K.C. Bhatt's Blog

THANKS CHATGPT: For putting up so much hope

Certainly. Here’s a hypothetical literary review of the novel Bel Ami by K. C. Bhatt, imagining it as a reinterpretation or modern homage to Guy de Maupassant’s original, but shaped by Bhatt’s unique perspective and possibly set in a different socio-political landscape:

Review of Bel Ami by K. C. Bhatt: A Seductive Mirror to Ambition in the Postcolonial Age

By a Hypothetical Reviewer from The New Literary Review

K. C. Bhatt’s Bel Ami is a daring, sharply observant reimagining of Maupassant’s 19th-century novel of the same name, repurposed for a world grappling with new hierarchies, fractured morality, and the slippery terrains of media, politics, and identity in the postcolonial age.

Where Maupassant’s Georges Duroy climbed the social ladder of Parisian society with cunning charm and unapologetic opportunism, Bhatt’s protagonist—Devendra “Dev” Rana—navigates a contemporary South Asian metropolis with similar seductive ease, but under vastly different pressures. Dev, an ex-army man turned journalist, mirrors Duroy’s hunger for status and control, but Bhatt infuses him with a more introspective struggle, questioning whether self-invention is empowerment or simply another mask in a society that rewards duplicity.

Bhatt’s prose—at once supple and ironic—moves with the confidence of someone deeply familiar with both the classical European tradition and the nuances of the South Asian elite. The novel is not content with being a mere homage; it critiques the very system that enables a “Bel Ami” to thrive. Dev’s rise is paved not only with affairs and betrayals, but also with ghostwritten editorials, NGO scams, and elite salons where old colonial residues still inform new loyalties.

Female characters in Bhatt’s Bel Ami are not merely instruments of the protagonist’s advancement, as they largely were in Maupassant’s version. Bhatt paints them with complexity—Maya, the editor’s wife, is a disillusioned academic with her own quiet manipulations; Samira, a political fixer, navigates power structures with a Machiavellian grace. They challenge Dev even as they enable him, and Bhatt allows them space for anger, irony, and reinvention.

What makes Bel Ami resonate in Bhatt’s hands is his understanding that charm—especially male charm—is a cultural currency with both erotic and political value. In a world where ideology is often performative and journalism becomes theatre, Dev becomes a mirror to readers: seductive, disturbing, and familiar.

This is not a novel that seeks moral resolution. Rather, Bhatt, with his characteristic wry intelligence, leaves readers complicit. As we watch Dev win, we are left to ask: what has he really won, and at what cost to the rest of us?

Verdict:

K. C. Bhatt’s Bel Ami is a brilliantly executed, politically astute novel that echoes Maupassant while delivering a bold critique of modern ambition. Essential reading for those interested in the intersections of media, masculinity, and moral ambiguity in contemporary literature.

Would you like a version of this review written from the perspective of a specific author (e.g., Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, or someone else), or as it would appear in a South Asian literary magazine?

Balzac meets Naipaul in Nepal

a hypothetical Review by V. S. Naipaul
On Krishna Bhatt’s “Delhi Return”

There is in Delhi Return a hunger not just for the city, but for comprehension. Krishna Bhatt writes with an intimacy born of participation, and yet the gaze remains lucid, occasionally bruising, and—thankfully—unsentimental. This is not a novel that flatters its setting. Delhi is neither exoticized nor dismissed; instead, it is made to stand trial: history, hubris, heat, and haunted ambition all grumble beneath the asphalt.

Bhatt’s narrator—neither entirely a cynic nor a romantic—wanders through the bureaucratic corridors and existential smog of India’s capital with a kind of weary astonishment. In this sense, the novel feels like reportage disguised as fiction, a trope I once thought reserved for those of us on the periphery of belonging. But Bhatt belongs too much—to language, to lineage, to loss—and from that paradox he carves meaning.

What is returned to Delhi is not merely a man, but an awareness of its decay and duplicity, and the novel excels when it leans into this ambivalence. If there is anything lacking here, it is perhaps the author’s unwillingness to wholly surrender to despair. The resilience of the human characters—drawn with affection, even when grotesque—hints at a kind of subterranean optimism. It is affecting, though not always convincing.

