‘VIBHUTI’
A
Centenary Commemoration
Mangal Murty
[Acharya Shivapoojan Sahay began
his literary career with writing short
stories and one single novel ‘Dehati Duniya’ in the early 1920s. His first
collection of short stories ‘Mahila Mahattwa’ was published in 1922, though all
ten stories in the collection had been published in the Hindi literary journals
of the time by 1919. Of these 10, his short story ‘Mundamal’, based on
Rajsthani folklore , was published in 1918, just over a century ago. As all
other 9 stories in ‘Mahila Mahattwa’ were written and published in literary
journals by 1919, it is time to revisit those stories when they have just
completed their centenary year. As the title of that collection refers to a
contemporary theme of a feminist discourse – the poor plight and oppressed
position of women in society, a theme close to the spirit of modern times, a
webinar is proposed to be held by the Acharya Shivapoojan Sahay Smarak Nyas on
9 August, 2021. This excerpt on those stories is published to mark that
historic occasion. - MM]
Shivapoojan Sahay in his autobiography
has said that he started studying Hindi formally when he reached the
matriculation class in 1910. Before that his Hindi studies were limited to his
daily reading of the Ramcharit Manas, though in school he used to study only
Urdu and Persian. In those days the number of students studying Hindi would be
as few as the number students studying Urdu-Persian and Sanskrit in later days.
But outside school, he would spend most of his time reading Hindi books and
magazines. This became more convenient for him because of the recently
established Ara Nagari Pracharini Sabha in the town that was fast coming up as
a leading institution propagating Hindi in the province. Many eminent
litterateurs of Hindi would assemble there daily and Shivji would get the
inspiration from them for studying Hindi literature. Although a stronger
motivation, perhaps, was his father’s sincere wish – who had died only 4 years
before – that his son should study Hindi literature. That pious wish of his
father which he had not been able to fulfil while he was still alive, now when
the time had come to do so, his motivation naturally became all the more
insistent. Another hidden inducement must have been that if he had to choose
the path of literature, Hindi would be the natural choice. And in this way, he
felt obliged to turn to pursue a career in Hindi prose writing.3 3. Shivapoojan
Sahay when he was a student of class 10, had started writing verses on the
model of Ramcharit Manas, some of its samples are to be seen in Samagara, Vol.
5, p. 635 ff.
His
Hindi prose-writing in the beginning, heavy as it was with Sankrit-laden
vocabulary, must have been a conscious reaction against his earlier
Urdu-Persian orientation which may have been a childhood companionship, but
ultimately Hindi was destined to become his first love – a love which soon
became very deep.
If we take 1910 as the beginning of
Shivji’s literary journey, then the next decade was the period of his language
training and proficiency. All the essays and stories based on idealistic
thoughts and emotions that he wrote in this period can be seen as early
examples of his training in linguistic resources. Most of these were published
in standard literary journals like Shiksha (Patna), Lakshmi (Gaya),
Manoranjan and Sahitya Patrika (Ara), which were all journals of
the provincial level. Also, the editors of these journals (with the sole
exception only of Lala Bhagawan Deen, who belonged to U.P.) were all from Ara.
Pt. Ishwari Prasad Sharma, editor of Manoranjan, was a fellow student and
a teacher-colleague of Shivji, and later, virtually his literary mentor.
The first article of Shivapoojan Sahay,
‘Holi me sabhayata ka nash’, was published in 1912 in Shiksha edited by
Pt. Sakal Narayan Sharma, and his first short-story ‘Tooti-Sugi-Maini’ was
published in Sahitya Patrika (Oct.–Nov., 1914) edited by Vrajnandan
Sahay ‘Vrajballabh’. As Shivji has noted in his diary: “This was the first
story I wrote”. Later the same story was revised as ‘Tooti-Maina’ and included
in his first short-story collection Mahila Mahattwa which was published
in its first edition in 1922 in Calcutta when Shivji was living in the
Balkrishna Press of Mahadev Prasad Seth and editing Marwari Sudhar. The
first edition was printed there and was published and marketed under Sethji’s
‘Sulabh Granth Pracharak Mandal’. The book contained Shivji’s ten short stories
(which were called ‘akhyayikas’ or stories) published till then in various
journals. In its preface Shivji wrote: “All the ten stories collected in this
book were published years ago in different magazines. But they are no longer in
the form in which they first appeared. I have edited them to the best of my
ability before publishing them here. I have also tried to improve their content
as well as with their language…. All the ten stories are based on real-life
incidents.”
