विभूतिमूर्ति

Jayanti : 123

DEHATI  DUNIYA

Shivapujan Sahay

[Dehati Duniya by Shivapujan Sahay was first published in 1926. Almost a century ago, Hindi fiction was still in its infancy. Premchand had published only a few novels by then, though none of them was located entirely in a rural setting. Dehati Duniya was the first novel in Hindi telling the story of a ‘village world’, its backward social life, in a language spoken and understood by the rural people. It was the story of the rural people, of their social life, told in their own language. In later Hindi criticism, Dehati Duniya  came to be seen as the prototype of the ‘regional’ (or ‘anchalik’) novel generally having a rural setting as its locale. The novel depicted the life of people living in the interior rural areas in all its rich cultural texture and variety. It brought to light in Hindi fiction the dark and complex realities of social life in the interior villages in India. The genre came to its full fruition in Phanishwarnath Renu’s Maila Anchal  published in 1953.

The following is an extract from the beginning of the novel Dehati Duniya rendered into English by Dr Mangal Murty. The novel contains a wealth of sayings, proverbs and words from the local (Bhojpuri) dialect that are very difficult – nearly impossible – to translate into English. The story begins in the form of a fictionalized autobiography, narrated by a small boy ‘Bholanath’. Here we get a fascinating picture of his childhood days in this starting episode from the first chapter of the novel – ‘In Mother’s Lap’.]

       DEHATI DUNIYA                                           

                                                        In  Mother’s Lap

                                  Jahan ladkon ka sang tahan baje mridang

                                 Jahan buddhon ka sang tahan kharche ka tang¹

My father rose early and after his morning ablutions sat down for his daily worship. I never left his side since my early childhood.  With mother I stayed only for my milk. Even at night, I’d sleep in the outer room with father. He’d waken me as he himself awoke, do my ablutions, and make me sit with him for worship. I’d keep nagging him  to put  the ‘ash mark’ on my forehead. With laughter, mixed with annoyance and a little chiding, he’d put the tripund mark there and my broad  forehead would seem to glow with it. I had long locks of hair on my head, and the ‘ash mark’ on my forehead made me look a perfect bumbhola

Father would lovingly call me ‘Bholanath’, though my real name was ‘Tarkeshwarnath’, and I’d also call him ‘Babuji’ and my mother – ‘Maiyan’.

As Babuji would chant from Ramayan, I’d sit by his side and keep looking  at my face in a mirror. When he’d glance at me, I’d put down the mirror with a shy smile, making him smile, too.

After his prayers, he would write down the name of Rama in his ‘Ramnama’ copybook, one thousand times every day, and then after tying it up with his Ramayan,  put it away. Next, he’d write the name of Rama on five hundred tiny bits of paper, roll them into small dough balls, and walk with them towards the Ganga river.

I’d be comfortably ensconced on his shoulders, not getting down from my throne, and would keep laughing, as he threw each ‘Rama’ ball into the river to feed the fishes. On way back home, after the ritual of fish-feeding, he would put me on the low outflung branches of trees and swing me for some time.

Often he would practise wrestling with me and would feign fatigue to spur me on, as I would then easily pin him down. He would fall on his back, and I’d ride astride his chest. Then as I would start pulling at his long moustaches, he would laughingly free them from my hands  and kiss my little palms with his lips. Then he would ask for sour and sweet kisses on my cheeks, and I would alternately turn my left and right cheeks to his pouted lips. After taking the sour kiss on the left cheek, when he’d take the sweet one on the right cheek, he’d tickle it tenderly with his bristly beard or moustache. But feeling nettled, I’d again start pulling  at his moustache, and when he would feign crying, I’d stand away and giggle to my heart’s delight.

After all this fun and frolic, when we’d be back home, I’d sit with him on the kitchen floor for our meal together. He’d feed me with his own hands, cooked rice mixed in milk, from a bronze bowl. When I’d have no more, Maiyan would insist on feeding me a few morsels more. She would chide Babuji – You feed him with tiny morsels of a few grains each time, and even while he’s still hungry, you make him feel, he’s had enough. You hardly know how to feed a child. You must feed him big mouthfuls of morsels. -

                         Jab khayega bade-bade kaur, tab payega duniya me thaur.

How will he go about boldly into the world, unless he eats large morsels? Look, how I feed him; menfolk -  how’d  they know how to feed a child?  Only a mother can fill a child’s belly full!

Then she would mash the cooked rice in curd and make it into large balls, giving each a name – the parrot, the myna, the pigeon, the swan, the peacock – and put them one by one in my mouth, saying that I must swallow them up quickly before they could fly off, and I’d hurry with them so that they could never fly away.

When I had gobbled up all the ‘food-birds’, Babuji would say – Go play now, you’re now a King! And I would get up to go and play, all naked, into the alley outside, pulling my wooden horse by the string tied to its neck.

But whenever Maiyan  suddenly caught hold of me, she would put a palmful of mustard oil into my wild locks, however much I resisted. I’d start crying, and Babuji would chide Maiyan for it. But she would put more oil into my locks  and let go only after she had massaged my whole body with it. She would then put kohl marks on my navel and my forehead, and weave my locks into tight braids, tying flowery cotton balls in them, and dress me up in a coloured tunic and cap. I would now be looking quite  a cute ‘Kanhaiya’,  and go out in Babuji’s lap, whimpering and sobbing.

