The Reckoning of the Untold Words

 

“Love her, love her, love her! If she favors you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces, and as it gets older and stronger it tears deeper, love her, love her, love her!”-  Allen poured down his thoughts over this unusual text message for the fifth time, which made him nearly forget to partake into his usual events in the morning.

While he was getting himself ready for his office, his mind kept busy elsewhere, partly wondering who could send him this text message and partly making a short visit to his university life spanned nearly seven long years, which came to an end five years ago.

“Hey Allen,” Omit blocked his way through while blocking his thoughtful mind and thoughtless eyes, as Allen was getting into to his department, late, as usually as he always was.

 -Missed the class again? It was damn interesting man!

-Yah, but a little less than the last hour of my morning sleep, needing a little more time to touch the finishing line.

-Hmm, probably Sophie was there just outside the finishing line. She was asking me about you. You might find her in the tea stall behind the library.

- Let’s track her, then.

- I’ll join you before the next class. Have to go to the hostel, I forgot my texts again. I don’t understand how come it always happens to me. Mahib Sir never misses to get me standing whenever I miss to bring the text to his class.

- Very sad indeed. Probably Omit without text books is more easily noticeable than Omit with text books. And surprisingly enough, it happens with the teacher who is more interested with the girls. I just don’t understand how he can always manage to get away with so many rumors of sexual harassment. Okay, See you than.

It rained last night. Having had a shower with the drops of heaven, the campus was giving a refreshed look. Refreshed enough to synchronize all those young looks dangling around here, there and everywhere unreasonably yet making sense to the hypothesis that youth goes untamed, youth thinks sporadic, youth splatters colors.

Allen stepped forward, feeling the beams of sun, escaping the rejuvenated leaves of the long trees beside the narrow walking street. The shadow kept brushing away the rays twinkling on his face. And he kept giving his looks. And his looks went everywhere while he himself was missing his own heart, beating so hard. One more thing his eyes got missed; the pair of eyes which could get his heart stopped beating.

-Won’t you ever change?

Allen’s world actually began melting, with the sweetest question in his world of beauty and imagination.

- Why can’t you get up a little early, even for the sake of such a beautiful class? Oh! You can’t believe it. He is the best. How easily he can fly us all to some other world! How lively he can bring down the characters so close to our souls! You must know, Mahib sir is taking Great Expectations. Charles Dickens’.

As soon as the music started from the lips of Sophie, with the very first word she pronounced, the world around Allen started dissolving into a great void housing only two living souls. One is stunningly beautiful with the nicest pair of eyes which sparkled and glittered while she kept saturating Professor Mahib Hasan and commenting on his last lecture. And as she went on coloring her favorite teacher, the other one started relocating the color of the things which were being faded away and losing their existence before her enthralling beauty. The drum insight him stopped playing. The ever enchanting music, produced by her beautifully dancing lips, suddenly lost its melody and Allen’s wings of poesy to get to world of nightingale crash-landed. She would never understand actually why he always nurtured the deliberate reluctance to attend Mr. Mahib Hasan’s lecture.

Oh! Shit! I should have been a little faster. Going to be late again for this this damn traffic jam. Allen felt disgruntled so much as to feel like kicking his back with his own leg. In a hot summer morning on the eve of ushering in the New Year, Allen kept sitting idle and sweating, never minding calling the name of fourteen generations of Dhaka city, in a jam-packed bus, painted as it seems like, on a painted road. A little boy carrying newspapers in miniature form got on the bus. Not unlike many others, he took the chance to get himself updated, spending only five bucks, once again appreciating the cheapest luxury of the metropolitan. The text message, fluctuating between his subconscious and unconscious level of mind, once again peeped out, as he came across a well-dressed- imposing rather than attractive lady- on the front page showcasing a New Year Collection from a famous fashion house.

The trio Allen, Omit, and Sophie were brain storming new ideas to celebrate the first day of the New Year. For the last couple of days they kept painting their plans with more colors and shades to make sure how well and artistically they would observe the day. To Allen, the day was indeed going to be a very special one as he took the day to unearth the hidden layer of his heart before Sophie. His courage finally stopped turning against him and he conquered on making his mind to declare the words he cherished and nurtured ever since the drums insight him started beating at the sight of Sophie.