Later this edition of Mahila Mahattwa
was re-issued several times by Pustak Bhandar, Laheria Sarai, and its new
edition was finally published from there in 1935 as Vibhuti with six
more stories, published in different magazines during this period, added in
this new edition making the total 16, though the order of the previous 10 was
not changed. The fourth edition of Vibhuti was again published in 1950
from Granthmala Karyalaya, Patna. Finally the story collection was included in Shivapoojan
Rachanavali (Vol. 1).
If we consider the three available texts
of this first story ‘Tooti Maina’ from the point of view of improvement in its
language and its creative structure, it would shed important light on these
aspects of the short story. These three texts are: (1) the original text as
published in the Sahitya Patrika (1914), (2) the text as available in
the first printing of Mahila Mahattwa (1922), and (3) as it finally
appears in Shivapoojan Rachanavali (Vol. 1, 1956). We must remember that
text (3) was published under the editorial care of the writer himself. In text
(1) the title of the story was ‘Tooti-Sugi-Maini’ which was changed to ‘Tooti
Maina’ in text (2). Though in texts (2) and (3) there is practically no change
in the style except for some spelling changes, but in (1) and (2) there is a
marked stylistic change from the viewpoint of stylistic development.
The author calls ‘Tooti Maina’ a ‘galp’
(story). In Bangla literature the word ‘galp’ is generally used for a story.
‘Tooti Maina’ is an imaginative fantasy created in a poetic style. A prince
meets a lissom, dainty princess in the spring season in the ‘Ashram’
(hermitage) of a ‘Rishi’ (sage) where she was brought up. With the sages’s
consent she is married to the prince and goes to his palace with him, and finds
herself as if in a prison. The whole story is narrated in a highly poetic
style. But as the author has written in his preface (1922), the stylistic
improvisations in the published story have subsequently been stabilized. Even
from the viewpoint of development in the creative form there is a marked
improvement in this and also the other stories in the collection when compared
with their original form as published in the magazines. There was an English
quotation in (1) which has been deleted from (2). Even the division of the
sections has been rationalized in (2). The old style of narration – occasional
direct address to the readers, etc – has been removed from (2). There is
greater narrative control and the structure also has been tightened.
In the fourth edition of Vibhuti
the author says that the year of composition of each story has been retained in
the list of contents which gives an idea of their chronology. This list is
retained even in the Rachanavali and must be taken now as fully
authentic.
According to this list ‘Hath-Bhagatji’
is the first story written by Shivji, though it was published later. In his
diary of 1917, however, Shivji had given a list of his earliest published
writings, and if we take it as most authentic, his first published story is
‘Rav se Rank’ which was published about a year and half before even
‘Tooti-Sugi-Maini’ in Manoranjan. It has the form of a children’s
folk-tale which may be why Shivji did not include it in his first collection of
stories.(It was later collected in Rachanavali-3). But it seems more
likely that ‘Tooti-Maina’ is the first among the collected short stories of
Shivji.
The three available texts of ‘Tooti-Maina’ are
of special importance from the point of view of comparison of style and
technique. As the author has written in the preface of Mahila Mahattwa:
“I have worked very hard in the editing of this book”, a fact borne out by such
textual comparison. The extent to which both the style and the technique of the
story has evolved after such authorial labour is amply clear after such
comparison. If it is his first story of the writer that we evaluate as a
full-fledged literary creation, then the textual analysis based on its three
texts can help us greatly in seeing the trajectory of the growth of the
writer’s art.