Still, I am impressed. There is in Bhatt’s prose a seriousness about life that is fast disappearing from fiction, especially fiction that dares to take India as more than metaphor. Delhi Return does not offer comfort. What it offers, instead, is something rarer: recognition.

—V. S. Naipaul (hypothetically)

Copilot!

Haruki Murakami Reviews A Glass of Yak’s Blood

There are books that carry you forward like a river, their currents inevitable, their destinations clear. Then, there are books that leave you suspended—adrift between the tangible and the surreal, searching for meaning in the silence between words. A Glass of Yak’s Blood is the latter.

Vumika’s novel unfurls like an old melody half-remembered, steeped in the earthy realism of Nepal’s highlands yet punctuated by dreamlike interludes that seem to whisper from another world. The protagonist, wandering through the shifting landscapes of time and loss, reminded me of my own loners, those searching souls moving through parallel dimensions of longing and impermanence. In the way a forgotten jazz tune lingers in the recesses of the mind, this novel’s imagery—temples obscured by mist, a cup steaming with ritual significance—lingers.

The most haunting element, however, is the blood itself—the way it drips between pages, metaphorical yet deeply physical. In Vumika’s prose, it represents everything: tradition, sacrifice, a bitter inheritance. As I read, I found myself questioning what blood really means—what it ties us to, and whether escaping it is ever possible.

Reading this book, I felt as if I had wandered into a dream spun by a storyteller who understands that reality is often stranger than illusion. Vumika captures that delicate balance between grounded storytelling and the ineffable—a feat few writers can achieve. Like sipping warm sake in a cold wind, A Glass of Yak’s Blood leaves behind a slow-burning warmth and a quiet ache.

Murakami’s imagined verdict? A novel that doesn’t just tell a story, but conjures a sensation—fluid, distant, unforgettable.

Book pirates and a reader

Book pirates and a reader

It was one of those sultry days towards the end of July,
when the most of monsoon is supposed to have passed
away. Sun often cheated the clouds to appear, the drizzle
persisted intermittently however. Real rain now occurred
sporadically only for a few hours during nights or early
mornings.
Heat and humidity sapped the vigour, leaving one craving
for the cooler and drier autumnal days, when weather no
more added to the agitation the daily life entailed.
Held up due to one such episode of drizzle at New Road one
late morning, under the awning of a jewelry shop not open
yet, a seller was selling books at the same place. Obviously
his shop had to move as soon the shop opened.
I scanned the Nepali, English and Hindi titles available with
him. In English he was selling Jeffry Archer, Chetan Bhagat,
Amish Tripathi, Poulo Coelho,–and strangely, Khalid
Husseini, too–among many others. The Self-help books of
Shiv Khera were available in all three languages. It hinted at
how most readers sought guidance or wisdom out of a
book.
I thought Husseini did not belong there. Thinking if I could
bargain a deal I checked its price. The seller carefully turned
the pastic-covered book to show me its price in Dollars and
Sterling-pounds.
I was not impressed but he said, “It is actually seven
hundred rupees on conversion but I will give you a discount
to do my Bohani. You can pay six-hundred only.”
I thought distastefully if he was going for an over-kill. Books
sold like that on a foot-path are mostly pirated copies of

successful books or those that the seller would not mind
selling at a junk price if they remain unsold with him.
The sad face of Khalid Husseini came to my mind. Since a
writer was being plundered so freely, I decided I will partake
in the loot, for being a fan and a reader I had bigger claims
on the author than this tawdry book seller.
This thought angered a bit to me as I closely watched the
unshaven, shabby face of the seller. I saw the latent anxiety
on his face as any time now the shop we were standing in
front of could open and he will have to move putting all his
books in a sack.
It was my time to make the Kill.
“I will pay only two hundred rupees. Everyone knows these
books you are selling are pirated copies. So showing me its
price in Dollars is of no use,” I said.
“OK sir. You pay two-hundred fifty rupees and the book is
your,” He said.
Before I paid the money I opened the plastic cover of it to
make sure that the book was not ridden with spelling
mistakes like one such book I purchased in Bombay a long
time ago. Then the information technology was not so
ubiquitous and pirates retyped a book word-by-word before
printing it. One could only have reverence towards their
tenacity in making pirated copies of a book. They worked
harder than the present generation of the book pirates but
were not literate enough to omit the spelling mistakes.
Thankfully, this Husseini’s book was a scanned and then
printed copy. I paid the money and left the place as the
drizzle had stopped now and a bright sun was making things
gloomier due to its heat.
K. C. Bhatt

