A book by Sirshendu Mukhopadhyay
‘Love was one thing, sin was another-and although it was difficult to tell love from sin, Trina had learnt to identify some of the signs’.
“There was no one at the bus stop” talks about the life of Trina who is the protagonist of the book. The book is set in Calcutta in the 1970s.
The story revolves around Trina, who is unhappily married to a self centred man and has two teenage children. A chance encounter with a childhood acquaintance comes like a breath of fresh air in the otherwise lacklustre life of Trina. But what guarantee is there that her new found relation would liberate her from the clutches of her miserable life, make her forget the past that she has endured and help her move on in life and find solace in one another? Alas none such assurance can be found as we are all bounded by the power of the ties and responsibilities which have held us back all these years.
The novel unfolds over the span of twelve hours on a single day. Best love and hate book as we come across the whole gamut of emotions from love and hatred to apathy and spurn all weaved together beautifully. The melancholic atmosphere of the book is very well described with beautiful depictions of the pathos and conflicts of the protagonist. The cultured upper middle class of the cosmopolitan Calcutta of 1970s and their lives, dreams, boredoms are all very skilfully captured in the book. The grandeur of their life and yet the emptiness in their lives is made vivid by juxtaposing their luxurious everyday life with their routine boredom with their partners and life in general.
“There was no one at the bus stop” is an attempt to capture the fickleness of the human heart among the monotony of the mundane everyday life. A line quoted from the book “What could be more intoxicating than what’s forbidden” aptly describes these emotions. The book resonates well with the reader as all of us are, in some way or the other, trapped in our day to day existence and find it difficult to break through.
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