Among the first ten stories collected in
Mahila Mahattwa, the maximum popularity and recognition was earned by
Shivji’s ‘Mundamal’. Linked to its story-line is another of these stories
‘Sateettwa ki Ujjwal Prabha’, and a third is ‘Vishpan’. The material for all
three of these stories based on historical accounts has been taken from Annals
and Antiquities of Rajasthan by James Tod which is famous for its rich
treasure of stories of Rajput valour in battles against the Mughals. The story
materials of the first two of them are closely linked. In ‘Sateettwa’, there is
the stunningly beautiful princess Prabhavati of the Roopnagar kingdom lying in
the valley at the foot of the Aravalli mountains. The Mughal emperor Aurangzeb
who has his lustful eyes on her, has threatened an attack on the kingdom. Prabhavati
sends a message to Maharana Raj Singh of Udaipur to save her honour by marrying
her. The Maharana deliberates over the matter with his Sardar Chudawatji in his
court and decides to proceed to Roopnagar for the union while Chudawatji should
start with his forces to battle with Aurangzeb’s forces advancing upon
Roopnagar. As Chudawatji is proceeding for the battle and he seeks an
inspirational memento from his newly-wed wife Hadi Rani, she beheads herself
swiftly with a single stroke of the sword to offer her head itself as a
souvenir to be sent to Chudawatji. Filled with a rush of pride at this act of
valour, Chudawatji wears the head round his neck in a garland as he rides to
the battleground. This bizarre act of love and gallantry is the theme of the story
‘Mundamal’. In the battle, though Aurangzeb’s army is defeated, Chudawatji is
killed and when the victorious army reaches Udaipur, the Maharana with his new
queen Prabhawati is ready to welcome the victors.
In these three stories related to the
historical past of Rajasthan, ‘Mundamal’, first published in Arya Mahila
(June, 1918), is by far the best considering both its style and technique.
Fortunately, like ‘Tooti Maina’, the three texts of ‘Mundamal’ also are
available. But whereas the extent of stylistic improvement in ‘Tooti Maina’ is
quite considerable, in ‘Mundamal’ it appears much less; the emphasis in the
latter is more on gain in technique. For instance, in ‘Mundamal’, at least in
three places we find changes in the sentences, and nearly two dozen sentences
have been stylistically retouched.
If ‘Tooti Maina’ is the first of the ten
stories in Mahila Mahattwa, then ‘Mundamal’ is the last in the series,
and the time distance between the writing of the two stories is about 4 to 5
years. A comparative evaluation of the three available texts of the two stories
gives a sure indication that in matters of style and technique both,
Shivapoojan Sahay had obtained a higher creative maturity by the time his
earliest stories were re-published in his collection Mahila Mahattwa and
his linguistic attainments had provided him with the power and capability of
language which got further augmented by his future career in journalism.
The six stories added in Vibhuti
were all published in different magazines during the period 1923 to 1931 and
when Shivji finally came to Pustak Bhandar, Laheria Sarai, from Banaras for
editing Balak then all these 16 stories were published in Vibhuti.
Among these 6 new stories, there was another story ‘Sharanagat Raksha’
connected with Rajput valour and the last story ‘Bulbul aur Gulab’ was a
creative transcreation of Oscar Wilde’s poetic short story ‘The Nightingale and
the Rose’. All the other stories were related to social problems. But it can
well be asserted that if ‘Mundamal’ was the best story in the earlier
collection Mahila Mahattwa, it was ‘Kahani ka Plot’ that was the top
story among all in the later collection Vibhuti. As the author explained
in his preface to Vibhuti: “The 15 stories in this new collection are
all original compositions and the last one is a translation of Oscar Wilde’s
short story. The original ones are all based on real incidents. None is an
imaginative creation. All of them have their roots in social or historical
reality.”
‘Kahani ka Plot’ is the last published
story of Shivji which was published in Saroj in 1928. It was also
written in the same year. The text of the story as published in Saroj
differs from the text as published in Vibhuti only in respect of
inflectional changes and breaking up of long paragraphs into shorter ones;
otherwise the texts are absolutely the same. It also becomes quite apparent
that whereas the textual differences in terms of changes in style or technique
seem to be maximum in the first story ‘Tooti Maina’, they are found to be at
the minimum in ‘Kahani ka Plot’, the last of the 16 stories. Also, that whereas
‘Tooti Maina’ in its content and form is essentially rendered in a highly
poetic prose verging on a prose-poem, ‘Kahani ka Plot’ is a superb example of
stark social realism rendered in a prose style appropriately reflecting that
social reality.