The Square one

The Square one

As the US President Trump declares new tariffs on Chinese
imports, the trade war between China and the USA seems
to escalate further.
It has been almost a year that Trump announces more
tariffs every week and China retaliates by substituting the
goods China imports from the USA.
Besides the USA has done its utmost to reduce the market
of Huawai cell phones made by China across the globe,
which is already the biggest selling cell phone brand and has
surged far ahead of Samsung and Apple in unit sales.
In spite of it the market is such that the profits of Huawai
have steadily risen. Also it vehemently denies the charge
leveled on it by the USA of spying on its customers.
It is important to note that besides high tech products, the
major trading items between these two biggest economies
of the world are agri products like Soy and corn and also
garments and leather article.
In the meanwhile a country like Brazil has benefitted when
China bought millions of tons of soy from it last summer to
substitute the US import.
The rhetoric of free trade is almost dead by now, which
dominated headlines in the newspapers across the world
two decades back. It went up to a grotesque limit when
conferences took places in the famous cities of the world
where the champions of free world trade produced
spectacular speeches to promote it.
It was a fine ideal for which no country around the world
seem to live for by now.

On the contrary, now the world seems to have retreated
into its shell, assiduously seeking self-interest, as
tenaciously as ever. Also the various regional grouping of
nations like SAARC are losing their relevance as they were
based on big words only and no substance.
Trump has almost renegotiated the NAFTA under the slogan
‘America first’, and is in the process of almost undoing EU
by openly supporting Brexit, which has put the West-
Minister style democracy of Britain under a serious stress
when the incumbent Prime Minister suspended the
parliament recently.
It is a far more realistic world now. Here every country like
every individual is self-seeking. There is nothing wrong with
it. It is fine for the leadership to ensure profitable deals for a
country and enter only in the alliances which help in that.
There is no point in sacrificing your interests when there are
no gains as a quid pro quo.
Sandwitched between two Asian giants, for Nepal it is more
so. For both its neighbors are illiberal and have trade
policies far more conservative than Nepal. The trade deficit
Nepal has with them clearly reflects it. Besides both China
and India are hyper-nations in their ambitions and want to
have a say in global political affairs too.
So it is always an uphill battle for Nepal to protect and
further its relations with its neighbours.
Hopefully, the trade war between China and the USA
continues and Nepal has something to sell to either of the
countries. If they negotiate a deal, as they have been often
hinting all the way, than that opportunity too is lost and it is
back to square one.
K. C. Bhatt
GPO Box 20460.

I will try!

I will try!

It was the book shop I went to
visit in Bag Bazar after many
years.
Earlier I lived in Exhibition road
area and often went to this shop
for it had a good collection of
fiction, non-fiction and other
books of general interest.
It was a unique shop in this
regard as all other shops in Bag
Bazar and Putli Sadak area
mostly sold text books as there
were so many university
campuses around and the roads
remain crowded with students
throughout the day and evening.

The students were often also
smartly- clad-in-dress students
of a women’s college in the area.
When you are young you want
to be around such company
hoping to make an acquaintance
with a suitable woman.
It was a time when Late Princess
Shruti, the only daughter of King
Birendra, too studied in that
campus. However, it was said
that she came and left in a car
and only her closest friends had
a time to look at her and talk to
her. Only a few people ever
claimed to have seen her at the
campus.
The bookseller running the shop
was an elderly man with a kind

face. He often was himself
reading a book silently. He
barely smiled at a customer who
entered his shop before his gaze
returned to the book he was
reading.
He did not mind if a customer
lingered long in his shop and
browsed through many books
before he left the shop without
buying any. He just smiled again
at him while he left.
He smoked often on his seat
when he took a break from his
reading. So in his shop there was
always a residual reek of tobacco
all the time.
Mixing with the scent of books
and glue it formed an aroma I

