Favourite Stories - Premchand
My Rating: 5/5
Just finished my 4th Hindi book of the year, and that too from one of my all-time favourite writers - Premchand. I’ve read almost all his books and stories back in school and college time, as my mother had most of them. All his stories and novels are based on the early 20th century and show us the true face of typical Indian society back in those days. Heart-touching true-to-life stories always reminded me of so many movies based on similar subjects and stories by my favourite movie director, Satyajit Ray. On your face, the straight truth is always on the right mark. This book too had a collection of 17 short stories, which sent me back in time when I actually used to play the game of Gulli-Danda with my friends and cousins. After reading the heart-touching story of two friends who meet again after decades of separation, where one has grown to be a big shot, and his friend remains the small-town guy with almost no life to claim any fame for. How they end up playing one last game and who wins is the story to read. This one made me actually call my cousin to understand how we played the game and what the penalty was for the loser :), Do you remember playing a game like that in the past? Then comes another terrific story of an untouchable woman, who wants to get inside a temple to pray for his dying son and to my shock and amazement, the then society won’t allow her to enter the temple, let alone touch the statue. How his son’s life ends without her prayers brought tears to my eyes. Thank God that this isn’t done anymore in today’s time, and we have come a long way on that prospect at least. But from all these stories, my favourite was the one called “Dhokha” where a prince goes in search of his would-be life partner without anyone’s knowledge, just to see who he was supposed to marry. Fortunately, without her knowledge, he leaves a very deep mark on her with his mythological singing, which he performs for her. Later, they do marry, but since she doesn’t know who she married, she keeps looking for that unknown singer. How the story ends was totally amazing.
And then there are so many stories touching the typical Indian subjects with such ease that I can call his words magical; reading them in Hindi actually makes it special. Of course, after reading four back-to-back Hindi books from Jai Shankar Prasad, Sarat Chandra and even Tagore, I will say Premchand’s Hindi is the best and simplest. I actually didn't have to Google any words that made no sense to me this time. Most of his stories are either based on the women’s plight, untouchability or about those who were too poor to fight for their own rights one way or another. One of the stories reminded me of my own grandmother, who used to tell me about a very old superstitious story (not for her, though) about a girl who had three brothers. They used to call her “Tainter” (in Hindi), and she usually brought trouble to one of the brothers by just being born in the family. Can you believe that? Unfortunately, in our neighbourhood, one of the kids actually died in an accident, and since they too were three brothers and one sister, they blamed the girl for it, and since then, she was called a Tainter in our little town for the rest of her life (till we lived there).
After reading these gems from the master storyteller, which I felt were too short with hardly 200 pages, I am looking forward to reading a few of his novels again. Do let me know if you have read anything from Premchand in recent times or if you have a personal favourite. I have so many that I don’t want to list them, but rather get them soon and read at the earliest.
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