Name:- Rubina Sapkota

Date:- 2076/12/13

BOOK
REVIEW
Title of Book- Seto Dharti Author of Book- Amar Neupane
Genre- Fiction Language- Nepali
Pages- 373 Awards- Madan Puraskar

Summary including description of Characters

Seto Dharti is a beautiful creation by Amar Neupane. This creation has unfolded the evil
practices of child marriage and of child widow in the Nepali society. The major characters of this
novel are child widows such as Tara, Pabitra etc. Yemuna and Gobinda also have their own
stories.

The main story is circled in the life of Tara. When she was seven years old, she got married by
deception. At that time, she didn’t know about marriage. Her own parents lied her telling that
there was pooja at home and made her stay in the Jaggya. Then she was taken to her home telling
that she had to go to the temple. Only the next day of her marriage she came to know that she was
married with a person whom she hadn’t seen yet. When she had to perform the marriage rites,
she was asleep. It was just like a dream. She cried a lot remembering her mother. Her small
mother told her dos and don’ts of a daughter in law in a new house. She had to stay one year in
her house. It was so difficult for her to spend the whole year. After a year she went her own home.
When she was nine years old, she became widow. She was called at home without informing
about the death of her husband. As soon as she reached home, she came to know that her
husband had died. Although, he was an unknown character in her life, she was asked to perform
all the rites. It was the first time she had seen the face of her husband in his death bed.

Then she was taken to the burning ghat. Some women broke her bangles. They removed all her
ornaments and her clothes. They shaved her hair and made her stay thirteen days of mourning.
After the rite was over, she was given a white cloth to wear. After a year she came to her own
home. Her parents organized marriage of both the sisters at the same day. After coming to her
mother, she had forgotten the past days. Her mother also told her that she could live like a son.
She started playing with her friends. Govinda taught her some alphabets. Mother also gave birth
to a son. They were all happy. One day her mother died untimely. Tara cried a lot for the first
time. Nine months brother was taken by his maternal uncle. Later when they found that he was
not being taken care properly, they took the child back. Once, Tara saw her brother sucking the
breasts of a dog. She was scared. When the baby used to cry for mother’s breast, she would
pretend her breast feeding. Time passed. Her friend Pabitra, who was also the child widow, went
to Banaras. Govinda, too, went to Banaras for his study. Yemuna became her best friend. When
her youth bloomed, yemuna was there to share her days with Tara. Tara used to ask about
Yemuna’s love with her husband, she would reply romantically. One day her father got married
another wife who was very young. As the time passed she also gave birth of son but it was the son
of Tara’ first brother who was in the same age of her.  Slowly and gradually, step mother started
misbehaving her. Father was in the grip of her wife.  He didn’t hear the pain of her daughter.
Brother also got married and started living alone. Then she decided to leave home forever.

Her life was like a voyage without rudder. She headed towards Devghat. At the night of her
escape from home she stayed at Yemuna’s home. The wished as if her brother would come to stop
her whom she brought up like her son. But no one came. She joined a group of people who were
migrating to Chitwan. After a week she reached to Devghat.  She devoted her life to God. There
she saw the image of Govind in the Swamiji. Several time she kept relation with young men in her
dream. So, she also confessed that she was  like Drupadi. One day, she met Yemuna, at Devghat.
She had also been there after the death of her husband. She told her story to Tara. Later on, she
became Sanyasi. Time passed in its own speed.

Once a female named Gangeswari came at Devghat . She became popular due to her knowledge
and the money she brought with her. One night Gangeswari came to Tara’s hut and revealed her
true identity. She was no other than Pabitra. She was Tara’s best friend who had gone to   Banaras
with a young priest who came in their village. Then, Pabitra told her story how she passed
different stages of life and finally became Gangeswari. She also told that she became a prostitute
and earned a lot of wealth while she was at Banaras. Then she left this profession and gave birth
of a daughter who was a professor at the moment. Finally she came to Nepal changing her name
to devote her rest of the life in God. When Tara first heard this story, she hated her too much. But
she could not tell the Swamiji. Later she forgot everything.  At last she also met Govinda whom
she secretly kept in her heart throughout her life.

Opinion

I heard several times about Seto Dharti novel from different peoples. It was in my mind that
once I should read this as it presents one of the major social problems in Nepal. It is about
the painful story of 9 year old child widow. This is a mirror of Nepali society as well as award
winning novel but due to scarcity of time or some other reasons it was in my book shelf for
long time. Recently our teacher Dr. Kundan Aryal gave an assignment to do book review so I
choosed this book to complete my assignment as it was in my bucket list for long time

Recommendation

As a reader I recommend everyone to read this book once if they really want to know the
issue on early marriage and early widowhood. The writer beautifully associates the meaning
of the title of the book with the story. The widows in Nepal are supposed to wear white dress
and not supposed to put on colorful clothes the story means that the life of a widow girl in
her white world that is “SETO DHARTI” after being widow.