‘The literature of the new age seeks not to narrate a sequence of events, but to reveal
the secrets of the heart. Such is the narrative mode of Chokher Bali’—Rabindranath Tagore, Preface
to Chokher Bali
Chokher Bali explores the forbidden emotions unleashed when a beautiful young widow enters the
seemingly harmonious world of a newly married couple. This path-breaking novel by Rabindranath
Tagore weaves a tangled web of relationships between the pampered and self-centred Mahendra,
his innocent, childlike bride Asha, their staunch friend Bihari, and the wily, seductive Binodini,
whose arrival transforms the lives of all concerned.
Radha Chakravarty’s translation brings the world of Tagore’s fiction to life, in lucid, idiomatic
prose.
