ଦେହା ତୀ ତ (Dehatita - Beyond the body)- Dr Pratibha Ray (1986)

Fairly an old novel written after the famous book Yagnaseni. The story is of a young man who comes back to his own hometown in pursuit of providing solace to his aging father after he has managed to earn enough in a foreign country. His childhood has been spent at the place of his father's boss who is a strict person with 3 daughters and one son. The young man discovers all the other kids of the boss have been settled in the Americas while the youngest daughter is slowly losing her body over a neurological disease. In short the book is about her life. And she has coped her life around. Building her own ecosystem of fellow unrelated humans to whom she creates a wonderful association. The book also draws how the young woman is able to draw association with a spiritual connection to lord Jagannath. How the young man gets drawn to this family and tries to build a support system but unable to find it. Somewhere it comes to the realisation that the lady is living a life for the soul and beyond body consciousness. The story gets into many twists and turns but in the end the lady and her father leave for the heavenly abode. Not before the lady finds a suitable match for the young man among her many newly developed associations. And finally the mother of the lady finds herself at a loss as she has only learnt to be a service provider and how can she serve when she does not have her husband or the daughter she has taken care for 15 years. She is not comfortable going to her other kids abroad as in some sense she feels she has become a nurse of sorts beyond just a housewife.

Contrasting as here is a man who comes home from abroad for his parents and ends up serving lot more people. A lady who does many things even she is physically handicapped and while able children of the boss are not even able to serve their ailing parents and siblings. For a 1986 period the story is definitely beyond social norms and am sure must have created many critics to wonder. Excellent read but the take off is slow and reader would wonder at places how the story would end. Philosophically makes you believe man is beyond the body - Dehatita