TY  - BOOK
AU  - Mokashi, B
AU  - Pranod Kale (tr.)
TI  - FAREWELL TO GODS: : Outstanding Marathi Novel
U1  - F 
PY  - 1972///
CY  - New Delhi
PB  - Hind Pocket Books
KW  - Marathi Novel
KW  - Fiction
N1  - This novel is about a family of four brothers. The four brothers hail from a small village in Maharashtra and who now live in various parts of the city forced to migration due to job opportunities. After many years the brothers, now two married and two unmarried, return to the village to transfer the family deity. As there will be no one to stay in the village except the old aunt who was taking care of the house and the Gods, the brothers have now decided that it was time they carried the Gods to their new homes in city. Naturally the responsibility falls on the eldest brother. As they return to the village each one is affected emotionally in a different manner. That forms the plot of this novel.

So simple a premise. But poured into it are the feelings of nostalgia for the childhood; the feelings of fond sentiments for the village and house; the inescapable sense of guilt of transferring the Gods (when a deity is taken away by a family/community that family/community no longer becomes the part of that particular village. Interestingly on the other hand a God who is left untended is also a shame to the family. It is better to take the God along than to leave him untended.) In a subtle way this novel also speaks a lot about human sentiments for the past and the practical present needs that force men to act in a particular way.

On the surface, it was a simple story. But as I was completing the story I too was feeling like the sad onlooking villagers that a dear family was moving away from me
ER  -