This is the simple story of Áláler Gharer Dulál, but the mere narrative is the least merit of the book. Its real value lies in the sketches of character and pictures of Bengali life which it contains. Most Europeans know little or nothing of natives beyond what may be learned in our Courts of Justice—places infested by a class of rascals hardly to be found elsewhere, and in which even otherwise honest and truthful men consider themselves entitled to lie, just as they consider themselves entitled to throw aside all regard for caste and for morality in the temple of Vishnu at Puri. A book like this, full of real sketches from life, is, therefore, specially valuable to them. It is true that there may be exaggeration here and there; it is true that, while the knaves are life-like and full of character, the good characters are too much of mere abstractions. The females, too, are very faintly drawn. They are all alike, and they give very little idea of the influence which the wife within the zenana walls exercise in Indian daily life. But still the characters and pictures, such as they are, give the book a real value. We have no space for long quotations, but the following passage will give some notion of the author’s vigorous and natural, if sometimes rather rough and homely, style.
'Baburám Babu is sitting as a Babu should. A servant is rubbing his legs. On one side are seated some pundits jabbering about shastras, maintaining that pumpkins are prohibited on one particular day and brinjals on another, that to take salt with milk is in effect to eat beef, and otherwise raising a clatter like the dhenki. In another direction is a party of chess-players: one of them leans his head on his hand and is lost in thought; ruin impends over him, for he is about to be checkmated. On another side some musicians are tuning their instruments. The tanpura is giving forth its purring sound. Elsewhere accountants are writing up their books. In front stand debtor ryots and creditor shopkeepers whose debts and claims are being enquired into, and admitted or denied. The baitakkhana is swarming with people; the mahajuns are crying out that they gave their goods on credit, some two, some four years ago, and that they are sore put to it for want of payment; that they have come time after time for their money without getting it; that their business is all but stopped. Petty traders like the oil-man, fuel-supplier and grocer, are pleading their cause pathetically and humbly. “We are ruined, sir,” they say, “we are weak like the pooti fish; how can we subsist if you treat us so? The muscles of our legs are worn out with coming to your house for the money. Our shops are closed. Our wives and children are starving.” The dewanji replies, “Go to-day; of course you will get your money; why do you make such a fuss about it?” If any one speaks boldly after this, Baburám Babu waxes wrathful, abuses the man and turns him out.'
Besides Áláler Gharer Dulál, Tekchánd Thakur has written several minor works. Rámá Ranjiká chiefly consists of a series