In the prefaces of both Mahila Mahattwa
and Vibhuti the author has emphasized that all the stories except
‘Bulbul aur Gulab’ are based on real incidents. Barring the four that are based
on historical events, all the other 11 stories are based on real incidents,
either ‘heard or seen’. This predisposition in his creative process for social
and historical reality is truly indicative of the writer’s distinctive artistic
proclivities. Fictional material of the historical kind also signifies
time-relative social realities. The writer’s repeated assertions in this regard
that no story has any imaginative content only prompts the sensitive reader or
critic to approach the stories from the right point of view. It certainly isn’t
coincidental that the last story of Vibhuti – the only translated story
– depicts this contrariety of reality and imagination by the symbols of the
immortal melody issuing out of the thorn-pierced heart of the nightingale and
the blood-red rose born out of it.
For a writer having so deep a commitment
to historical and social reality, the deliberate choice to end his singular
collection of stories with a translated idealistic story of profound symbolism
must not be taken as fortuitous. If we look at all the stories in Vibhuti
as a unified entity – even if some of these stories may appear, from the point
of view of style or technique, artistically flawed or written in the older
mould – the writer’s unambiguous assertion about their realism allows the
critic to adopt the right attitude towards their evaluation. Or we can even say
that the realism of the bleeding heart of the nightingale sounds that melody
which blossoms as the red rose of fanciful imagination.
Of the ten stories in Mahila Mahattwa,
besides the three historical ones that are interconnected, all seven stories
are focused on women-related issues which try to highlight the character and
ideals of Indian womanhood and which the title of the collection Mahila
Mahattwa also clearly reflects. (This title, however, was suggested by a
friend of the writer: the writer’s chosen title was ‘Veena’, the title of the
fifth story in this collection).
In ‘Veena’ the narrator loves Veena, but
finds her when she is living a widow’s life in Kashi. When he tries to possess
her forcibly, she kills herself by jumping into the river Ganga. In deep
repentance, the narrator also ends his life by drowning after her. The sixth
story ‘Vichar Chitra’ also ends in remorse and penitence. A friend of the
narrator seeing a beautiful stranger girl at a railway station expresses
lustful feelings about her and is rebuked by the narrator, but he soon
expresses his regret to him. The seventh story ‘Hatbhagini Chandratara’ is
longer than the earlier two. Like in ‘Veena’, in this story, too, the two
lovers who have met for the first time in a village fair have a sudden end in
death. From the point of view of technique, ‘Hatbhagini Chandratara’ seems to
be more successful than the other two stories. Whereas in the earlier ones the
narrator is also a character in them, in ‘Hatbhagini Chandratara’ the narrator
is an omniscient, objective narrator. It must be said that the control and use
of technique was equally deft in the first three historical stories, too.
‘Prayaschitt’ is the eighth story in the
collection which is shorter in length and is in first person narration like
‘Veena’ and ‘Vichar Chitra’. In this story an Englishman rapes a woman in the
ladies compartment of a train and when the husband comes to fetch her, the
woman snatches the pistol of the rapist and shoots herself. That to her is her
‘pryashchitt’ (atonement) which forms the climax of the story. The last two
stories of this collection are ‘Hath Bhagatji’ and ‘Anoothi Angoothi’, and
about these two and ‘Tooti Maina’ the author had written in his preface that
these three stories “were written on the basis of heard incidents”. Although he
had also claimed about the other stories that he had got their content from
real-life incidents whether social or historical in nature.
‘Hath Bhagatji’ also is comparable to
‘Hatbhagini Chandratara’ from the point of view of both narration and
technique. The protagonist of the story, Lala Sajeevan Das is a hard-headed
person who ‘would not budge even an inch’ from his decision. During his
building of a temple in his ancestral garden, his two sons and their spouses,
his own wife and grandson – all pass away one by one, and his well-wishers
advise him to stop the construction of the temple. But totally undeterred,
Sajeevan Das continues his endeavour, sets up the idols in place, and once
again gradually he is able to build up a full-fledged family with sons and
grandsons. It was his unshakeable faith in God that had helped him in his
rock-like resolve.
