a book by rabindranath tagores nephew abanindranath which parallelly examines the journey of the buddha through various stages of his life as well as that of a young village lad has been translated into englishnalak in its english translation has no chapters another feature is a bunch of new illustrations in the penandink stylethe illustrations present a wellresearched theme apparently inspired by the style of buddhist tankha paintings while depicting the details of clothing environment buildings paths and gardens cities and villages mythical figures animals objects and peoplethe illustrations along with the lyrical narrative also trace the restless spirit of nalak who cannot put his mind to school work and feels imprisoned at homeabanindranath literally paints pictures taking readers through the story of nalaks comingofage and his quest and meditation for finding buddhanalak is born with special powers of a divine vision which enables him to perceive the birth of buddha and the stages of the jataka story the original storyline has a twist bringing in an element of magic realism where fantasy takes hold of reality and vice versathere is a complete merging of timelines here when nalaks childhood and years of youth capture prince siddharthas transition from a newborn to a fullgrown man a husband and a father in a time capsule very deftlynalak yearns to meet and forever remain with buddha he travels in a surreal world of sorts taking buddhas journey along with himabanindranath was an artist and writer and as the principal innovator of the bengal school of art he created a distinctive swadeshi style of art at a time when only western models were being imitated and practised in contemporary indiapublished by niyogi books the novel has been translated into english by urbi bhaduri