As soon as I came out, I found a whole pack of boisterous boys  eagerly waiting for me. I’d at once slither down Babuji’s lap, forgetting  all my sobs, and join them avidly in their various  games and ‘tamashas’.

The ‘tamashas’ consisted of different kinds of dramatic events. In one corner of the front terrace, we would set up a stage. The large square bathing stool of Babuji would be the actual stage. Willow sticks on the four corners covered with paper, to form the roof, would make the sweetmeat shop. Broken firepots of the hubble-bubble would form the dishes holding the brick-bits as laddoos, and green leaves would be fried purees, with jalebis made from wet dirt,and broken pitcher pieces would serve as batashas – to make the sweetmeat shop complete. Pebbles would be used for weighing and small bits of zinc would be the coins, with some of us being both buyers and sellers. Babuji would also often turn up as a customer.

Soon, winding up our shop, we would try and build tenements with dirt and clay. Walls made of dust, with a roof laid with twigs. Broken twigs as pillars and empty matchboxes for doors. Neck pieces of  broken pitchers would serve as cooking stove or grindstone, and earthen lamps as makeshift frying pan. Babuji’s pooja spoon would be the ladle, with water as ghee, dust as dough, and sand as sugar crystals, we would cook a grand feast, with some of us being cooks as well as the feasting guests. When we would all sit in a row, Babuji would  also stealthily join us at one end of the row. And then, hastily undoing our make-believe tenements, we would all flee laughing, amidst Bauji’s burst of laughter. “When do we have the next feast, Bholanath?”,  he would ask in his chuckles.

Sometimes we would also form a marriage procession. An empty canister would be the drum, a rubbed mango rind would be the clarinet, the broken   micetrap-box would serve as the palki; the groom’s father astride a he-goat, and the marriage party would travel from one corner of the  front platform of our house to another, supposed to be the bride’s door. There in a small, cow-dung plastered courtyard, decorated with festoons and buntings made of mango and plantain leaves, and narrow broken wooden planks, would be the earthen kalash. The procession would reach and return from there soon, with the bride carried on a small cot covered with a red cloth. Babuji would again be there to raise the cover to have a look at the bride, which would drive us scampering and laughing off.

                                                                     

But soon we would return and decide to play ‘farming’. At one end of the platform, we would fix a pulley to draw water from the street below which would now be the well. A small earthen pot tied to a string, rolled from grass, would be lowered down the pulley into the street, and two of us would do for oxen to draw the  improvised moat  for irrigation. The large platform would become the field to be tilled, gravel would serve as seeds and a long wooden piece as the plough. The tilling, sowing and watering would all be done with great care; and the crop, too, would ripen in no time. We would start harvesting the crop, singing –

           Oonch neech me bayee kiyaree, jo upaji  so bhayee hamaree.²

The  harvested crop would be threshed by our feet, and the grains would be winnowed in the wind with the help of another earthen pot. Then it would be ready to be weighed on a scale made of an earthen lamp. And once again Babuji would appear from nowhere and ask – How was the crop this year, Bholanath?

And that would again make us scamper off  laughing from our farming drama. How delightful it all was! All those dramas of childhood! Even strangers would stop awhile to watch our childhood revelry.

Whenever we would find groups of people - men and women -  going to the Dadaree fair,^, we would leap and jump, and shout out our refrain –

            Chalo bhaiyon dadaree, satu pisan ki motaree.³

Once in a while on the road we would come across a bridegroom walking behind a covered palki we would shout out loud another refrain in our sing-song way –

Raharee men raharee puran raharee, doli men ke kaniyan hamar mehree⁴.

One day as we sang this refrain to one owl-faced bridegroom, he chased us pelting brickbats at us. We have still not forgotten that ugly owl-face and wonder how anyone could have chosen such an owl-faced groom for his daughter. Indeed, we had never seen such a mule-faced bogey ever in our life! 

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Notes

1.Where boys play together, drum-sounds abound./ Where old men sit together, miserliness is right there.

2. Up and down the rows are sown,  and ours is all the corn that is grown.

3. Let’s go bretheren to Dadaree fair, quick fill your bags with wheat and gram flour.

4. The lentil bush may be old and grey, but the bride in the palki is all ours.

Tripund ( a sandal paste triad mark on  the forehead). Bambhola (simpleton),Tamasha (here. children’s games),Poori, Jalebi, Batasha, Laddoo (food items, sweets), Kalash (vessel) Moat (large bucket).

(C) All photos & Text: Dr BSM Murty

For more posts related to Shivapujan Sahay click on Archive Year, then scroll down on OLDER POSTS to the following Posts: Short Stories: 2008, Mar 2; 2010, Apr 9; Premchand: 2011, May 26; Prasad: 2012, Oct 25

;Nirala: Oct 26; 2013: Sheaf of Old Letters:2013, Oct 10; On 'Kahani ka Plot:2015,Feb 4; On Bachchan:2014, Nov 27; On Nirala:2015, Feb 20.