The Middleman - Poor souls

The Middleman - Sankar - translated by Arunava Sinha from "Jana Aranya" into English.

Set in 1970's Calcutta, this novel takes you through the life of Somnath and the hardships he undergoes while trying to find a decent job and how he ends up playing the middleman (in all aspects). It is a very short novel, very well written and explains the state of the middlemen in our society. Actually the word middleman is a decent synonym of the word 'broker'. May be I will start using this word instead of broker which, to me, always sounded a little indecent. It also shows how the employment exchange frauds happen (they existed even in 70's... we havent changed at all...have we ??? ) and how still 'references' or 'recommendations' help you in the government jobs or a favor to your client wins you a deal in your business..... Even though the main protagonist is a male, you find a variety of female characters ranging from strong to stubborn to helpless to hapless to misfortunate. The sad part is that this story will hold good even now. Nothing has changed much in all these years I would say, except that a few things are now considered 'not-a-big-deal' thing. Jobs are still hard to come by for the average. People in the lower economy line still use their women for their earnings. Sad state of affairs.. I really felt bad for Som at the end.

If there is one thing that I learnt after reading this kutty novel, it is, nothing is generation specific. I used to say that in older generation things like that happened, and in older generation people were like that and this.. blah blah..but actually, the only difference between then and now is that the percentage of people belonging to a particular category varies. For e.g. earlier women like Tapati of this novel, were very few. They were considered exceptions. But I would say they have increased in number now. There are more examples, but I am not going into much details here.
Does a place really change people ?? I am not sure..but I would say the kind of people who live in that place have the impact. The same story would have hold good in Chennai or Mumbai in the same time frame... It is always the survival of the fittest in this human jungle..

Good Read.... even with the sad ending.