Premchand Story In English

[Willy Aucoin]

Premchandwas a pioneer of Hindi and Urdu social fiction. He was one of the first authors to write about caste hierarchies and the plights of women and labourers prevalent in the society of the late 1880s.[5] He is one of the most celebrated writers of the Indian subcontinent,[6] and is regarded as one of the foremost Hindi writers of the early twentieth century.[7] His works include Godaan, Karmabhoomi, Gaban, Mansarovar, and Idgah. He published his first collection of five short stories in 1907 in a book called Soz-e-Watan (Sorrow of the Nation).

Munshi Premchand was born on 31 July 1880 in Lamhi, a village located near Banaras, and was named Dhanpat Rai ("master of wealth"). His ancestors came from a large Chitraguptavanshi Kayastha family, which owned eight to nine bighas of land.[8] His grandfather, Guru Sahai Rai, was a patwari (village land record-keeper), and his father, Ajaib Lal, was a post office clerk. His mother was Anandi Devi of Karauni village, who probably was also his inspiration for the character Anandi in his "Bade Ghar Ki Beti".[9] Dhanpat Rai was the fourth child of Ajaib Lal and Anandi; the first two were girls who died as infants, and the third one was a girl named Suggi.[10] His uncle, Mahabir, a rich landowner, nicknamed him "Nawab", meaning baron. "Nawab Rai" was the first pen name chosen by Dhanpat Rai.[11]

When he was seven years old, Dhanpat Rai began his education at a madrasa in Lalpur, Varanasi, located near Lamhi.[10] He learned Urdu and Persian from a maulvi in the madrasa. When he was 8, his mother died after a long illness. His grandmother, who was responsible for raising him, died soon after.[12] Munshi Premchand felt isolated, as his elder sister Suggi had already been married, and his father was always busy with work. His father, who was now posted at Gorakhpur, remarried, but Premchand received little affection from his stepmother. The stepmother later became a recurring theme in Premchand's works.[13]

As a child, Dhanpat Rai sought solace in fiction and developed a fascination for books. He heard the stories of the Persian-language fantasy epic Tilism-e-Hoshruba at a tobacconist's shop. He took the job of selling books for a book wholesaler, thus getting the opportunity to read a lot of books.[14] He learnt English at a missionary school and studied several works of fiction, including George W. M. Reynolds's eight-volume The Mysteries of the Court of London.[13] He composed his first literary work at Gorakhpur, which was never published and is now lost. It was a farce on a bachelor who falls in love with a low-caste woman. The character was based on Premchand's uncle, who used to scold him for being obsessed with reading fiction; the farce was probably written as revenge for this.[13]

After his father was posted to Zamania in the mid-1890s, Dhanpat Rai enrolled at the Queen's College at Banaras as a day scholar.[15][16] In 1895, he was married at the age of 15, while still studying in the ninth grade. The match was arranged by his maternal step-grandfather. The girl was from a rich landlord family and was older than Premchand, who found her quarrelsome and not good-looking.[15][16]

His first short novel was Asrar-e-Ma'abid ("Secrets of God's abode", Devasthan Rahasya in Hindi), which explores corruption among the temple priests and their sexual exploitation of poor women. The novel was published in a series in the Banaras-based Urdu weekly Awaz-e-Khalk from 8 October 1903 to February 1905.[19] Literary critic Siegfried Schulz states that "his inexperience is quite evident in his first novel", which is not well-organized, lacks a good plot and features stereotyped characters.[20] Prakash Chandra Gupta calls it an "immature work", which shows a tendency to "see life only in black or white".[19]

From Pratapgarh, Dhanpat Rai was relocated to Allahabad for training and subsequently posted at Kanpur in 1905. He stayed in Kanpur for around four years, from May 1905 to June 1909. There, he met Munshi Daya Narain Nigam, the editor of the Urdu magazine Zamana, in which he later published several articles and stories.[19]

Premchand visited his village, Lamhi, during the summer vacation but did not find the stay enjoyable because of a number of reasons. He did not find the weather or the atmosphere conducive to writing. Moreover, he faced domestic trouble due to quarrels between his wife and his step-mother. Premchand angrily scolded his wife after she unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide by hanging. Dismayed, she went to her father's house, and Premchand displayed no interest in bringing her back.[21] In 1906, Premchand married a child widow, Shivarani Devi, who was the daughter of a landlord from a village near Fatehpur.[22][23] The step was considered to be revolutionary at that time, and Premchand faced a lot of social opposition. After his death, Shivarani Devi wrote a book on him, titled Premchand Ghar Mein ("Premchand in House").

