New Delhi, July 6 -- The plot of Dada Comrade, the Hindi communist writer Yashpal's (1903-76) debut novel (originally published in 1941), was informed by the events of his own tumultuous youth. As an idealistic young student in Punjab in the 1920s, Yashpal joined the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) alongside revolutionaries like Chandrashekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh. Some of his colleagues, however, did not appreciate the young Yashpal's romance with the 16-year-old Prakashvati Pal (later his wife) because they viewed marriage and domesticity as obstacles in the road to revolution. After a group of HSRA members unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate Yashpal in 1930, the organisation was torn asunder and never really reun...