As teenagers, we were brought up on a steady dose of classic Bengali literature. While Rabindranath
Tagore was a constant, my mother insisted we tick off a reading list comprising Sarat Chandra Chatterjee, Bibhutibhushan Banerjee and Manik Bandopadhyay. During the interim between my graduation and masters, I voraciously read titles by all these literary greats. While each one bore a fascinating style, I found Sarat Chandra's works very easy to relate to. And understand. He was an everyman's writer portraying the plight of women in the society of the then Bengal. Interesting stories that you we heard about from our grandmas found place in his works as well. Woman were a pivotal point in his stories and often the plot revolved around the female protagonist. The ideals, conflicts and emotional quotient was so easy to relate to.