The last story in Mahila Mahattwa
is ‘Anoothi Angoothi’. In its story-line it has some similarity with
‘Hatbhagini Chandratara’ in that in both the stories the lovers meet in a
village fair, although in the former story, unlike the tragic end in the
latter, the end comes with the lovers meeting happily. On the other hand,
whereas in the former the lovers are a married couple, in the latter the
relationship is kept deliberately ambivalent. And in this story (‘Anoothi
Angoothi’) the lover himself is the narrator, and in all places the author has
knowingly left the love scenes softly blurred and undefined to add to the
romantic effect.
Thus if ‘Mundamal’ is the best story in Mahila
Mahattwa, among all other stories based on social reality, ‘Anoothi
Angoothi’, ‘Tooti Maina’ and ‘Hatbhagini Chandratara’ can be seen as relatively
more successful. The period of composition of all these stories is 1911 to
1917, a period generally regarded as the infancy of the Hindi short-story.
Premchand had published only some of his early stories. The two stories ‘Tooti
Maina’ and ‘Kano me Kangana’ (by Raja Radhika Raman) were written almost at the
same time and both have a surprising similarity of story-line, also being
remarkably alike in their poetic rendering. But whereas the poetic unity
remains condensed in ‘Tooti Maina’ giving it the effect of a narrative poem,
the effect in ‘Kano me Kangana’, in spite of its comparable poetic unity, lies
more in its expansiveness. And that only shows that both stories, in spite of
their apparent likeness, and comparable story development, obtain separate
goals for themselves.
All the stories of Mahila Mahattwa,
though inspired by historical or social reality, are deeply poetical in their
form. And, perhaps, in keeping with the milieu of his age, the high poeticality
of his style was consonant with the ideals and values the writer wanted to
explore and sustain. But wherever this central element of a poetic voice has
mingled with the realism underpinning their prose narration or with their
plot-structure, the effect of the stories has been diluted or has suffered.
That is how ‘Mundamal’ is the best among these ten stories, with its unique
plot-structure, its story-line, its theme (valour), its characterization and
style, as all these constituent elements coalesce perfectly to heighten its
unity.
Of the six stories added in Vibhuti
to the earlier ten, except for ‘Bulbul aur Gulab’ which was a translated one
and published last, all the other five were original stories. Among these six
‘Sharanagat Raksha’ was again based on a historical folk tale, and ‘Khopadi ke
Akshar’ and ‘Kunji’ had been published in 1923–24 which means these latter two
stories had not even been written, or at least were still not complete, when Mahila
Mahattwa was published in 1922. It is also apparent that all the stories in
Mahila Mahattwa were written before Shivji had started editing Marwari
Sudhar, and the five new original stories were written when Shivji had
moved from Ara to Calcutta. The last translated story ‘Bulbul aur Gulab’ was
written in 1932 in Kashi and first published in the same year in Jagaran
edited by Shivji. That also explains the enhanced artistic vision in the use of
the technique and an appropriately evolved style in these five stories. The
Hindi short story had already passed an important phase of its development in
the preceding decade and there had been a remarkable advancement in both style
and technique and these five short stories of Shivji also evince signs of this
twofold advancement.
‘Khopadi ke Akshar’ is a long story –
the longest of all the 16 – and, in fact, its narrative span demands the form
of a short novelette. A landlord lovingly brings up the son of his trusted
manager as he himself has only a daughter and his desire for a male heir has
remained unfulfilled. Both Kedar, the manager’s son, and Vasundhara, the
landlord’s daughter, have grown up together since childhood. In due course,
however, the landlord begets a son with the help of some magical potion given
him by some famed sadhu, and as superstition would have it, he buys his own son
in five cowries, the son thus getting the name ‘Panchkaudi’. Kedar thus becomes
the guardian teacher of the child. The landlord then performs Kedar’s marriage,
after he gets his B.A degree, with great pomp and show. The new bride
‘Rampyari’ gets all the love and affection in the landlord’s family, and
becomes especially close to Vasundhara. But slowly she is able to sense the
hidden love in Vasundhara’s heart for Kedar that leads to her disenchantment
from the former. Vasundhara expresses her sentiments in a letter to Kedar, and
Kedar replies to it trying to make her understand things. Meanwhile, he gets
Vasundhara’s marriage fixed with one of his friends. But hurt by his wife’s
frigid behaviour with Vasundhara, Kedar gradually gets indifferent towards his
wife. Even after Vasundhara’s departure, he is not able to forget her.