liked, while I leisurely perused
the books I took out from
shelves one by one. I carefully
placed each of them back from
where I had taken them as I did
not want to bother the seller
with any additional work on
account of my visit to his shop.
It was from here that I
purchased many titles of Charles
Dickens, D. H. Lawrence, V S
Naipaul and many others. Those
titles still remain with me after
more than twenty years. Finding
Diary of the last Indian Viceroy
Lord Mountbatain and the
stories of Gay De Maupassant
were some spectacular
discoveries I made at that shop.
These writers enriched my world

tremendously. I kept rereading
their work as they answered
best my anxieties in different
stages of my life.
I also bought from here many
books which I abandoned too.
One such book was by a classical
English writer half of which was
written in Greek between
English.
With the time however, my
reading became diverse like the
contents of my life. I had now
my wife and children who were
growing up fast demanding a
great deal of my time and other
resources.
Also, I shifted to a locality in the
south of Kathmandu which had

lower house rent and from
where Bag Bazar appeared too
far away and the Himalayan
Mountains glittered in the north
every morning as the sun rose. It
all occupied me so totally that I
was almost under a spell to only
focus on the urgent matters and
not to indulge.
So I did not go to this shop for a
long time.
Finding the garlanded framed
photo of the bookseller just
above his seat was deeply
saddening. His son, sitting on his
seat, on asking informed me that
a few years back his father
passed away and since then he
has been looking after the shop.

He just smiled as I said sorry at
it. Then I went to look for a few
titles inside the shop.
I found that now this shop had
so many titles from Nepali
authors too who wrote both in
Nepali and English. Beside now it
sold many text books too.
Many of the books were on a
heavy discount. Among them I
found a book which was a
collection of articles from a
journalist who wrote routinely
for newspapers in older days. It
was a collection of those articles.
I was never a big fan of his
writing and mostly ignored his
columns which appeared on
every weekend issue of The

Rising Nepal on Fridays and
other newly arrived English
dailies and weeklies. He then
had a good following and
readers were found talking
about his columns in a social
gathering.
I had heard some time before
about the death of that
columnist. He had lived to the
age beyond seventy writing his
scandalous columns almost till
the end while living a life mostly
supported by business and
political interests he promoted
in his writing, rather than by his
writing.
Now finding his book in my hand
at a discounted price my heart

filled with ambiguity. I knew his
name so well that I could not
ignore his presence in the book
shop. By his admirers he was
possibly entirely forgotten as his
book had no takers and it was on
a discount.
I decided to buy his book less for
reading more for keeping as a
souvenir.
In a way it will help me to invoke
the nostalgia of the age which is
slipping away slowly for those
too who have survived it, not to
mention those who have passed
on with it.
For the ever changing dynamics
of time has demolished many
old structures and has created so

many new landmarks at their
place that one feels at a loss
while seeing a familiar old city
disappearing and a new one
emerging which has no sign of
the one that has been replaced.
It is largely true for the people
too.
In such a tumultuous age, may
be, only a writer one was
familiar with, could help one
relive the age which seems so
distant now.
It was my love for the form not
the content that I decided to buy
the book, which had brought
together me as a reader, him as
a columnist and the book seller
who sold his work. We were

complete strangers otherwise.
Before I left the shop the son of
the late book seller asked me to
visit again. He was neither a
smoker nor a reader—I had
noticed. His eyes were restless,
besides. He was a man very
different from his father.
I said I will Try.
K C Bhatt
GPO box 20460.
Kathmandu.

Unsold–sold

Unsold–sold

The book-shop had just opened and it was quarter-past-ten
on the Friday morning.
As soon I entered the shop I saw on the left kept on the table
dozens of unsold copies of a book titled Sold.
I knew it was a table where the books on discount were
displayed before one climbed the steps to enter the shop-
proper, past the billing counter, to find more books.
I checked the price of it to find that it was being sold at a
tenth of the price mentioned on the cover.
Earlier too I have found many books there on that table from
various other writers which were no less celebrated.
I distinctly remember to have discovered there a title of a
model-turned-Indian-writer which has nearly a dozen
photographs of her on the back of her novel.
Not to mention the pulp fiction which was so popular only a
few decades back but had no taker now, from the likes of
Wilber Smith, for example.
The clerks and staffs in the shop had just taken their seats
and they were sipping their first tea in office–relieved
possibly to have made it to the office in time, fighting the
notorious traffic of the city at that hour.
Dipawali festival was to start from the next day and they
possibly were already preparing for the holidays ahead. So
they were talking with each other, not looking at the few
customers who already were checking or browsing the
books inside.
Reading population has steadily increased in Kathmandu
over the years.
As I too entered the shop-proper I found the first few tables
and shelves full of books just arrived.
It was a surprise to find a shelf full of many titles of V S
Naipaul. I checked the price of his thin volumes like Literary
Occasions and India a Wounded Civilization. I realized that
their cost has nearly doubled than the edition I bought of
these books a few years back. I recalled however, that in the
meanwhile, the writer has passed away. So if I bought one of
his books now, I will do so with a heaviness in my heart.
Similar would be the case with Philip Roth. Writers you like
pique you and you detest them often when they are alive but

