Phakir, a novel by the young journalist and emerging author Bachu BK, is a tale of pain, death, poverty, gender bias, and deprivation. It is a melancholic story written in first person by Goras, our protagonist, and depicts the lives of the people of the Far Western Region who are compelled to migrate to India in order to earn a living for their families, and return having caught the life-threatening disease HIV/AIDS, and go on to transmit the illness to their spouse and progeny. Albeit, it does not mean that the novel is merely filled with morbidity and bleakness. On the contrary, it is full of humour that invokes childlike laughter, and introduces the reader to an enchanting picture of rural life and nature. Indeed, Phakir is an appealing story of pain and joy, tears and laughter, life and death, innocence and guilt, love and lust.

Amidst a morbid chaos exists love in the life of the protagonist—the only force that makes life for Goras worth living in spite of the all-encompassing agony, deprivation, pain and loss, that he seems unceasingly condemned to. In his childhood, this powerful force takes the shape of his mother’s love, making his life beautiful. As an adolescent, he finds love from his schoolmate Sadikshya, and later from his virtual friend Christina. Throughout the novel, the novelist has taken care to steer clear of the clichéd depiction of love found in mainstream romance novels. Instead, the novelist has given high reverence to the purity of love by rendering it platonic and idealistic like the love Goras shares with Sadikshya—a chaste and innocent love like pearly morning dew on a rosebud. In no way is it erotic or corporeal. Likewise, his relationship with Christina is selfless in an almost altruistic fashion, and neither takes any advantage of the other. Instead, they fully respect each other’s freedom, and are satisfied with their impalpable bond that is a manifestation of the idealistic love the author reveres.

Being an inhabitant of the Far Western Region himself, the author has done justice to the native Doteli dialect with suitable use of applicable terminologies. Consequently, fluidity and lucidity are characteristic of the language of the novel. The depiction of the countryside, festivals, and local cuisine allows any reader from the region to find comfort in the familiarity of the fictional characters, places, and events of the book, and the unfamiliar reader to relish in their imagination. The shift of the narrative from one place to another prior to the beginning of each event resonates with the incessant change that unfailingly transpires in everyday life. The novel is light-hearted at times and amuses the reader with humorous descriptions of the landlords, which any tenant reading the book can delight.

A commendable feature of the book is that although it does not refrain from shedding light on the victimisation of women by deeply-rooted patriarchal practices such as being compelled to endure the unfaithfulness of their spouses, getting infected with life-threatening sexually transmitted diseases from said spouses, being discriminated against for being HIV/AIDS infected or a widow if applicable, or being imposed on with ill practices such as chhaupadi among other societal ills, most of the female characters in the novel are fierce and dominant by nature. Be it the domineering and wise Sadikshya, or the loving mother of the protagonist, or the candid Jogini, an HIV/AIDS infected character, none of these fictional women are pitiful or self-loathing in any way despite their unfair share of pain and loss. A great portion of the novel is invested in the hardships of these women as it attempts to truthfully reflect the lives of the women infected by this dreadful disease without trivialising their suffering. The novel also covers the hellish lives of women compelled to sell their bodies in the brothels of India as sexual labourers, and the helplessness of the female counterpart who must bear through all kinds of abuse and misdemeanour inflicted upon them by their alcoholic and abusive husbands.

Phakir illuminates the reader on the issue of gender discrimination by showing that although both men and women living in poverty are deprived, women are more prone to societal discrimination as society chooses to generously forgive every mistake that a man is guilty of, especially with regard to their sexuality or promiscuity, but refuses to be anything but contemptuous to suffering women, with utter disregard to their innocence. Phakir does not only portray the sorrow of women truthfully without underplaying it in any way, but also presents solutions to existing problems by stressing on the importance of education to men and women alike. This becomes apparent in a letter the protagonist writes to his grade school sweetheart, Sadikshya. Throughout the novel, the author’s concern for women’s rights takes more of an aesthetic, literary form rather than crude, slogan-like advocacy. Such skills of the novelist are evident when readers are introduced to local folk songs in the narrative that shed light on such themes.

Regardless of a few shortcomings such as the lack of apparent correlation among events, a baffling beginning and end, and some typographical errors, the novel as a whole is worthy of a read and proves valuable to the reader by not only offering an opportunity to rejoice in the rhetoric skills of the author, but also by providing an insight into the evanescent lives of infected people. Indeed, the emerging novelist Bachu BK deserves a loud applause for presenting to us such a poignant tale that touches the heart, and weaves the pain of HIV/AIDS victims and the pathos of the women of the Far Western Region.