‘Khopadi ke Akshar’ was published in the
literary monthly Upanyas Tarang which Shivji was editing after leaving Matawala.
The magazine used to publish short novelettes which seemed to have determined
the length of the long story. As a result, the story manifests all the
essential traits of a novel in the same proportion – plot, dialogues,
psychological delineation of the characters were all influenced by the
appropriate techniques of a novel. And yet, the story cannot be considered as
an unsuccessful novelette. The unity of form in the story, as a short story,
remains intact throughout which makes it a successful story.
‘Kunji’, contrarily, is the shortest
among all these stories and has been among the least discussed of Shivji’s
stories. Although from the point of view of technical concentration it must be
reckoned among his three or four most successful short stories. The story
begins at a dramatic point: “Had the taxi not been available at the last
moment, I would have missed the train”. Decidedly, the artistry in Shivji’s
stories has touched its highest point in this story from the point of view of
technical excellence. As the story begins, a youth (the narrator) meets a sannyasi
at the Howrah railway station. He tells the sannyasi that he is the
accountant of a businessman who is at the point of death in Kashi where he is
going after receiving a telegram. He is in the hope that he might get some
small portion of the property of his master if he dies. This prompts the sannyasi
to narrate his own story to the young man. He tells him how his father had
died suddenly and he had had to perform the fire ritual himself, and when the
pyre was almost burnt out, his elder uncle remembered that the key to the iron
chest had remained tied to the waistband of the corpse. Hurriedly then he
scattered the still fiery pyre to recover the red-hot key and at once covered
it with dust for it to cool off. That key, indeed, had opened the sannyasi’s
eye of selfrealization. Shivji’s ‘The Key’ thus certainly comes out perfect
on the touchstone of a modern short story and should be considered an excellent
modern short story.
‘Manmochan’ is a story in the dialogue-format
of a discussion in which a husband and wife compare and argue about the superiority
of ‘Khari Boli’ poetry with ‘Brajbhasha’ poetry, with elaborate citations from
both, and the story ends in a reconciliation between the two effected in a
passionate embrace. In those days when such friendly engagements used to be the
affable pastime of men of letters over the right poetic language, this story of
Shivji had won many accolades. When it was published in Samalochak
(Feb., 1925), Pt. Krishna Bihari Mishra, its editor, wrote to Shivji in his
letter (27.2.25): “People have liked your article ‘Manmochan’ very much,
especially Pt. Roop Narayanji… In fact, Babu Shyamsudar Dasji liked it most of
all articles published in Samalochak.” It may be noted that Mishraji had
called it an ‘article’, and not a ‘short story’, and it was he who had changed
its title from ‘Man-bhanjan’ to ‘Manmochan’ with Shivji’s consent.
‘Sharanagat Raksha’ is the fourth and
only other story based on a historical episode. Compared with the other three
historical stories, this fourth story is technically more evolved. The plotting
and depiction of events, lively dialogues full of dramatic appeal, mature
characterization and scene-creation, and powerful, effective denoument – all
add to the excellence of this story. The pathan emperor Allauddin is on a
hunting spree in the Vindhya jungles, accompanied by his harem of begums and
his courtiers. The begums had gone for bathing in a nearby pond when a storm
arose and they had to rush back in great dishevelment to their camp, but the
begum-in-chief goes missing. In a while she is found by one of the sardars of
the cavalry sent out looking for her – near the pond, halfnude and shivering.