In 1905, inspired by nationalist activism, Premchand published an article on the Indian National Congress leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale in Zamana. He criticised Gokhale's methods for achieving political freedom and instead recommended adoption of more extremist measures adopted by Bal Gangadhar Tilak.[24] Premchand's first published story was "Duniya ka Sabse Anmol Ratan" ("The Most Precious Jewel in the World"), which appeared in Zamana in 1907.[25] According to this story, the most precious 'jewel' was the last drop of blood necessary to attain independence.[26] Many of Premchand's early short stories had patriotic overtones, influenced by the Indian independence movement.[12]

Premchand's second short novel Hamkhurma-o-Hamsavab (Prema in Hindi), published in 1907, was penned under the name "Babu Nawab Rai Banarsi". It explores the issue of widow remarriage in the contemporary conservative society: the protagonist, Amrit Rai, overcomes social opposition to marrying the young widow, Poorna, giving up his rich and beautiful fiance Prema. According to Prakash Chandra Gupta, "While containing seeds of his future greatness in many ways, the novel is still youthful and lacks the discipline which full maturity brings".[19]

In 1907, another of Premchand's short novels, Kishna was published by the Medical Hall Press of Banaras. This 142-page work, which satirises women's fondness for jewellery, is now lost.[19] Literary critic Nobat Rai criticised the work in Zamana, calling it a mockery of the women's conditions.[27]

In 1909, Premchand was transferred to Mahoba and later posted to Hamirpur as the Sub-deputy Inspector of Schools.[29] Around this time, Soz-e-Watan was noticed by British Government officials, who banned it as a seditious work. James Samuel Stevenson, the British collector of Hamirpur district ordered a raid on Premchand's house, where around five hundred copies of Soz-e-Watan were burnt.[30] After this, Munshi Daya Narain Nigam, the editor of the Urdu magazine Zamana, who had published Dhanpat Rai's first story "Duniya ka Sabse Anmol Ratan" advised the pseudonym "Premchand". Dhanpat Rai stopped using the name "Nawab Rai" and became Premchand.

Premchand was often referred to as Munshi Premchand. The fact is, he, along with Kanhaiyalal Munshi, edited the magazine Hans. The credit line read "Munshi, Premchand". He thenceforth began being called Munshi Premchand.[citation needed] In 1914, Premchand started writing in Hindi (Hindi and Urdu are considered different registers of a single language Hindustani, with Hindi drawing much of its vocabulary from Sanskrit and Urdu being more influenced by Persian). By this time, he was already reputed as a fiction writer in Urdu.[12] Sumit Sarkar notes that the switch was prompted by the difficulty of finding publishers in Urdu.[31] His first Hindi story "Saut" was published in the magazine Saraswati in December 1915, and his first short story collection Sapta Saroj was published in June 1917.

At Gorakhpur, he developed a friendship with the bookseller Buddhi Lal, who allowed him to borrow novels for reading in exchange for selling exam cram books at the school.[13] Premchand was an enthusiastic reader of classics in other languages and translated several of these works into Hindi.

In 1919, Premchand obtained a BA degree from Allahabad University.[34] By 1921, he had been promoted to Deputy Inspectors of Schools. On 8 February 1921, he attended a meeting in Gorakhpur, where Mahatma Gandhi asked people to resign from government jobs as part of the non-cooperation movement. Premchand, although physically unwell and with two kids and a pregnant wife to support, thought about it for five days and decided, with the consent of his wife, to resign from his government job.

After quitting his job, Premchand left Gorakhpur for Banaras on 18 March 1921 and decided to focus on his literary career. Till his death in 1936, he faced severe financial difficulties and chronic ill health.[35]

In 1923, he established a printing press and publishing house in Banaras, christened "Saraswati Press".[6] The year 1924 saw the publication of Premchand's Rangbhoomi, which has a blind beggar called Surdas as its tragic hero. Schulz mentions that in Rangbhoomi, Premchand comes across as a "superb social chronicler", and although the novel contains some "structural flaws" and "too many authorial explanations", it shows a "marked progress" in Premchand's writing style.[36] According to Schulz, it was in Nirmala (1925) and Pratigya (1927) that Premchand found his way to "a balanced, realistic level" that surpasses his earlier works and manages to "hold his readers in tutelage".[37] Nirmala, a novel dealing with the dowry system in India, was first serialised in the magazine Chand between November 1925 and November 1926, before being published as a novel.[38] Pratigya ("The Vow") dealt with the subject of widow remarriage.

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