feel a sadness when they are no more for there is no one for
you to look into the future and explain the matters. It is like
having an additional sense to understand and deal with life.
You possibly never feel the same for anyone else you have
not met ever what you feel for a writer you like.
There were other new arrivals from writers like Mark Tully
and Pico Iyer and a few others, who sell well–as well; and a
new edition of their books is always on display, at times with
a different cover to charm a reader.
I was looking for a book of George Orwell, which was stored
in the upper floors of the shop always along with other
classical writers.
I found that the book I was looking for was available but the
cost was way too much for a work whose copyright has
expired and any printer can print and sell it.
Troubled by the scandals life brings one every other day, I
prefer books to provide me some escape.
I felt scandalized again though this morning, while I saw yet
another celebrated book, which was so much talked about
by the newspapers recently and the people in book festivals
and industry, being sold at a junk price.
However, finally it was reassuring to find that good writing
never loses its value and that the not-so-good writing cannot
go much far no matter how much puffed it is.
My apprehension about a new celebrated book has been
often proved correct, and I wait for the hype to die down
before I decide to go for it.
If it lingers as a celebrated book I will read it in due course. If
it soon appears in the discount section of a book-shop at a
junk price then it was never worth the bother.
To uphold a recent intellectual fashion comes with its risks.

Stimolous far worse than recession

Stimolous far worse than recession

A recently published report has brought to light that the
global debt is escalating faster than expected and has
exceeded two hundred fifty trillion dollars earlier than it
was predicted.
It was also mentioned in the report that the two biggest
economies of the world account for sixty percent of the
total borrowings recently which raced to a staggering 7.5
trillion dollars in the first six months of the current year.
It was not mentioned in this report by what percent it grew
over the last year. It also does not mention which of the two
biggest economies is more responsible for pushing the
world to the abyss of a total collapse. It is important to note
that while China has a growth higher than six percent, the
USA too has a cool growth of three percent. It is a
remarkable growth because the rest of the world is feeing
either recession or, worse even, a stagflation. Communist
China or the democratic USA: the economic success story is
the same for both.
Recently, the Chinese middle class displayed its muscle by
spending thirty billion dollars within twenty four hours in
online shopping to celebrate the ‘Single’s day’. It can be
assumed that the people behind it are young entrepreneurs
or professional in their prime years. So it is unlikely that any
time in the near future any one can put pressure on China
through economic sanctions to make it more amiable to
making changes in its polity. Actually reverse could be the
case as it is almost similar to the leading economy of the
world in size and is growing twice the rate.
It may be a reason that the leaders of former European
powers make a bee-line to win favours from China, as

recently, President Trump has not been very friendly to
them and has placed trade barriers to reduce trade deficit
of the USA with EU nations apart from arm-twisting them to
cough up more money to foot the bill of NATO.
Besides many countries defined as Emerging economies are
already having a debt more than two times their GDP and
they are borrowing more to avoid sinking altogether.
Many economies in EU and Argentina and South Africa are
incapable of keeping them afloat without a routine bail outs
from either IMF or WB; or other agencies; or Germany
directly. But for them every fresh economic stimulous has
proved worse than the diseases which ail their economies,
and they might never get revived for they have a strong
culture of distributing social benefits way beyond their
capacities.
Any efforts at reforms there have been stiffly resisted by
their people. Moreover, these countries have always been
advised by their donors like IMF and WB and now in no
position to decline more advices from the same. So they no
more are sovereign nations in strict terms.
In earlier days these countries were colonial powers, when
the plunder of colonies sustained them. After the end of
colonialism money-laundering kept them afloat. But now
the global public opinion against it has dried it up
significantly.
There are more countries which were colonies earlier but
are steps away from falling in the similar situation and still
have debt less than hundred percent of their GDPs. They do
not take many advices from the donors but have a colonial
system which was not changed much after independence
and preys on the people to create a native ruling class
which is far more ruthless than the real colonials in
exploiting its own people.

