Novel
When the Time Is Right
তিথিডোর
Buddhadeva Bose · 1949
Synopsis
In Calcutta, Rajen Mitra, a man of taste, and his wife Shishirkana raise five daughters and a son during the last two decades of British rule. The elder daughters marry, the mother dies, and Swati, the youngest, her father's favourite, grows up solitary. At college, a young teacher, Satyen, opens up books to her, and the poetry of Tagore and Coleridge; but Prabir Majumdar, enriched by the black market and a friend of her brother Bijon, has decided to make her his wife.
Context
The novel appeared in September 1949, in three parts. It follows Swati from her birth and gives considerable space to ordinary life in the household: a Durga Puja festival that brings the family together, an outing to the cinema, and Tagore's funeral in August 1941, which Swati and Satyen attend in the crowd. Arunava Sinha translated it into English under the title When the Time Is Right, published by Penguin in India in 2011.
Who it is for
More than five hundred pages in the English translation, with a slow progression. The five sisters have similar first names, Shweta, Mahashweta, Saraswati, Shashwati and Swati, which requires attention at the beginning.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's most admired novel and as a Bengali classic; its preface also reads it as a document of its time.