In the last morning of the dying year, Allen came to the department late enough as to make sure the first class was already done. It was scheduled to be conducted by Mr. Mahib Hasan. To escape any accidental encounter with the teacher, a little conscious Allen somehow managed to catch Omit who was holding a mixed gesture- more worried, little surprised and a bit confused.

- Is there anything wrong? How was the class? Where’s Sophie?

- The lecture was a shortened one. Sophie left for hostel. I just saw her stormed out of Mahib sir’s chamber. Seeing her rushing out in a devastating look I tried to talk to her. She said something, but I didn’t understand the words laden with tears.

Allen’s imagination found its way through spreading its branches towards every possible and impossible idea, which finally turned out to be the locker of his heart. There were no more moments of joy; no more New Year celebration. Just some untold words buried deep down his heart. Sophie flew to London to complete her M.A without bidding goodbye.

Having been back from his office, a little late than usual, at his lonely apartment, Allen threw himself onto the couch, switched on the TV, kept shuffling the TV channels with the blank pair of eyes, which was trying to focus on something at far far away. He finally managed to get back to his bed room and come close to his mind. Does the text message quoted from Great Expectation push forward a question whether he was really in love with Sophie? The quotation once he learned by heart to answer a question in his final year exam is back again to demand an answer from his own self.  Contemplating a response he got to the message option of his cell phone and wrote:

              “It must have rained last night. As I woke up this morning I found that the silvery rain, the drops of heaven had shoved a layer out of my heart. I can see some words, untold, laid buried deep down my heart…”

A message tone sprang up to his ear. He had a new message from the same number which had his heart got one more electrifying leap.

         “Sorry the message was mistakenly sent to your number. I meant it for someone who never understood me.”

A smile, hardly understandable, played on Allen’s face. Now he knew it was she.

Allen deleted his response, switched on the darkness, and lit the light of his own world where she walks in beauty.

The Beach Tour (Part 2)

 

The Beach Tour (Part 2)

Being continued from part 1.....

Neela was left shell shocked in the unbearable loss. This time she didn’t cry for the missed opportunity of fulfilling her intense desire to visit a sea. She cried her heart out, mourning the death of her father. Not only Neela, but also the other members of the family couldn’t help crying in the limitless waves of pain, infinite helplessness against the fate, and the grueling uncertainty they were going to face with the loss of only earning member in the family.

For the next few days, they keep thinking how a person, so dear to them with all his appearance; a person at a specific age and with a distinguishable physique and identity, with all his love, passion, responsibilities, dreams, just gone away out of the border line of all living things, to somewhere inexplicable to human mind. When a dear one left for the after-world, leaving all the illusion of the world behind, to somewhere as blurred as the mental image of a sea in Neela’s mind, the surviving members of the family can’t do anything other than shedding tears. 

Shedding tears was nothing new to Neela. She used to cry a lot after being rebuked or bashed by her parents, after quarreling with her friends, after being upset with her father for his frequent failure in keeping promises of the dream trip to the sea. She used to cry in the stomach pains. She knew how it feels when she gets hurt in an accidental fall or cuts her fingers by a knife. She even knows the salty taste of bloods dipping out of the fresh cuts. At this earlier age, she had already learned to distinguish the physical pains from the mental pains with her obscure and self-made definitions. But, the pains she feels after the death of her father was entirely different and inexplicable to her innocent mind.       

After the death of Neela’s father, the whole family migrated to her maternal uncle’s home in a small town far away from Calcutta. Her mother didn’t want to take her marriageable daughter to such a place. She wanted to rent a small house and stay until her marriage. But her brothers didn’t want to bear the expenses involved.

It takes a day long train journey to get to her uncle’s home. The small town remains the same. The home in the south of an age-old pond beside a mango orchard was looking unchanged too. But, this time, the behavior of her uncles, aunts and the cousins as well got apparently changed a lot. No more welcome notes, or the festive moods from her suddenly changed relatives. They cried for her father too, but even after that no one offers her foods or other things with the love and affection she used to get in her earlier visits. She wasn’t sure, if she should cry or not for the changes she was feeling.

