners of the room. My old law books fill the wall cabinets just as I had left them. The desk in the center has a layer of dust. Chairs are in disrepair. The pendulum of the wall clock stands motionless.
This office was a hotbed of legal and political maneuvers when my wife and I answered the calls from Gandhi and Subhas Bose for India’s freedom from British rule. If I search behind my law books, I may still find the “Quit India” posters that I hid in a hurry, when the local police showed up on a crisp fall afternoon in 1942 to arrest me.
A faded blue curtain separates my office from the family quarters in the back. I breeze past the curtain and go inside. There I see you, resting on a hammock. Slanting rays of afternoon sun warm your soft supple body. You look like an ethereal presence to me, as beautiful as an apsara in heaven, despite the eighty-five odd years of your life on earth that mark your skin with wrinkles. Osteoporosis weakens your knees. Your once sharp mind betrays you now, filling your eyes with empty stares.
I see that our son, Subrata, has traveled from New York to visit you. He sits on a stool near you and reads to you from a slim Bengali book. His voice is loud and clear as he tries to compensate for your failed hearing. The words sound familiar when I realize that I wrote this memoir during the final days of my life on earth. Our son reads about a time long ago when you and I were young and reckless, and our world was in a turmoil that he will never know.
I sit down by your side on the hammock and draw you in my arms. You relax as you always do in my embrace. Your eyes close as you murmur softly. Our son looks up and decides you are asleep. He puts the book down and leaves quietly. Let him go, darling, I will keep you company and reminisce about the stories in my book.
Click or tap on book cover for more info from amazon
PUBLISHED FICTION SNIPPETS
Ann stirred, opened her eyes and smiled weakly at Robert. “I don’t feel so good,” she said.
“Don’t worry. I’ll warm up a bowl of chicken soup for you. Dr. Silverman told me to have it when I was sick.”
“What about your office?”
“I’ll quit my job, honey. We’re already rich. People sent me money from everywhere. I’ll work full time on my association.”
“Are you sure?”
“Don’t you see, honey? Instead of a tax-deductible charity, I’ll incorporate it as a business and have an IPO at the New York Stock Exchange. That’ll raise millions.” Robert’s excitement knew no bounds.
—from “Chickenpox Alumni Association International”
PHOTO GALLERY
Writer Profile for Subrata Das
Search confetti for Subrata Das
Use the “Leave a Comment” form below to submit comments.