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Belong

by Fazle Hasnayen

232 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #06-1759; ISBN 1-4251-0002-3; US$18.22, C$20.95, EUR14.97, £10.48

Belong is the story of a very ordinary man, his journey through life and relationships. It's about the taste of success, failure, bitterness, compromise and about the world that is so very common, yet uncommon when seen individually.

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About the Book

About the Author

Excerpts

About the Book

Belong is the story of Divaker - a common and ordinary man like one of us. Belong is the tale of ordinary human life with all its problems and challenges, as seen and experienced through the eyes and life of Divaker.

He is one of us, an average human being. He belongs to a 'lower-middle income' family of a remote village in West Bengal, but the family kept on moving from place to place ever since Divaker was a child with all the utensils, table-fan, mattress and radio.

Papa was an average government servant. As a child, Divaker had seen people moving away before becoming friends, people who never came back ever. Before he could mix-up with local kids at school, it was time for Divaker to move off to a new place.

Divaker saw a lot of turbulence in his teen years. Mama and Papa separated, and he was sent to a Hindu boy's missionary school up in the hills, where life started everyday at five-thirty in the morning, all twelve months of the year. He had jumped into manhood by the time he passed high school. He somewhere missed the inquisitiveness and curiosity of teen age and the heavenly-dreamy period of youth. He was a full-grown man at twenty, a man with invisible wrinkles on face.

Divaker crawled, stood on his feet, walked and ran for career, life and money. He tasted varied flavors of success, failures and disgust. He carved out a small position for himself in this big-biiiiig world. Life taught him the way this world goes round the sun- harder way round.

Divaker married, after a full-time romance of four years, it was then he discovered and learnt few other things in life, not all of them pleasant- yes, the harder way round.

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About the Author

Fazle Hasnayen lives in Lucknow (India), with his father, mother and dog - Bruno. Fazle loves traveling, music, photography, driving, reading and writing too. On weekends, he spends time in kitchen and in his small garden.

He started writing at the age of seventeen. After some minor magazine and newspaper publications, Belong is the first published work of fiction. He now works as a manager with a US multinational company. At the time of this publication, he was twenty-seven and unmarried.

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Excerpts

Excerpt from Page No 45

'The bus will be coming from this way,' the man said in broken Bangla, and pointed to a direction where the road winded and disappeared in the trees. 'Yes, I know. I come here almost every year,' Divaker said, and handed over a ten-rupee note to him, 'have some tea biscuit.'

The man was more than happy. He hurriedly rode his cycle and disappeared somewhere in the paddy fields as if the note will vanish if he stayed there for long. Simple mind, happy life. We unnecessarily complicate our life with our own set of complex thinking. But then, we are so used to complex thought process that we can't think otherwise. Even if we want, the world and its people will not allow us to think of life in simpler terms. Divaker imagined someone else giving him a ten-rupee note and saying, 'have some tea biscuit.'

He was horrified.

Excerpt from Page No 226

The good old romance had vanished under thick wraps of dust and cobwebs, neglected and taken for granted.

God grant me the courage....
To change things I can....
The perseverance to....
Accept things I can't....
And the wisdom to know the difference....

A very thin line separated the difference between things that can be changed, and things that cannot be changed. It takes a lifetime of wisdom to know the difference. The energy of youth says that everything can be changed. The experience of mid thirties and forties keeps dwindling between 'can' and 'cannot'. The wisdom of old age says that there are very few things that can be changed and human nature certainly does not fall in that category. Basic attitude and nature of a person remains unchanged mostly.

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