In a fit of passion she finds herself in the sardar’s embrace. When the
contingent returns to Delhi, the emperor is able to ferret out the secret from
the begum herself while on a boat joyride in Yamuna. Both the begum and the
sardar are soon thrown into prison, but are able to escape with the aide of the
kotwal, a relative of the sardar, and are taken into protection by the Maharana
Hammir. Emperor Allauddin soon attacks Maharana’s kingdom of Chittorgarh and in
the battle both the Maharana and the sardar are killed. The story, thus,
reflects the valour and the glory of the Indian ethos of giving protection to
the hounded. This highest ideal of the Indian culture is marvelously delineated
in this story.
‘Kahani ka Plot’ was written in 1928,
and was published in Saroj in its shravan (July) number. The editor was
Munshi Navjadik Lal who had earlier been in Matawala. It is Shivji’s
last story which is reckoned among the finest Hindi stories. To be sure,
Shivji’s art of story writing reaches its perfection in this short story. It
has been his most read and discussed short story – but, as it happens with
literary pieces prescribed in academic courses, their true evaluation remains
ever lacking because of their being relegated to class lectures and examination
papers. Shivji gave only fifteen short stories to Hindi literature, but even if
only three of them are of permanent literary value, they must be deemed to be
among a very high percentage of success. And yet it must be said that great as
these three stories may be from the point of view of literary merit, they have
not received the critical attention they deserve.
The story ‘Kahani ka Plot’ arises out of
the same region where Shivji grew up to be a writer. It is the same region
where his novel Dehati Duniya is located. Dehati Duniya also was
written around the same period, 1921–26. Its five forms were first printed in
1922 in Calcutta, but the full novel was finally published only in 1926 from
Pustak Bhandar. By that time, Shivji had left Calcutta for Kashi and ‘Kahani ka
Plot’ was written only two years after the publication of Dehati Duniya.
The former was written in Kashi where as the latter had been written much
earlier in Calcutta. And yet both have an obvious similarity of locale and
social milieu. Both belong to the social environment of his native village. The
character of the police inspector in both is very similar. The ‘Munshiji’ and
‘Bhagajogni’, too, seem to belong to the same social milieu. Bhagajogni has an
initial likeness to the character of Budhia in Dehati Duniya.
Bhagajogni’s story seems to have arisen from the same village world which is
depicted in Dehati Duniya.
‘Kahani ka Plot’ begins with a suggestive
statement of the narrator that he is no story writer, but he has got a plot for
a story in his own village which can be developed into a very sensitive story
by a good writer. And then the narrated story itself is given as its plot. Indeed,
‘Kahani ka Plot’ is a masterpiece from the technical point of view in which the
technique of the short story, in particular the technique of ‘flashback’, has
been used to astonishing effect. The narrator himself is the central character
in the story and all the events happening in the past are seen through his
eyes. There had been a Munshiji in his village whose brother was a police
inspector during British times and Munshiji had very good time during those
days, always ‘burning his lamps in ghee’. But when his brother died he had his
bad days. His wife, too, died after giving birth to a girl child. The narrator
gives that girl an imaginary name – Bhagajogni. She was an extraordinarily
beautiful girl but in his bad days, she had often to keep starving. It was an
ironic contrast: her incomparable beauty and Munshiji’s extreme poverty. When
Bhagajogni became marriageable, Munshiji begged and pleaded with many people,
but could not settle her marriage for want of a dowry. In the end, in deep
desperation, he gave her in marriage to a middle-aged, 40–41 years old
bridegroom who took her away in a palanquin in marriage. Soon thereafter,
almost within a year, Munshiji, too, who had been in precarious health already,
passed away. To cut the story short, Bhagajogni was now in full bloom of her
youth and her second husband was – her own stepson!