However, it didn’t take long to understand she no longer needed to decide all by herself whether to cry or not. Tears naturally started to stream down her face with the physical pains she was required to undertake in the household chores she had never imagined of doing at her father’s home. And with the mental sufferings she was going through as a neglected, unwelcomed and marriageable girl stamped as a burden to her uncle’s family.

With the radical changes of the surroundings, Neela got to learn to keep calm with her dirty and torn-out dresses comparing to those of her cousins; with the quality and amount of food she and her little brothers were given; with the discrimination of treatment she and her family members would receive; with the dresses and foods her brothers were sent to school and with the Big void of love and affections she would hardly care about as long as her father was alive.

Soon enough, one of her younger brothers succumbed to malaria fever and her mother got stuck into a bed with partial paralysis, probably followed by a stroke no one was ever aware of. But, luckily enough she was married off to Hospital Assistant in a nearby town, with all the promises of a new life, a renewed beginning and a rekindled identity.

Neela was no longer living on the mercy of someone else merely as a helpless refugee. Now, she had a family of her own with the right over everything with her lost sense of belongingness. Her husband seemed to be happy with her and as her in-laws. But, her tears never left her. In the lingering silence at night, tears kept rolling down from her eyes. In the past, she knew the reasons of her crying. She used to cry either for an emotional outburst or the pains from being physically hurt. But, now, she could no longer realize the reasons of her uncontrolled pathos. She couldn’t figure out how the images of her long-lost past life tried to reconnect. She had a life with lots of promises; she had a life in a big city with a sea of homes foaming around her; she had a vision of the vastness of a sea in her tender mind; she had a dream to walk along a sea shore and connect her mental image of a sea with the real one.  It was beyond her understanding that the life her soul was really belonged to was going away miles deep down her heart. And without an answer known to her, she had to remain silent whenever she was asked to tell the reasons behind her crying.      

One fine morning, a woman from the next door visited her home. She had lately made a pilgrimage in Puri. And as soon as she started talking about how exciting it was to take the sea bathing, Neela burst into tears with a salty taste of blood in her heart.    

The Beach Tour (Part 1)

 

In Riders to the Sea, the widely acclaimed masterpiece of Irish playwright John Millington Synge, Maurya was living in Aran Island off the west coast of Ireland. The ultimate fate of the islanders is to brave and stare into the eyes of the Death every single day to snatch their livelihood out of the claws of the Wild Nature. This brutal reality has been portrayed in the play as a very usual and common event of their lives, just like the way “evening must usher night, night urges the morrow”. And with the waves of pain in the ocean of her life, Maurya gets torn apart with the death of her last two living sons after the death of three more sons and her husband: all five being drowned to death in the Sea. With no more male left to dread, Maurya spills out a challenge to the Sea for taking another life.

However, this very aspect of the oceans is limited to the particular clans like the Islanders of Aran.

In general, the sea shores are the most sought-after tourist destinations for most of the people planning a trip to Nature. But, there still remain a huge percentage of people, who don’t live anywhere near a sea; can’t afford to make a trip to the sea; and in many cases can’t even dare to dream of crossing hundreds of miles for making such a Summer Plan.  

It’s the story of a girl belonging to the later kind of people with the undiscovered images of the seas in their dreams. The story takes place in the first half on the last century in the setting of Calcutta, the capital of the Indian State, West Bengal. I am rather retelling (in a thematic translation) Manik Bandopadhyay’s Bengali short story, entitling Somudro Dekhar Shwad (The Desire to Visit a Sea).

 

The Beach Tour (Part 1)

 

Watching the vastness of a sea in her own eyes was a childhood dream of Neela. She went to school for a few years and in her geography book there was the description of the land and water bodies of the earth. But long before studying the geography lessons, she knew that water occupies the three fourth of the entire world. She was utterly surprised to learn that from her father at the age of seven! How it’s even possible! She crosses miles after miles for a whole day in her train journeys to her maternal uncle’s home. But never did she come across anything like the all-encompassing water-bodies other than rivers, canals, lakes or marshes she see in their way through. There were just grasslands in miles after miles with some forests in between. There were just trees and soils till the far end of the horizon. 

