Anitya: Halfway to Nowhere

Perhaps the only novel in Hindi by a woman author depicting India’s struggle for independence, Anitya portrays the human predicament of individuals of two generations during and immediately after the Independence Movement. The novel records the pain of ordinary Indians who failed to keep their tryst with destiny as they travelled from the crossroads to an unforeseen end. Moving away from the accounts of victimhood, the work deals with how high moral standards turn quite easily to betrayal when self-interest is placed against a matter of principle. The failure of the revolution or the death of ideologies, however, does not invalidate the assessment of the struggle, because the quest for Independence is as much a concern of the present as of the past.
The central character, Anitya, is important as one who has successfully got rid of all illusions about the happenings around him and is hence capable of facing the unvarnished truth. One significant aspect of the novel is its delineation of strong, independent, cerebral women. The novel crafts a number of complex child characters as foils to the adults in a state of moral flux. The volume includes an insightful Introduction by Krishna Dutt Paliwal.