Aador (The Dearest)

‘AADOR’ is a story of a young female elephant and the plot revolves around a small  village named Kharkai in Tripura.

The story is based on the original story titled ‘AADORINI’ written by renowned author, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyay, a contemporary and an associate of Gurudev Rabindra Nath Tagore.

The story begins with a village lawyer named Joyram Mukherjee , a person of moderate income who had bought an elephant to respond to the arrogance of a a big zamindar family of that  locality. Joyram was the legal advisor of the zamindar’s late father and had saved him from many critical situations. He had requested the Zamindar to send an elephant for the joy ride on his daughter’s marriage. Joyram was under the impression that the zamindar won’t refuse such a humble request of a friend of his late father. However, the zamindar's wife rudely refused Joyram’s request. The old man felt insulted at this behavior and became so adamant that he  bought an elephant with all the money that  he had saved for the future of his family.

Soon thereafter the young elephant became a part of his family and Joyram started to treat her like his own daughter. He named her ‘AADOR’, in Bengali which means ‘THE DEAREST’.

In a zamindar’s house an elephant has to perform many duties like collecting taxes, giving joyride to the zamindar and his family at times, specially in big occasions like during Pujas by taking part in the immersion rallys etc  , to glorify the  zamindar’s stature. While in Joyram’s house ‘AADOR’ used  to roam around in the village as she had no extra work and entertained local boys and girls. Her friendly nature thus made her the attraction of the villagers.

In this way five years passed by and now the Joyram, the village lawyer is retired. He now has the responsibility to get his grand-daughter married. A good marriage proposal came from a very rich family. But they have asked for dowry of ten thousand rupees. Joyram falls in trouble as he presently doesn't have enough money to bear such expenses of the marriage neither he could ignore such a marriage proposal for his grand-daughter. He tries his best to arrange the money hoping something would work out. But all in vain. A relative of him then suggested to sell the elephant who seems almost useless in the household. The suggestion was like a ‘bolt from the blue’ to Joyram. Not even in his wildest dreams he had ever thought of selling his foster daughter ‘AADOR’ for money. But gradually under the pressure of his family, the situation compels him to sell his darling ‘AADOR’.

The outcome turns out to be an heart-breaking one. The estrangement makes both of the father and his foster daughter, ‘AADOR’ ill and subsequently both of them die.

In the village silence starts to loom large benumbed at the fate of the affectionate relationship between the father and the daughter, a man and his elephant.