Yātrāra prathama pāda

Yatrara Prathama Pada ( The first leg of the journey), published first in 1976, is a short novel on the failing political systems of India that caused the youths of the country to renounce Gandhi and embrace Mao, though in a very sad and bitter way. The story is like this: A teen aged school girl came as a tourist to Puri with her parents and was enjoying her good times on the beach when a group of people chased her like a pack of wolves chasing a doe. The girl shouted for help but no help came from anywhere even when the beach was over crowded with visitors that summer. Her parents, of course, tried to intervene but of no avail. The girl was isolated from the crowd and savgely raped in the cajurina groves shading the beautiful coast line of Puri. The girl happened to recognise the predators whom she knew from her childhood. Some of them were the so called leaders wearing Gandhian khadi etc. The hapless parents sought justice from the law courts but the case was lost. The parents, quite well to do and people of social standing walked the next logical step to save the girl's future from social ostracization. A mirrage was secretly arranged with a bright young man who did not know of the past evant about her bride. But the tormentors still pursued their prey and the groom was informed about the girl's past history. However the matter was saved and the goodness of the bridegroom prevailed upon the evil designs of the oppressors. The marriage was solemnised. Yet her humiliating fate again pushed her to the brink when a plane accident killed her husband and the newly wed girl was condemned to widowhood. The poor parents were left undone when the tormentors again appeared in the scene. They forced the doomed parents to part with their widowed daughter with a proposal to part the girl away and allow her to join their newly constituted political party with a brand new ideology. The parents had no other way but to succumb to the evil designs of the dacoits. The girl was persuaded and then forced by her own father to keep company with the harrassing band. After a long struggle the poor girl was made to leave her home at last. Thus beagn the first leg of the journey of destitution of a genaeration of youths that culminated in the camps of the so called revolutionary political pary of India, named after the Naxals ( later Mao) in the seventies.