(Thanks Yashpal Sharma ji for this beautiful gift)
A tale of humanity's abiding yearning for elevating the soul and the coexisting failings and flaws of human nature.
Gunahon Ka Devta – the title symbolises the paradox that is Chander...an eternally-present mind with lofty ideals and values, yet vulnerable to inner contradictions and incessant oscillations of mind...
The title also symbolises the devotion that is Sudha...a pure mind with childlike vulnerability, yet immutable reverence for her Devta...submissive to getting sculpted, just like a rock in the embrace of waves...
Both elevated love in their own way. One in seeking. The other in surrender.
One constituted a tall order of how they ought to Love. The other prostrated a thousand times on it...like a scripture.
One filled the emptiness by examining and experimenting with life. The other carried the endurance to treasure presence in absence.
One lost the rhythm and harmony of life, grew despondent , dissonant. The other found her melody in mystical (जैसा पीड़ा के क्षणों में पूरी आस्था से प्रार्थना करना as Dharamveer Bharti said about the process of writing this novel)
Within the chasm of their unlikeness, and in the infinity of their अलगाव, दूरी, दुःख और पीड़ा, only love reverberated.
Read it for Chandar and Sudha's divine bond, but also for the intricate detailing of other characters - Gesu, Binati, Pammy...Bertie - and how their outer and inner worlds collide with that of Chandar and Sudha.
Read it for the innocent, playful, joyful beginnings...turning to deeply poignant ending, when, in delirium, Sudha brings it back to before it all changed, and how...
"ज़िन्दगी का यन्त्रणा-चक्र एक वृत्त पूरा कर चुका था...”