The lack of
social security can devastate a woman’s life. When Nirmala’s father is murdered
by an old enemy, her fate takes a drastic and gloomy turn. Instead of getting
married to Bhuvanmohan, a young man from a well-to-do family, she is forced to
tie a knot with the widowed Totaram, a man her father’s age. Nirmala holds
veneration towards that man and feels a sense of duty for him. On the other
hand, Totaram expects her intimacy and seduces her, but Nirmala fails to
resurface. She is Totaram’s second wife; moreover he has three grown-up sons.
Of them, the eldest one - Mansaram - is a year older than 15-year-old Nirmala.
Totaram
suspects that Nirmala and Mansaram are meddling into an affair. Thus, he sends
his eldest son, Mansaram, to a hostel. This move brings clouds of gloominess
into Mansaram’s life; as a result, he soon dies of sheer depression. Totaram’s
second son blames him for his brother’s death, and he commits suicide in sheer
frustration. His third son is lured away by a fake saint and he runs away from home.
Totaram distraught by his fate’s circumstances moves out to find his only alive
son. After many days, Totaram returns home only to find that his second wife
Nirmala has passed away. Behind her, Nirmala leaves her daughter and a legacy
of suffering.
The novel has
a strong social relevance as it sheds light on the consequences of child
marriages, younger girls getting married off to better off old men only to
unburden their parents’ responsibilities towards them, and the plight of women
in a society that treats a woman as a mere object. Through ‘Nirmala’ Premchand
tried to establish a social reform in the favour of women. Even today social
evils like dowry and mismatched marriages persist in the Indian society, so the
appeal of this novel is not futile today. Undoubtedly, through a woman’s life
Nirmala is the best work of Munshi Premchand, but definitely not a piece of
feminism.
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