And since then the image of the majestic vastness of the sea keeps coming back to her mind in the form of dreams; in the printed words of books; or in the stories of the seas told by the neighbors. She keeps listening to the stories of the seas. Every members of the Balai family made a trip to the Puri Beach just a few days back. Not only did they enjoy the view, they bathed themselves in the waves of the sea. She also heard about the son of her father’s boss, who had gone to Britain in ship. He had to stay so many days over the sea in his way to England. The vaporized water from the sea forms the clouds over the sky and comes down on earth again as rain drops! The salt her mother uses in cooking curries or gives them in their plates of rice is from the dried-out sea water! The chilling breeze they enjoy on the rooftop at the evening after the hot summer days is directly flying in from the sea!

-Daddy, the sea is in the south, right?

-No. The seas are all over the earth. The Bay of Bengal is in the south; very close to us.     

Yes, it’s right. This is exactly how the map shows. But, seas are everywhere! The Himalayas is in the north. And then the Tibet, followed by China! I’ve got to study the map a little more attentively.

-Daddy, will you take me to the sea, please?

Father had made the same promise to Neela so many times. He did the same again.

-Yes, of course. There won’t be that much trouble in making a visit to the sea. You can walk along the sea shore, once we make a pilgrimage to the holy Puri. I have to make a plan sooner than later. It’s a long-cherished dream of your mother.

But it was really a hard job for a poorly-paid clerk to fulfill the dreams of his wife! A person from a poor income range can hardly afford, even for once in a life time, a fancy trip like that. Even, if he ever happens to make one on a very special occasion and with a lot of hardships, he has to compromise a lot other necessary things including, obviously, the dreams of the children.

During the Rath (chariot) festival, Puri becomes unbelievably crowded with millions of people from all over India. It’s not a wise thing to take children along to such a big gathering. Besides, you have to consider the extra costs involved. And if you take Neela, what are the faults of the other siblings? And who will look after the young kids, if Neela too comes along with her parents?

Neela’s mother has got other excuses too to tear through Neela’s desire to walk along a sea beach.

-No, no. I won’t feel secured to take a marriageable girl out there in the massive crowd.   

But the marriageable girl cried her eyes out like a stupid and innocent kid. Her tongue remains forgetful of other tastes other than the salty taste of tears rolling down from her eyes for the next few days. When she was supposed to receive them in tears of joy, when she was expected to wait in intense curiosity to listen to the stories of their excursion on her parents’ return from the pilgrimage, she sniffled out a single question with tears streaming out of her face.

-Did you bathe in the sea, daddy?

Neela’s father was terribly tired with all the hassles of the tour and the traveling. After entering the home, he just threw himself onto a chair.

-Yes, yes. I did take the sea bathing. Let me take some rest for a while. I am going to tell you all those stories.

-What else will you tell me? Is there really any need to tell me anything about the sea? Neela has already learned everything about the sea bathing things in Puri.

From the rooftop of the neighboring three-storied building, Neela can see the sea of houses all around her: lifeless and immobile structures reaching up to the sky at the far end of the horizon. Neela can imagine the vastness of the sea with the stagnated homes piled one after another. She can feel how the waves of the oceans, as high as the buildings around her, crash down on the beaches as white foams. The only regret is that she couldn’t see it in her own eyes. She was very dear to her father; at least the people around her think so. And instead of fulfilling the dream of her adorable daughter, he himself made the tour, visited the beach and bathed in the foamy waves. With these thoughts streaming into her mind, Neela, the marriageable girl in her early teens, fails to check her emotions and bursts into tears.   

Without wasting any time, Neela’s father made an instant promise for one more time.

-Please, don’t cry Neela. I will take you to the sea at any cost in the coming Puja festival. Even if it requires me to take a loan, I will not think otherwise. But now, for God’s sake, don’t cry anymore, please. I couldn’t sleep all night in the tiresome train journey.

 Her father fails to keep his promise again. During the Puja festival, he passed away.

To be finished in part 2...

