Maner Manush by Sunil Gangopadhyay [Hardcover]

The main character of Sunil Gangopadhyay’s novel Moner Manush is Lalon Fakir. As a young boy, Lalu enjoyed stealing the horse of Kabiraj Krishnaprasanna Sen and wandering through fields at night. Despite his sorrowful mother marrying him off at a young age, she couldn't make him settle down. Lalu had no interest in earning a living but showed some enthusiasm for music. His carefree life took a drastic turn when he accompanied the Kabiraj family to Behrampur for a Ganges pilgrimage and was struck by the deadly smallpox disease. His companions, thinking he was dead, set his body afloat in the water.

But Lalu didn’t die. He recovered under the care of Rabeya, a Muslim woman, and eventually returned home. However, his family, including his mother and wife, rejected him for having lost his caste by coming into contact with Muslims. Outcast from society, Lalu started a new life in the jungle and took on the name Lalon. His experiences and suffering gave birth to hundreds of songs within him, including the famous one that questions societal norms: “If circumcision makes one a Muslim, what is the rule for women? If I recognize a Brahmin by his sacred thread, how do I recognize a Brahmin woman?”

Lalon is a cherished figure of Bengal, a wanderer who spent his life searching for the “jewel of humanity.”