The eternal conflict in the age-old ‘man-woman’ relationship, which typically arises when any one of the two partners seeks both solace and passion in a single partner and is often unable to savour the joys of both together, is the central theme of Two Sisters (Dui Bon by Rabindranath Tagore, 1933). The central character Shashanka, is torn between two women, undecided between his homemaker wife Sharmila and her younger sister, the vivacious and playful Urmimala, who abhors domesticaiton. The two women revolve round their common love interest and are overwhelmed by the intensity of desire, guilt and agony, in an endless cycle of happy conjugality giving way to the blinding intoxication of passion, finally leaving a toxic taste in the mouths of all the protagonists. The longing for a doting ‘mother’ to take care of all his needs often remains strong in a man smitten by a woman and desirous of her favours. Contemporary society is not devoid of this trait and this novella is thus universal and timeless in its approach.
Rabindranath Tagore, sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal.[8] He is sometimes referred to as "the Bard of Bengal. Translator: Former Director, National Book Trust, India, and former Director, K.K. Birla Foundation, New Delhi, Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee was also the Editor of Sahitya Akademi’s prestigious journal Indian Literature. He taught comparative literature and English literature at Jadavpur University and Gauhati University respectively, in the early years of his career. Prof. Bhattacharjee was the Editorial Consultant of the Multi-volume Documentation Project of the Rashtrapati Bhavan from 2013 to 2016. An accomplished translator from Bengali to English and vice versa, his English translations of the writings of Mahasveta Devi, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Manik Bandyopadhyay and Sirshendu Mukhopadhyay have all been very well received. He has also translated a Kannada short story collection of U.R. Anantamurthy and a Marathi novel by Viswas Patil into Bengali in collaboration with the original authors. Recipient of the best translator’s award from IBBY Congress held in London in 2012, Prof. Bhattacharjee has edited a collection of stories of displacement from Assam (Barbed Wire Fence, Niyogi Books) and co-edited Best of Indian Literature (1957-2007),published by the Sahitya Akademi.
