Description

Kaa is a novel by Kaanhu Charan Mohanty. The work was published in 1956 and given Sahitya AKaademi Award in 1958. ‘Kaa’ means ‘one playing another’s role.’ Sunanda, the hero, marries NandiKaa, a barren woman, who persuades Sunanda selflessly to marry another woman to play NandiKaa’s role and the ‘Kaa’ may bear him children. Sunanda is a young business enterpreneur and his mother influences him for a second marriage. NandiKaa thinks seriously about a second wife for Sunanda who marries Lalita and she takes NandiKaa’s place in the household. Later NandiKaa conceives but fails to survive the delivery. She dies with the consolation that she was not barren and society would absolve her.

Kaa records the contemporary events in domestic setting, as the novelist focuses not only on Odisha but also a universal significance which stresses the impact of materialism followed by the autocentric human motives upon the individual thinking, signifying a loss of man’s spiritual values, ideals of selflessness and devotion to a good and noble cause. With his characters the novelist has elucidated such ideals, and their psychological analysis has added a poignancy to the story.

NandiKaa is contrasted sharply with Lalita and Sunanda’s fickleness and inconsistency are compensated with the firmness of NandiKaa and Lalita. The modern frustration, unethicality and the degradation of man’s higher values into the base are used skilfully as frequent effective tools, expressing in Kaa the novelist’s concern with his environment, analysing the problems of the modern civilisation and man’s progress, with an insight into the working of his intellect.

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