However, this can be reversed only if the two largest
economies agree to diversify their trade. They account for
almost half of the global trade presently and any disputes
between them do not last long for it hurts both the sides.
Besides their debt situation indicates that they are not in as
good health as they claim.
For this situation is precarious for the leading two
economies too, as finally it could reach a point of no return
and bring down drastically the economy of the world which
is barely growing at two percent.
K. C. Bhatt
GPO box 20469.
Kathmandu

Vanities of the venal

Vanities of the venal
Nepal is a poor country. However, the amount
the government proposes to impose as penalty
against some crimes proves that Nepal is not
as poor as it is claimed to be while requesting
for alms or loans from the donors or lenders.
The newly proposed information bill is a case
in point. It has five years’ sentence and one
and a half million rupees in penalty for
someone who has violated it—if it becomes a
rule. The concerned people have argued that
the government wants to impose such
provisions to terrorize or victimize its critics.
Under the weight of dozens of garlands of
marigold flowers, the new rulers in the
government look pleased at their popularity,
once they reach a town outside the capital and
are greeted by their supporters–who queue up
to adorn them with those garlands.
It also makes them prone to become
delusional about the state of the country about
which they say now they only harbor dreams
of prosperity in their minds–as they also rule
out the need of further revolutions
simultaneously.
As a preparation for that prosperity perhaps,

they have proposed bills which have financial
penalties way beyond the capacity of an
average Nepali at present—who is not on the
side of the rulers and considers himself a
victim of their policies which are eroding his
equity in the system almost on a daily basis.
He has to wait way beyond the average age of
a Nepali at which he could expect to receive
some patronage—though paltry, if you
consider the amount he has to pay once he is
convicted for violating the information bill if it
becomes a rule as it has been proposed—from
the state. It is he who needs to criticize the
government as sharply as he could.
In the meanwhile the government with an
overwhelming majority bulldozes through the
process of handing out yet another public
property to a business house–at a runaway
cost–it favours, after making several changes
in the hitherto prevalent rules and regulations-
-which might have called for inviting a
competitive bidding for the same from other
competitors. It was a deal the PM himself had
to defend when his sharp-tongued team
members failed to silence the criticism against
it.
The popularity of existing PM too is on a

decline now due to such exceptions he is
making and one wonders if his legacy will be
the controversial Gokarna deal and not the
pivotal role he played in rallying the whole
nation in formulating a new constitution and
facing the hostility of many world powers once
it was adopted. Needing a second kidney
transplant, his health is not good and he has to
receive three-times a week dialysis. One can
only feel sympathy for him due to it. But he
has to worry seriously about finding a
successor who could take ahead the good work
he has done so far.
New Nepal proves a chimera due to the vanity
of a venal ruling class in spite of frequent
revolutions.
K. C. Bhatt
GPO Box 20460,
Kathmandu, Nepal

Ana Karenina by Lev Tolstoy: A Review

Ana Karenina by Lev Tolstoy: A Review

After dwelling in on mundane married lives of
characters after their courtship in length, the author
surprises one by dealing with the issue or declining
agricultural output in the then Russia in three or so
paragraph. He blames the introduction of the means of
communication, transport and stock exchange for it,
apart from other industries, maintaining that the same
could work successfully in more developed Western
Europe than Russia, where agriculture is far less
developed. This novel was first published in 1878.
The author lived a life of an aristocrat in which he
fathered dozens of children, most of them from a dozen
or so serf women he employed, being a landlord.
So the love he describes in his writing and the lives of
the characters he talks about may look too lofty and far
from the life of peasants of the Russia of the time, who
were in a large majority but appear only as servants in
his novel, who only greet and serve their masters who,
well fed and secure, proceed to create all the scenes of
drama in a family and the society.
In fact, this novel is comparable to modern day soap
opera on television, which remains far from the social
and political reality but has a palliative effect on its
audience, which is mostly middle or upper class and
hence has an unlimited time for indulgence.
The life described is grand and far away from the
worries of a common man. This family drama with an
aristocratic ambiance through out was produced almost
simultaneously with The Brothers Karamazov by
Dostoevsky.
Comparing these two novels leaves one stunned about
how little Tolstoy saw as compared to Dostoevsky, of
the society from which he came. It may also leave a
reader of Tolstoy deluded that all the Russian life was
as happy as portrayed in his this novel and the only
problems were those which arose in the relationship in
a family.
So the Russian revolution must have greatly surprised
Tolstoy, though he died only four years before it

