REVIEW: RADHA

If you love Nepali Novels, I guess, you have heard about Krishna Dharabasi. If you have heard about Krishna Dharabasi, I’m confident that you have read “Radha”. No doubt, Radha is an excellent piece of work. The book clubs and critics have rated it excellent (4.09/5) but I’m not reviewing this book as a critic. I’m a simple reader and not specialized with any writing skills.

I got a chance to read novel 6 years ago and still I know the characters and plots. That means the novel is able to make impression upon the mind of readers. Before starting this article, I searched the book once and completed within two days. In fact reading Radha is fun once again. Radha starts with the real situation and diverts the contents to world of fiction. Yeh, for the readers like me it is quite like, going to virtual world from real world. At beginning you are in real world and after sometime the story starts with fiction. I was not being able to convince myself at the beginning about that concept of writer like a sage could read the script of Mahabharat Yug. I argued the same with my friend and when I get to know about the character of sage being compared to “Rishi Asusthama” who was supposed to be the only survivor of the Mahabharat and no sign of death. The writer was trying to depict the sage with the person may be. When story begun from Mathura, the characters of Radha, Krishna and their groups is convincing. I started imagining about what kind of place would be Braj. I was totally into it.

Critics call such novel as metaphysial novels in Nepali “Lila Lekhan” but I would call it taking person from real world to virtual. Through Radha, writer attempts to find the story of Radha which is not been explored by anyone before. The love of Radha and Krishna is expressed beyond and boundaries even a marriage. Krishna thinks that marriage is nothing to do with love and Radha waits for her love without any expectations.  Radha is excellent piece of work relating to feminism. Radha possess the quality of modern women and mainly the novel is about the revolution against patriarchal society. The effort of Radha is not appreciated and everyone talk about the victories of Krishna.  Various story of Radha and Krishna explained the supernatural power of Krishna but the novel presents the Krishna as normal human with the extraordinary power to attract women or enemies with lucrative words.

The novel is well written expressing the feelings of Radha and the plot takes reader to another world. The struggle of the Radha being a lover and a women is well expressed. The sentiments of Radha is expressed throughout the Novel. Radha as a strong girl, aggressive, lover, fun loving and with her self-respect binds the reader to novel.