Beech Bahas Mein

Beech Baah Mein is a collection of four well-known stories by Nirmal Verma. In all four stories, he depicts the traditional Indian concept of relationships and the changing nature of these relationships in the West. Individual freedom, the freedom to choose ones own way of life, confrontation with moral taboos, a deep sense of human responsibility, and the mutual conflict between these are the underlying themes of these stories. This is Nirmals fourth collection, first published in 1973. It also includes a brief essay, Returning to My Country, as an introduction. In it, he offers a highly thought-provoking analysis of how he views his society and environment upon returning to India after his stay abroad. For example, these linesThere is a profound difference between poverty and destitution. Upon returning to India, what strikes me most sharply is not poverty per se (poverty exists in the West too), but the poverty of the cultured class. A strange shallowness that bears no remotest resemblance to the self-respect of poverty. The intensity with which the story Beech Bahas Mein highlights the widespread disconnect within family relationships is astonishing. Similarly, other stories, in their respective contexts, shed light on aspects of social reality that are faced by a few individuals but have deep roots in society.