The Safe (part 2)

 

From Misir Ali’s Diary of Unsolved Cases

                                     -----Humayun Ahmed

                 (Translated by Atique Rahman)

This is an unresolved mystery from the childhood days of Misir Ali, the most interesting character ever been enliven by the popular most novelist in Bangla Literature, Humayun Ahmed.

The Safe, Part 2 (Being continued from part 1)

Often I saw him sitting beside the safe in a way as if he was eavesdropping on something inside the safe. He felt kind of abashed when I saw him doing this.

Had you got the scholarship in grade five?

No. I couldn’t even sit for the exam. During that time, my father was seriously ill. He could have breathed his last at any moment. I kept always clung to him. His mental condition was unstable. The keys of the safe were tied to his waist belt, but, still, he used to grab them tight in his hands. He was afraid of the fact that the evil spirits would steal the keys and open up the safe. And then there would be catastrophe. 

Listen what happened one night. My father was in high fever. He was dozing on the safe. Suddenly he asked me to come close to him. I went to him and he asked, “Give an ear to this safe and try to eavesdrop. Can you hear anything?”

I placed my ears on the top of the safe.

Father asked, “Can you hear anything?”

Hum.

What do you hear?

I can’t figure out the sound.

Is there anyone walking inside the safe, wearing anklets?

Hum.

Listen carefully and tell me exactly what you hear and not only in ‘hum’. My time is up and it’s time to handover the responsibility of the safe to you. I will be free of this burden once I hand it over to you. Tell me what you can hear.

Someone wearing anklets is tiptoeing inside the safe, with short pauses.

Now you will realize why I used to eavesdrop on it.

Yes, I have got it. But, why aren’t we opening it now? Let’s see what’s inside the safe.

Father got angry. He said, “Don’t even think about opening the safe. My father handed over the responsibility of this safe to me during the time of his death. He forbade me to open it ever. I complied with his order. You too won’t open it. You will keep the keys with you all through your life.

I remained silent for a moment and told him, “Father, while I was giving an ear to the safe, you were swinging your body, which was why the keys clashing into each other created the sound like that of the anklets.”

Yes, you are right. In the wishes of Almighty, you have become such an intelligent boy. After my death, you will press your ear against the safe. You will do so whenever you get the chance. You will be listening to various types of sounds. You will hear the voice of a young girl; her laughter. If you ask any question, you may even get answers sometimes. But, there is only one thing you must conform to. Don’t ever open the safe.

Just after one week, my father passed away on a Wednesday night. On his death bed, he was uttering only one thing – ‘the keys of the safe’. In a state of frenzy, he kept screaming, “Alas! The evil spirits have stolen the keys of my safe. I am undone.”

There were no keys tied to his waist belt. We searched every possible corners of the house, but the keys were gone.

After the death of my father I was fallen into deep trouble. My schooling was about to be stopped. Pranab Babu, the math teacher of our school, asked me, “You, shift to my home. Let this house be locked.” 

I shifted to the home of my teacher. His wife’s name was Durga. She said, “You will never enter my puja room (prayer room). To refer to water you will have to use ‘jol’, not ‘pani’. If you can remember these things, your staying here won’t be a problem. Now greet me with a pronam (a common practice, in Hindu religion, to vow down before someone to show respect). But don’t touch my feet. I have just taken the shower. I will now enter into the puja room."  

I did the pronam but more like a kodombuchi (a practice in Muslim community to greet someone with a salam by touching their feet). She said, “Look, at this Muslim kid. He even doesn’t know how to bid a pronam.”  

I got a bit hurt by how the woman treated me at the very first day. But within a few days, I came to realize that she was one of the five best persons on earth. She never asked me to address her as ‘mother’. But I called her ‘mother’. She used to call me by the name, ‘Misri’. I performed the cremation ritual after her death. It was her last wish. Before her death, she appealed, “Let this naughty Muslim boy perform the cremation ritual for me.” 

Their family strictly maintains the vegetarian eating habit. I had to adjust myself with it. But, sometimes my mother cooked egg curry for me in a different dish, so that my non-vegetarian habit didn’t go away. I will tell the story of my mother some other day. She has got a small chapter in my diary of unsolved cases. She used to make offerings to the evil spirits or demons on every new moon. She used to roast a giant snakehead fish, wrap it with the banana leaf and place it under a demon tree (streblus asper) in a jungle behind the house. She used to tell that a demon would come down to accept the offerings just a few moments after placing it. The evil spirit had no eyes and an awkward smell of burnt meat would come from his body. One day I went there with my mother to make the offerings to the demon. Okay, let’s stop this topic now. I will rather finish the story of the safe.

