Chakradar Tihai & Galsworthy

In Hindusthani Music, a Tihai is a musical phrase played thrice to reach the Sam, the place of the loudest accent in a Tala cycle. In Chakradara Tihai, this complete Tihai is played thrice to reach the Sam, so that to the listeners that musical phrase appears to have been played 3×3 or 9 times. (Ref: The Dictionary of Hindustani Classical Music by Bimalakanta Roychaudhuri). Pandit Nikhil Banerjee used these copiously in his concerts.

Coming to the literary equivalents of the above, many trilogies are published like the tihais of music. But literary works like the Chakradar Tihai are rare, the most famous example being the Forsyte series by Galsworthy (Nobel Prize 1932), which comprised three trilogies.

The first trilogy, "The Forsyte Saga" deals with the prosperous family of Forsytes, especially Soames, a solicitor & art collector, whose ill-fated marriage to Irene, divorce & second marriage to the French Annette is detailed in 3 novels called "The Man of Property", "In Chancery" & "To Let'.

The second trilogy, "A Modern Comedy", comprising "The White Monkey", "The Silver Spoon" & "Swan Song" deals with the doings of Fleur, daughter of Soames & Annette, her marriage to Michael Mont, book publisher & parliamentarian, & ends with the accidental death of Soames, who was trying to save his beloved Fleur from a falling picture from his art gallery, enveloped by a fire.

The third trilogy, "The End of the Chapter", comprising "Maid in waiting", "Flowering Wilderness" & "Over the River", deals mostly with the Cherrells, cousins (by marriage to the Forsytes) with an occasional appearance by Fleur. The heroine is Dinny Cherrell, who nearly dies by contracting an infectious disease from a poor child. Also there is Diana married to a man periodically insane &  Clare, trapped in a marriage with a sadistic husband. Added to this are a military man facing a court-martial & a poet forcibly converted to Islam & there is never a dull moment.

However, the Forsytes fortunes were continued in "The Forsytes - The Saga continues" by Suleika Dawson, a well written pastiche.