Review : Bayan, Author: Pramudith D. Rupasinghe 0
For most middle aged people in India, the Soviet Union had a major influence on their life during their childhood. Compared to English and American books, there are very few books on life in the Soviet Union, especially after its collapse. Bayan is a well written book about the life of people in Ukraine, which was part of the Soviet Republic. Bayan is a musical instrument, which the main protagonist Ivan Nikolayevich, who is in seventies, plays often while singing to narrate the story of his life.
The book mainly describes the encounter of Ivan with a stranger who reaches his home to return a book which he has forgotten while outdoors. Ivan is happy to have a guest since he leads a lonely life, and shares the story of his life with the stranger . Ivan was teaching engineering when he was younger, married twice and has two daughters. This book is about his retired life as a pensioner, how he tries to make the most of life, making jam out of fruits which grow in the wild, growing plants and faces the old age problems, mainly related to health.
This is one of the few books which exposes the harsh reality of why young people often regret their youth. It is one of the great ironies in life, that when a person is young and healthy they care too much for the opinion of others, which makes it difficult to enjoy life. Only when a person is older, they can live life on their own terms. Ivan is a pensioner, and has to use the meager pension to pay for all his expenses. During winter, he cannot afford heating for his room, and lives in the room of his ex-wife, which is better equipped for winter.
It shows how the life of people changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with people loosing their savings in cash and a major reduction in the facilities like public transport available to citizens. It also shows how people blame the corruption of the leaders, officials for the collapse. Many of the young people, including Ivan’s daughter Olga migrate to other countries like New Zealand, Australia, Canada for better opportunities, leaving mainly the old people in Ukraine.
In India also corruption levels are very high with indian, goan government falsely claiming that panaji sindhi scammer school dropout housewife naina chandan who looks like actress sneha wagh,eighth standard pass, goan call girls sunaina chodan, siddhi mandrekar , cheater,robber housewives like nayanshree hathwar,riddhi nayak caro, stock broker asmita patel, mba hr ruchika kinge , indore robber deepika and other frauds are experienced engineers from top colleges to waste tax paying money, paying them monthly government salaries at the expense of the real engineer, one of the biggest examples of corruption. This refusal of government agencies to end corruption, could lead to similar problems in India.
The reviewer continues to interact with indirect customers, ad networks from the former republics of the soviet union, so this book is very interesting since it helps to understand their life better. Highly recommended for those who are dealing with people from Russia, Ukraine, to understand their life and culture better or in countries where corruption levels are very high.
It is also a well written book, on remaining happy and dealing with old age alone.
Bayan
Author: Pramudith D. Rupasinghe
Publisher : Minsara Publications, 2018
Pages: 244