I used to visit our home on school holidays. The house kept locked down. I would open the lock, sweep the rooms and sit by the safe by placing my ear against it for a while. There were no sounds inside the safe. I knew that there wouldn’t be any, but I did so just out of habit, you can say.

It was another holiday visit. I was sitting beside the safe, placing my ear against the safe. All on a sudden, a female voice came out of it: “hi there, it’s me, it’s me”. 

I was nearly frozen in panic. I sprang out of the safe. The safe seemed to be jerking slightly. Someone was trying hard to open up the lid of the safe from inside. Someone must be locked inside it and they were trying to come out of it. I sprinted out of my home and reached at Pranab Sir’s house. I couldn’t even think of locking the home. I was so scared that I had a fever that night. In the dizziness of fever, the female voice kept whispering me into the ears: “hi there, it’s me, it’s me...Hello”.

I made another visit in the next week. As soon as I gave my ear to the safe, the voice said, “Hello, hello.”

Who are you in there?

It’s me, it’s me. It’s me.

Can you please tell me your name?

It’s me, it’s me. It’s me.

How did you get inside the safe?

The same phrases in response came out of the safe: ‘it’s me, it’s me’. But now, in a clearer voice.

The electricity supply was resumed. Misir Ali blew out the candle. As I looked on his face, I noticed sweats over his forehead. He was still inside the story, as if the safe was just before his eyes.

Brother, Misir Ali, could it be kind of auditory hallucination?

Yes, it might have been. The extreme curiosity about the safe in my teenage mind might have caused the illusion. But, it was not an illusion.

How did you know that it was nothing like that?

I took my mother, I meant Pranab Sir’s wife, to my home. I asked her to place her ear against the safe to check if she too could hear something. She gave an ear to the safe and got surprised. A young girl was telling: “it’s me, it’s me… it’s me”. She asked me what the matter was.

I don’t know.

Where are the keys of this safe? Bring me the keys, I will open it.

The keys are not there. They had been lost.

I think there is a treasure inside the safe. The little girl was locked inside the safe to guard the treasure. The girl must have been enchanted by black magic. In the ancient times people believed that the treasure can be guarded this way. The safe should be unlocked by a mechanic, but that won’t be a wise decision.

What’s the problem with that?

The news will spread everywhere. This sort of things should be done in secret.

While lighting a cigarette, Misir Ali said, “I was able to find the keys when I was in grade eight.”

How did you find them?

I figured out myself where the keys could be. And the keys were found exactly there. Let me tell you how I had done the logical deduction.

The keys were always tied to the waist belt of my father. So, there weren’t any chance that the keys could fall down somewhere.

As my father claimed, the demons had snatched the keys away from him. But it’s not logically possible. Father himself had hidden them somewhere.

He was physically very ill. So, he wouldn’t hide them anywhere far from home. He would hide them either inside the home or anywhere around it. 

He would not even dig the soil to hide them under it, as he had not the physical ability. And if he would dig anywhere in the ground, it would have drawn the attention of people.

So, there remained only one place where he could hide the keys- the well. There was a well just behind our home. So, he must have thrown the keys into the well. There was a concrete boundary encircling the around our well. During the illness, my father used to spend a lot of time by leaning against the well-boundary.

It was not that much difficult to pull out the keys from the well. We usually used a big hook to pull out the ewer or buckets, if they accidentally fell down. The hook was like a bunch of large fishhooks attached together. We had to tie the hook in a long rope, throw it down the well, move it around and then the things drowned in the water would get stuck to it.

So, you had got back your keys.

Yes.

And then you had unlocked the safe?

Yes.

What was inside the safe?

Misir Ali took a deep breathe in the cigarette, inhaled the smoke and said, “The safe was completely vacant. There was just nothing inside it.”

There was nothing?

Even not a tiny piece of black thread.

