Sabarna Roy is Senior Vice President at Electrosteel Group, author of eight Literary and three Technical bestselling books, TEDx Speaker, Champions of Change Award 2020 Winner, Times Excellence Award 2021 Winner in Indian Literature, and Golden Glory Award Winner for Critically Acclaimed Bestselling Author of the Year 2021.
Roy, recently presented his eighth book, A Marriage, an Affair, and a Friendship, at the JW Marriot in Kolkata, in the company of local luminaries from diverse fields. Pentacles, Frosted Glass, Abyss, Winter Poems, Random Subterranean Mosaic:2012 2018, Etchings of the First Quarter of 2020, and Fractured Mosaic are among his other critically acclaimed bestsellers. Sabarna spends his time on books, music, movies and international television series when he is not writing or working in an engineering-manufacturing organization in Kolkata. With no love for pets or gardening (although he loves forests and wildlife) or socializing, and a lot of time for introspection and deep (and not-so-deep!) thinking, Roy's works reflect his views on the global order and individuals striving to find their place init.
Advertisement
A Marriage, an Affair, and a Friendship
A Marriage, an Affair, and a Friendship is a crisp, fast paced cocktail of different perspectives of an open marriage told from the point of view of Rahul, Paromita, his wife, Suroma, the ‘other’ woman, and Samaresh, the ‘silent’ eager paramour. The narration weaves in and out of their points of view as they are confronted with different challenges, including the moral judgement of their sons, Proloy and Ratul.
Rahul, a 55-year-old senior technocrat and an author runs into Suroma, a young 32-year-old journalist in a coffee shop. They recognise each other because Suroma had done a career profile on him for a business magazine. They share a table and over coffee, Suroma tells him that she wants to have a baby and asks if he would be the father. Shocked, Rahul expresses his disapproval and leaves the coffee shop, but is both flattered and pleased by her direct approach.
Advertisement
Later he mulls over her unconventional proposal and thinks that he misunderstood her intent. Financially independent and professionally successful women were now picking single motherhood by choice, and were not looking for men, but for sperm. And they wanted the sperm of successful, good-looking men. He contacts Suroma to clarify. But Suroma wants to have a baby the conventional way.
This starts a relationship that sweeps through Rahul’s stable life.
He persuades his wife, Paromita, to recalibrate and rethink the boundaries of their marriage. Initially angry, resentful, and resistant, Paromita decides to step out of the traditional understanding of marriage. But when she does recalibrate and rethink her relationship with their old friend, Samaresh, Rahul is consumed by jealousy and a sense of rejection. It takes Suroma’s personal views about relationships and Samaresh’s challenges to his double standards for Rahul to realize that what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
While Rahul and Paromita are in the nascent stages of this new twist to their lives, they face the wrath of their two sons,Proloy and Ratul who feel their reputation will get tainted by association with their parents. They warn them about the public embarrassment and social ostracization. When this does not work, they ghost Rahul and continue their onslaught on Paromita suspecting that she has been coerced by Rahul into playing along with his unconventional ideas. They scare their mother with the threat to her (and their) inheritance rights, if Rahul’s dalliance, as they call it, results in a baby. When none of this persuades their mother to change her mind, Proloy decides to move out of the house.
Advertisement
Paromita and Rahul are bystanders as Proloy packs, assisted by his brother, Ratul. When the tempo arrives on moving day, the brothers supervise the loading of Proloy’s belongings into the tempo and drive away.
The book ends with four vignettes from the four main characters.
