as a period of great literary achievement.2 There is, paraxoxically, a frequently iterates sense of anticipation, an expectation that great things should happen — because, clearly, great national and international processes were passing through critical junctures, and the world was, for better and for worse being reshaped. This sense of vacuous expectation, of hope that refuses to materialise into desired event, leads, oddly enough, to writings which appear to belong to the early phase of nationalist arousal — writings with a strongly inspirational cast, which endeavour to produc? a kind of abstract enthusiasm which will, it is hoped, generate its own raison d'etre. The hero of'^n^KM^' chooses not to pursue a conventional career because of his commitment to political ends which are never clearly specified — but his moral superiority to those who^lead conventional lives is left in no doubt either. After he dies in the arms of the prostitute Panna — another outcast, who helps him in his unspecified good works — he writes a letter to a childhood friend of the protagonist. (Letters to this friend, a conventional foil, are the transparent fictional device of this story.) She writes: ^ chHMm ^ ^r ^nt t, OT^T ^ifs< ^n" t f^F ^Pi^i ^ ^w^ ^ ^R^T ^r <^1^ c^n oflT^RTrwft^H^dj ^T^^T^rwr^T^rnrti Very commendable, but this is the first time ~ and the last — that we hear anything about this. It appears that this ambitious revolutionary has kept this intention, and his organisation, a secret from even his closest confidant. ^ft^TT-W is inspirational in an even more abstract manner. The funeral pyre of the departed hero lights the way forward — but, we might well ask, where to?: fWf ^rg^ ^r ^ ^T sn^t ^FT ^r W^TT ^FT^ t r wr^r ^r ^IT g^r ^ f^irn" wt - Wt ^TOT ^"Pf ^Hlf^hd ^T The hero of ^f^ ^FW responding to the call of the nation, abruptly abandons his aged parents, his wife and children: ^ft wr^ ^ ^rf wr ^flr qr^ft ^r ?ra^r ^t ^ t ^fN? ^r^T ch<1^' Tif-^pr ^ftr qf^-qf^pff ^r ?r^r^r % i ...^IT ^r ^- wr ^ RT^ - ^?r ^ f^ i ^ ^p ^ ^rjfr^ ^r ?t ^TP^ ?r^r ?r^ ^ f^5 He does, however, promise to send them maintenance for a limited period. Dada Shyamsingh, the hero of another text of the time, Maithili Sharan Gupta's Ajit\\9M) goes even further-- he declares that since his mother is ailing, and Bharatmata is not so well herself, so, in order to work for relieveing the distress of the latter, he has poisoned his mother. Evidently, greater love for the cause led him to poison his mother for the cause — also, disturbingly, described as a mother. Journal of Arts and Ideas 21