Book: Lamchwa 

Author: D. R. Michael Buam

Publisher: Notion Press, 2014

Page: 190

Reviewed by: Ashvamegh Staff

Buy the book: Amazon

The novel Lamchwa is all about the guts, the decisiveness, the attitude, the servitude, the zeal, the enthusiasm, the understanding, the love and the will to live of a person named Lamchwa. Lamchwa is not an ordinary human being in any terms defined. He is surely more than the common man who is searching for bread by any means be it dupe others, cheating others, doing things which are not permitted by one’s morality. Lamchwa, on the other hand, is a person who risks his life to save that of his masters; he is a person who does not seek to take advantage of love, of favours, of attachment. The novel by D. R. Michael Buam is a perfect and ideal description of an ordinary Indian village person who simply transcends his identity and sets a new dimension on the compass of day-to-day life which sees only North.

The novel is set in North-East of India and features very few characters. One of them, of course, the leading one, is Lamchwa who is an ideal young man taking care of his family and the education of his kins. His kins, his mother, his employer and everyone around him is happy with the person Lamchwa is. This is only for his dedication and loyalty that a manager Lamchwa, towards the end of the novel, becomes a business partner of Kiang. Not only Kiang is impressed by him but his daughter Maya is also attracted towards Lamchwa when he saves her life as well dignity on many occasions. However, Lamchwa always treats her like his younger sister and do not have any otherwise feeling for her. Maya understands this only when Pynhun discloses the love affair between herself and Lamchwa. Maya is also a sensible girl and she accepts the fate and congratulates both of them. There is only one villain in the novel and there is no use discussing him here. Former business manager of Kiang who turns hostile and has bad intentions towards Maya. He would have killed Kiang had not Lamchwa saved him. The villain is treated well behind the wars and the novel ends happily with Lamchwa and Pynhun marrying, Maya and the doctor marrying… And the most emotional, if I may say, is the description of Lamchwa’s cancer phase. He almost kills himself living for others but as they say if you take care of all, God takes care of you… Lamchwa’s cancer is also gone with time and all’s when when end’s well!

By all means, this is a very simple novel and at the same time reminds me of the novels by Thomas Hardy which focused only on the ‘uncommon episodes of common life’. You will simply love this novel once you go through it. There is no super-fiction; there is no romance which extrapolates to semi-pornographic details in the modern writing; there is no thriller which becomes mere superficiality in the modern novels… and yet, in all the terms, the novel Lamchwa is complete in itself! I have really liked the novel too much and would recommend all the readers of fiction to go through the same. Happy reading folks!