Safety Pin by Smaranjit Chakraborty is our latest audio book. The novel first appeared in the Desh puja issue of Bengali 1426. Complete in a total reading time of about 6 hours and 24 minutes, this audio book will be appreciated by our readers, we hope. Any print-disabled person may collect a copy from us. Visit our page on Audio Books for relevant information and for a list our other audio books.
About Safety Pin
Safety Pin is a collage of four love stories spread across 164 years. The stories have one connection, a safety pin that locks two hearts together. The novel begins in Scotland in the 1850’s. Walter loves Virginia, but he cannot open his heart to Virginia. Meanwhile he joins the Crimean War of 1856. He saves the life of an army commander who rewards him with a golden safety pin. Walter returns home on the eve of Virginia’s marriage. He presents her the safety pin, hoping that it would bind them together for ever.
The curtain opens again after a century, in Kolkata, in 1942. Mary, a distant successor of Virginia meets Rasik Lal in Kolkata. He is a mere clerk in Mary’s office. Rasik Lal falls in love with Mary. But he, too, cannot express his love to Mary. She is already in love with another young man. Rasik helps Mary to run away. Mary realizes his feelings at the time of parting. She gives him the ancestral safety pin as a token of friendship.
The next story is laid in the stormy Kolkata of 1971. Pappu, Rasik Lal’s son, steals the safety pin from his father’s Elmira and gives it to a friend. Pappu want to teach his father a lesson because he has put an insurmountable obstacle in his love affair with an absconding woman. Noticeably, in this instance the safety pin is not given away to bond two hearts.
The safety pin brings about a happy ending to the final story. It does not merely lock two young hearts, hearts of Pappu’s daughter and his friend. It also plays an important part in reconciling Pappu to his family.