There are only three characters in the
story – the narrator, Munshiji and Bhagajogni. The other characters are only
mentioned nominally, and are, in a way, parts of the essential three. And if
the narrator represents the point of view and the story content, the characters
of Munshiji and Bhagajogani are also parts of the central character of the
narrator. Also, the style and the ultimate aim of the story are integral to the
narrator’s character. The dramatic contrariness of the beginning and the end of
the story are also inseparable from its style and objective. The stratagem of
the narrator’s professed inability to turn the plot into a story stated at the
beginning is, indeed, the most potent device to create the stunning effect at
the end of the story. It is possible to find similar use of dramatic irony as a
technique in Shivji’s other contemporary short story writers, but the smashing
effect achieved with the last word – ‘stepson’ in the story, lends it a
uniqueness hard to rival. Irony and satire are the quintessential elements of
this short story which help in achieving the goal in the short story completely
which means that the objective and the style in the short story are also its
concentric elements. A story exemplifying technical excellence of this level is
enough to ensure a permanent place for Shivji in the annals of Hindi short
story writing. In truth, we must judge the ultimate achievement of a creative
artist securely on the basis of his best creation.
‘Kahani ka Plot’ was written much after
the composition of Dehati Duniya. In fact, the novel was first written
and partially printed in 1921–22, soon after which Shivji had left Matawala
to go to Lucknow to join in the editorial department of Madhuri. It was
there in Lucknow that he started working again on his half-finished novel, but
when in September, 1924, Shivji had to flee hurriedly from his hotel in a
riot-torn Lucknow, the manuscript of the novel and many other valuable
materials were left in the hotel which ultimately he could never recover. When
he returned to Calcutta he remained so busy that he could not resume writing
the novel from the point where it had lain in the half-printed five forms. He
was able to complete the novel only when he finally went to Kashi in the
beginning of 1926. And it was there in Kashi that the completed novel,
published by Pustak Bhandar, was printed. By now, Shivji was working full time
for Pustak Bhandar, editing and getting all its books printed at the Gyanmandal
press in Kashi. In his preface to Dehati Duniya he has explained all
this. It may well be emphasized that after carrying his art of the short story
to its acme, Shivji had finally abandoned story writing, and had, perhaps,
shifted to the parallel form of the novel with all his experience thus gained.
After Dehati Duniya he wrote only one original short story ‘Plot for a Story’
because ‘Bulbul aur Gulab was a translated short story which he had published
in Jagaran (1932) that he had then been editing. And that is why the
background of the story ‘Plot for a Story’ would appear to be very similar to
the creative milieu of Dehati Duniya. It is not just coincidental that
‘Plot for a Story’ is the only short story which is professedly located in his
own village or somewhere around it. If the story’s narrator is a
self-dramatized character of none but the writer, then it can be safely assumed
that the narrator in both the story and the novel acquires his experiences from
the same rural environment.
In this context, an entry in Shivji’s diary is
quite relevant: “Pt. Saryu Panda Gaud came. After dinner, he narrated a real
story. There was a poor brahman Gosainji in his (Gaud’s) maternal grandfather’s
village. He had a very beautiful daughter who was married to an old man. There
was a difference of 50 years in their age; the girl was 18 and the husband was
68. Soon after the marriage the old husband died widowing the young girl. She
was later made pregnant by two country rogues. The villainous beasts and her
utter penury both conspired to the destruction of that beautiful girl and drove
her to her untimely death. I told Pandaji that I had written my story ‘Kahani
ka Plot’ on a similar theme. Your story is very similar to that story of mine.
Hundreds of such tragic stories are happening in our country every day, but the
Hindu society would not care.” (16.3.59)
In the development of the Hindi short story
two trends are generally traced to Premchand and Prasad. Shivji’s two stories
‘Kahani ka Plot’ and ‘Mundamal’ will always be remembered as the two perfect
examples, respectively, of these two trends in Hindi short story.
Excerpted from Shivapoojan Sahay
(Monograph © Sahitya Akademi, 2018)
Also read Shivji’s translated stories- ‘The Key’ (3 Feb
2008), ‘Plot for a Story’ (10 Sep 2010 : ‘Yadnama’ 4&11 Feb 2015), ‘The
Fugitive’ (5 Sep 2013) & ‘Kahani ka Plot’ by Anand Murty (9 Aug 2020) on this blog.
‘Mundamal’ is also available in a video presentation on UTube and audio recitation of ‘Kahani ka Plot’ shall soon be available on net in
both Hindi and Bangla recitations.
Photos © Dr BSM Murty
