Angul: A student of Angul Government College has taken the literary circles by storm by authoring a novel in English at a tender age of 20.
Prabhu Kalyan Singh is a student of Plus III English Honours in the college. The 224-page novel, Broken Promises, is a love story that describes how the protagonist is forced to marry his widowed sister-in-law after his elder brother’s death.
It took six months for Prabhu to complete the fiction, published by a Chandigarh-based publisher.
Prabhu, a native of Gadasahi in Balaramprasad of Talcher, lives at Nalco Township with his father Pradosh Kumar Singh, a Nalco employee. His mother Jyotshnamayee Singh is a homemaker.
Prabhu said he sent the manuscript four times to the publisher and finally got it approved for publication.
The story revolves around a family comprising a couple and their two sons. Their father dies at a young age following which their mother works hard to bring up the siblings.
The elder one gets married and becomes a father of two children. The younger son falls in love with a girl and tells his mother about his affair.
The family’s good tidings come to an end when the elder son dies in a road mishap. His widowed wife is burdened with the liability of bringing up her children.
His mother and other relatives decide to marry off their younger son to their widowed daughter-in-law.
He tries to explain his love with a girl but they refuse to listen and force him to marry his sister-in-law.
Left with no option, he marries his sister-in-law. Six months later, he speaks to his beloved and reveals how he was forced to marry his sister-in-law. The girl gets shock of her life on learning about the marriage and takes to drinking to forget him.
The story ends on a pathetic note justifying the idealism of supreme sacrifice involved in love.
When asked what inspired him to write the novel, Prabhu said, he got the story idea from a friend residing in a village who was forced to marry his sister-in-law.
PNN