Had you ever tried to listen to anything inside the safe even after this?

Yes, I had tried, but I didn’t hear anything anymore. This is the end of the story of my safe. Now, please go home, it’s so late at night.  

Bridgerton Books and the Backstage of the Regency Setting

 

Jane Austen published her classic novel, Pride and Prejudice, in 1813 and nearly 200 years later in the USA, Julia Quinn, in love with the aura of love, romance, courtship, literature and cultural renaissance prevalent in the Regency period, traveled a long long way back to that very time and discover herself in the world of the earlier one she is deeply attached to by all her soul.

Julia Quinn could have ignited herself with the revolutionary zeal as orchestrated in Shelley’s ardent appeal to bring down a change to the world:

“O Wild West Wind………

Lift me as a wave, a lyre, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!.....

A heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d

One too like thee: tameless, and swift and proud.”

              (Ode to the West Wind)

Or, as we have witnessed in Merry Shelley’s world shattering masterpiece, “Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus”.

With the feministic note like that of Jane Austin and the dreamy atmosphere of love and romance prevalent in the very period, Julia Quinn being so tightly touched and repositioned to the very time, starts writing the Bridgerton Romance series and brings the era back to life so lively as to make the readers wonder about the real existence of the Bridgerton family in the real Regency Setting.

Once Julia Quinn gets herself settled down on the era, it was almost irresistible to avoid the melancholic tone like that of Keats’:

“Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,

Where beauty can not keep her lustrous eyes

Or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow”

                         (Ode to a Nightingale) 

Or the transcendental echo and the pessimistic sigh of the Romantics:

“As long as skies are blue and fields are green,

Evening must usher night, night urges the morrow,

Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.”

----(Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, by P.B. Shelley)

Let’s forget about the poetry of the Romantics ruling over the era; it was the time that was witnessing the emergence of novels as the new ruler of the literary world. It was ushering in a new world, new belief and the much anticipated radical change to literature with the hands of novelists like Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy or Emile Bronte. It was the time when literary interest was shifting from the upper class to the common people. The protagonists from the common and ordinary class were beginning to steal the limelight in the political, social as well the religious turbulence best understandable in the majestic opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going the other way….. ”

However, despite the disillusioned belief and a rather dilapidated socio-economic structure after the Nepoleonic war period, the Regency Period, which the Bridgerton books are based on, marks the bemused glory of literary, cultural and architectural advancement with the highly sophisticated taste of Prince Regent who later became the King George the 4^th and magnified the look of Great Britain with the Houses of Parliament, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Regent’s Park, Royal Opera House, the Pantheon, Mayfair, Pall Mall, Royal Parks of London, Ranelagh Gardens along with hundreds of  other architectural and cultural time-travelers.

 So, instead of digging deep the Tale of Two Cities, Julia Quinn chooses the earlier one  vivid in the glorifying visuals of the era, and embedded with wisdom, belief, light, and the spring of hope. Apparently Family life, celestial bonding of the siblings, love, romance, courtship and marriage in the setting of the great Regency period are the things our author Julie Pottinger deliberately tends to focuses on in her seductive Bridgerton Romance Series under her pen name of Julia Quinn. Considering her fervent enthusiasm and love for Romance novels since her very childhood days with Sweet Dreams and Sweet Valley High Book series, any other subject matter for her novels would have been utterly unbecoming. She didn’t spend her time on those romance novels with just the fancy of love and courtship and at the annoyance of her father. She had a vision and she had proved it by writing such a novel of her own in three years.

As one of the most widely read novelists in the historical Romance genre, in line with Mary Balogh, Jo Beverley and Loretta Chase, Julia Quinn brings to light the respectable Bridgerton family, consisting of a loving and widowed mother and the eight tightly-knit siblings in the Regency Setting. With the love stories of every eight brothers and sisters, Julia Quinn makes an elaborated series of Bridgerton Romance series with nine books published in the following order:

1. The Duke & I (2000),
2. The Viscount Who Loved Me (2000),
3. An Offer from a Gentleman (2001),
4. Romancing Mister Bridgerton (2002),
5. To Sir Philip, With Love (2003),
6.  When He Was Wicked (2004),
7. It’s in His Kiss (2005),
8. On the Way to the Wedding (2006), and
9. The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After (2013).

