Dhruvaputra: The Son of Dhruva

The backdrop of this novel is the city of Ujjwain of ancient India, the river Shipra and its surroundings-Saurashtra of the West, the Deserts, the Indus river of the North-West, Purushpur, Gandhaar, the land of Balkh, the river Oxus, the city of Bidisha in the South, from Pataliputra in the East to the Red Sea in the West-as though, the whole of India and even beyond. This novel stretches back to those times, which remains latent in the folds of the grey shadows of eternity. A well-known folklore of the city of Ujjwain serves as the fundamental base of this novel, round which the whole story pivots, around which the whole plot unfolds. This folktale again draws its sustenance from an India which was dependent on the nimbus of monsoon for its joy of harvest, for its desiccated life to be revived. This novelist has toyed with the reality to go beyond its ordinary warps and woofs, creating a tapestry of magic realism! An India in all its hues, in all its varieties woven in the lives of whore, devadasi, from the Queen in the palace to the ordinary housewife in the precincts of her home, the hapless plight of the Shudra men, youths and women, comes alive in each line, in each paragraph, in each page of this novel. The banishment of Dhruvaputra and his final return keeps on being played like a raga of classical music on the slow yet dulcet chords of Time and Eternity! A dream, long-lost in the abyss of memory comes up in the powerful pen of a contemporary novelist, which is a must-read for those who are keen on retrieving the lost era from its caged reality!

The novel runs till eighty-four chapters, dealing with the banishment of the talented son of Dhruva from the city of Avanti, his being brutally slaughtered by an influential merchant of the city who objected to the youth’s involvement with Devadutta, the prostitute, who again had been the merchant’s keep. This along with a sundry issues left the city craving for rains, which had been denied for years together.

In the last chapter, things begin to fall in place with the long-awaited pitter-patter of rains, the return of the son of Dhruva in the form of Tamradhvaj, a young astronomer, who holds the hand of Gandhavati, who has driven herself to dejection since the banishment of the son of Dhruva [Dhruvaputra] from the city. The search for lost Dhruvaputra ends in finding Tamradhvaj, who happens to be just a replica of the son of Dhruva, in the truest sense of the term.

Set in the city of Avanti and Ujjwain, this tale has a historical appeal apart from its narrative one.