Shrikant, who has marked shades of Sarat Chandra’s own stormy and bohemian life, is a saga, spanning four parts.Ĭentred in each part is Shrikant’s relationship with a woman, the primary one being Rajlakshmi, his childhood friend, who by quirk of fate ends up as the illegitimate “wife” of a wealthy man, is put in charge of his properties after his death, but has to perform “mujaras” as “Pyaari Bai” to bring up his children. However, my favourite character is not Devdas but Shrikant, another of Sarat Chandra’s immortal characters, who has been filmed on screen, in television serials, and still continues to hold the readers and the viewers enthralled. So what if social norms have liberalised manifold, the age-old obstacles between rich boy and poor girl remain, while the love between them continues to be as alive today as it was a century ago.ĭevdas, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Madhuri Dixit was a blockbuster hit He is still alive in the form of millions of such lovers who even today are faced with a similar predicament. The eternal lover, who pines away to death brooding over his lost love, which he, in fact, lost of his own folly, refuses to die really. From Dilip Kumar, Suchitra Sen and Vyjayanthimala in the 1950s to Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Madhuri Dixit in the 21 st century – superstars down the decades have relived the novel on the silver screen. His novel, Devdas, has been filmed time and again, in various Indian languages. Yet Sarat Chandra continues to rule the hearts of his readers even today.

Relationships have changed social norms have turned a new leaf. Sarat Chandra has been the favourite of millions of readers for so long that it was no surprise when he won the Meghdutam net poll in 2000. If I say Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay is my favourite author, nothing do I say.

Shrikant novel by sarat chandra