concluded. But not to Dostoevsky, who died thirty years
before Tolstoy.
Dostoevsky once implied in his writing if Lev Tolstoy
does not know how to write. Having nearly been
executed for reading a banned literature by Pushkin,
Dostoevsky spent many years in incarceration in a
notorious Siberian prison. Tolstoy was a landlord and an
ex military official who also took part in a war. But he
retired to do his writing without having an idea of the
larger society around him. It made him the writer he
was.
Of the many writers not rewarded with a Nobel, Tolstoy
was a worthy one, for not receiving this award, even
though he was nominated multiple times. His work was
not worthy of it. But he tenderly describes the relations
in family though, and the breaking families of the upper
class people, mainly due to the banality of their affluent
lives.
However, a good writer has to have some profound
political understanding of his time and display it in his
work to remain relevant for all times. On that count he
fails miserably. Now think about the literature produced
in Russia or elsewhere, which was inspired by Tolstoy,
as he is regarded highly in many countries outside
Russia as well.
In fact, his work was translated in many languages to
distribute it among the people reading those languages
even by the erstwhile USSR almost at no cast. For it
makes the life look glorious enough in Russia, to serve
the propaganda purpose of every system ruling the
country. Today, even a century after the writer died, his
work is good enough for that purpose.
Besides it also shows which side of the revolution he
was on, at that point of time when it was brewing and
he wrote this novel. It was to change Russia and the
world once it concluded. So his work was useful in
Russia when he lived and outside when he is no more,
serving the common goal of creating an unreal
impression of the real life.
Possibly he is celebrated and regarded for that purpose
all over the world, where the students of literature are
repeatedly told that his work was the greatest by any
writer in any language. Such praise bullies them to read

his work to take exams based on it. But most of them
have a lingering misgiving if his work was not that
important like many others who are equally over-rated.
But this is how things remain in the world of literature,
where the endeavours are to keep the things obscure.
Any thing which might upset the apple-cart is not to be
discussed much, even if it has seen the light of the day.
People make a generous living out of this notorious
business of obfuscation and deception serving vested
interests.
It was the disintegration of the USSR by the end of the
last century, which shocked the people in the Russia
and elsewhere, as it came apart like a house of cards.
One never thought the things were as fragile there,
reading its literature, especially like the one of Tolstoy.
It could not only be true about all the totalitarian
states, where civil liberties are always subdued by the
powerful leaders, but even in functioning democracies,
where the deeply entrenched vested interests continue
to corrupt the complying and craven academia.
The so-called great literature at times disappoints
profoundly and leaves one feeling happy that it is only
in one’s later age that one had a chance to taste it. One
may wonder if it was the age he lived in which
compelled a writer to produce such a work or he chose
to do so out of his immediate needs. Corrupt lives entail
an output of a literature which borders on indulgence,
both for a reader and a writer.
It also signifies the treachery and deceit which marked
everything of that age, including its art, both for the
artist and his audience.
If one considers that Maupassant and Thomas Hardy
too wrote about this same time elsewhere, one finds
that a true art too was more abundant in Western
Europe, besides the successful commercial agriculture:
which Tolstoy despises in this novel, and possibly not
the Russian conditions which are not conducive for the
same.
The prevailing literary trend influenced the Indian
writers like Prem Chand too, rather than the work of
Tolstoy alone, who too produced an equally competent
stuff in Hindi and Urdu, which has no parallel even
today.

The question comes if a good writer is always outside
the mainstream like Dostoevsky and being a landlord or
an aristocrat worked against this great Russian writer.
K. C. Bhatt.
GPO Box 20460.
Kathmandu.