Unending love of a bygone era:Jackie Kabir is delighted after a reread of Nohonnote, a classic of Bengali literature by author Maitreyi Devi

I read the book Nohonnote as a young girl and was pleased with myself as I had read one of the most well regarded books of any time. But little did I know that I would appreciate it much more when I read it as an adult. The book is about a forgotten love that shook the whole world of Amrita, a 16 year old girl. One has to metaphorically devour every page as you go through the book. The literary quality of the language is brilliant. The emotions come out alive as the writer describes the past that was, until then, suppressed inside her. It is also a document of a time when Bengali girls got little or no exposure. Yet Amrita managed to steal the heart of a young foreigner who later became a famous writer in his own country. The word Nohonnote is a Sanskrit word meaning - not of body; but of soul, of spirit. The novel is written by Maitreyi Devi, a disciple of Rabindranath Tagore. She was a famous writer in her own right. The story is set in 1972. It is Amrita’s birthday. She is an elderly writer and her fans have thrown a party for her, at her house in Kolkata. A young European man comes inside the house and asks her, ‘Are you Amrita?’ She says, ‘yes! But who are you? And how do you know me?’ ‘Oh, I’m Sergey Sebastian.’ He kisses her hands in the customary French manner. She realises Sergey is looking for an Amrita who was alive in 1930, not the Amrita of 1972. He tells her that she is like a princess from a fairy tale and that everyone in his country knows her. ‘But how?’ she asks. ‘Mircaea’s book! He made you immortal through his writing’. That simple event takes Amrita 42 years back in time; in their small house where Mircea came as a student of philosophy to her father. He was 23 and she 16. They did not go beyond kissing each other and yet Mircea described the lovemaking scene as a heavenly episode in his book. He became a big scholar and philosopher in France, an expert on Indian culture and heritage. Amrita’s affair at that time had made her father angry and he threw Mircea out of the house, making him promise never to look at Amrita again. He kept his word. All these years Amrita did not think of him once, not once. But Sergei opened a wound she had thought, had already been healed. She now bled and bled, without being aware that there was a wound at all. She was in a daze. Her husband and her son had to bring her back to the reality. She was now an old woman of sixty who did not have the strength or the money to go to France and see him. But her heart wanted to, so much. She told her husband who loved her, cherished her and was also her best friend who would never question her, for there was nothing ever to question her about. But he said he would help her to go to France. And he helped her get the visa and she waited for an invitation to go there. Finally, everything was arranged. Amrita came to the city Mircea lived in. She made sure he did not know about her arrival. As she walked into his office she saw the old man standing holding a book case for support. She requested him to turn around. He would not, saying that they were both married and had their own lives. She should not jeopardise anything. She told him she would just like to see him only once. She was also scared that she would see a pair of eyes that did not belong to the Mircea she knew. She was right. His eyes were like glass beads with no life in them. It is a story of love, a kind of love that is not usually seen any more. Not being in touch with each other for ages yet having retaining the connection - that is what true love is all about, the story says. It is the intensity of the passion that the author portrays in her writing that makes this book so unique. The book is recommended specially for all those who would love to travel back in time and see what the world was like for young people of that era. It is a must read book for generations to come.