In each of the first eight books, Julia Quinn makes one among the eight loving siblings find their true love against all odds of the upper English Society in the truly Regency setting. The culminating book in the series, which was published seven years after the eighth one, was the second epilogues of the earlier love stories along with the story of the Violet Bridgerton, the caring, proud and beloved mother of the eight siblings: Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory and Hyacinth. 

Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton Series: Seductive Stories for the Romance Lovers

 

Julie Pottinger, one of the most celebrated novelists in the genre of Romance Novel, has earned the worldwide popularity under the pen name, Julia Quinn, with her famous Historical Romances mostly based on the Regency Period of England. The books of this cherished novelist have been translated in 29 languages so far and her novels were placed in the New York Times Best Seller List for an unbelievable 19 times, crowning her as the unparalleled Maestro of Historical Romance.  

Among all the romance Series, Julia Quinn has written so far, The Bridgerton Literary Series is the most elaborated one, which has earned her an astounding reputation among the romance lovers all around the world for her magnificent and captivating skill in weaving a story with the lively presentation of the characters and the settings that readers just can’t resist to dive deep down the plots.

Set between the years from 1813 and 1827, in the period of Regency England, the Bridgerton Romance Series features the stories of the eight siblings of the Bridgerton family consisting of Violet Bridgerton, a widowed mother, and her eight loving children, closely connected to souls of one another. In each of the eight books published between 2000 and 2006, one among the children chases, finds and wins the true love in their life against the odds of the upper English society of the period.

The Bridgerton Romance Series has been published in the order as follows:

1. The Duke & I (2000),
2. The Viscount Who Loves Me (2000),
3. An Offer from a Gentleman (2001),
4. Romancing Mister Bridgerton (2002),
5. To Sir Philip, With Love (2003),
6. When He Was Wicked (2004),
7. It’s in His Kiss (2005),
8. On the Way to the Wedding (2006), and
9.  The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After (2013).

 

The very first book, entitled The Duke & I, features the love story of Daphne, the fourth daughter of the Bridgerton family, and the Duke of Hastings, Simon Basset.

The second one in the Historical Romance Series features the eldest Bridgerton, Anthony with his love interest Katherine Sheffield in the book entitling The Viscount Who Loved Me.

The third one in the Bridgerton Series is about the second son in the family, Benedict. This historical romance relates his love story with Sophia Beckett in the Romance Novel entitled, An Offer from a Gentleman.

The fourth installment in the Bridgerton Romance Series tells the story of the Third Bridgerton, Colin with Penelope Featherington in the novel entitling Romancing Mister Bridgerton.

The next Romance is based on the second daughter and the fifth child of the Bridgerton family. In this Historical Romance Novel entitled To Sir Philip, With Love, Eloise’s love story with Sir Philip Crane has been portrayed in the usual seductive story-telling style of Julia Quinn.   

The sixth book in the Bridgerton Literary Series features the romance of the third daughter Francesca with Michael Stirling in the book entitling When He Was Wicked.

The seventh book in the Romance Series tells us about the love story Hyacinth, the last child of the Bridgerton family. In this Historical Romance Novel Entitled It’s in His Kiss, Hyacinth is seen finding her true love in Gareth St. Clair.

The eighth installment in the Bridgerton Romance Series relates the love story of the seventh child and the youngest son of the Bridgerton family. The Romance entitling, On the Way to the Wedding, features the love story of Gregory and Lucinda Abernathy. This brilliantly woven love story crowns the author with The Romance Writer of America RITA Award in 2007.

And then seven years after the publication of On the Way to the Wedding in 2006, Julia Quinn rocks the universe of Romance with one more book in 2013, featuring the Bridgerton family. In the last installment of Bridgerton Literary Series entitling, The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After, the novelist writes a novella featuring Violet Bridgerton, the proud, caring and the beloved mother of the eight Bridgerton siblings, along with the second epilogues for the love stories of the eight brothers and sisters.

Based on this Historical Romance Series, Netflix has lately produced and streamed the drama series entitled, Bridgerton, and has already declared the making of the second season this year.