Our Favourite Indian Stories

by Khushwant Singh

  Published by Jaico Publishing House

  A-2 Jash Chambers, 7-A Sir Phirozshah Mehta Road

  Fort, Mumbai - 400 001

  jaicopub@jaicobooks.com

  www.jaicobooks.com

  © Khushwant Singh & Neelam Kumar

  OUR FAVOURITE INDIAN STORIES

  ISBN 81-7224-978-0

  First Jaico Impression: 2002

  Eleventh Jaico Impression: 2012

  No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in

  any form or by any means, electronic or

  mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any

  information storage and retrieval system,

  without permission in writing from the publishers.

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  Foreword — by Kamala Suraiya

  The Story Behind the Stories — by Neelam Kumar

  Hindi

  1. The Resignation — Premchand

  2. Enlightenment — Yashpal

  3. Under Cover of Darkness — Nirmal Verma

  4. Like A Pigeon — Rajendra Awasthi

  5. Breaking Point — Usha Mahajan

  Bengali

  6. Cabulliwallah — Rabindranath Tagore

  7. Draupadi — Mahasweta Devi

  Urdu

  8. Exchange of Lunatics — Saadat Hasan Manto

  9. Housewife — Ismat Chugtai

  Punjabi

  10. Happy New Year — Ajeet Cour

  11. Death of Shaikh Burhanuddin— Khwaja Ahmed Abbas

  Oriya

  12. The Bed of Arrows — Gopinath Mohanty

  13. Death of an Indian — Kishori Charan Das

  Gujarati

  14. Wings of a Silent Wish — Dinkar Joshi

  15. Red Glow of the New Moon— Kundanika Kapadia

  Rajasthani

  16. Cannibal — Vijai Dan Detha

  Sindhi

  17. The Statement — Gobind Panjabi

  18. The Claim — Narain Bharati

  Marathi

  19. The Wan Moon — Gangadhar Gadgil

  20. The Debt — Gauri Deshpande

  Assamese

  21. The Vulture — Manoj Kumar Goswami

  Kashmiri

  22. The Bride's Pyjamas — Akhtar Mohi-ud-din

  23. The Enemy — A. G. Athar

  Malayalam

  24. The Flight — Kamala Das

  25. The Flood — Thakazhi Sivasankaran Pillai

  Kannada

  26. Kwate (The Fort) — Chaduranga

  27. Amasa — Devanoor Mahadev

  Telugu

  28. On the Boat — P. Padmaraju

  29. Cloud Stealing — Malati Chandur

  Tamil

  30. The Journey — Indira Parthasarathy

  31. Brahma-Vriksha — Prapanchan

  Dogri

  32. The Farm — Chaman Arora

  33. The Dislodged Brick — Om Goswami

  Konkani

  34. Hippie Girl — Chandrakant Keni

  35. A Cup of Hot Coffee — Edwin J.F. D'Souza

  English

  36. The Portrait of a Lady — Khushwant Singh

  37. Birth — Mulk Raj Anand

  38. Cows and Love — Atul Chandra

  39. Road to Tikratoli — Shoy Lall

  40. A New Tomorrow — Neelam Kumar

  Acknowledgements

  An anthology of this range and sweep could not have taken shape without help from various sources. We are grateful to:

  Sahitya Akademi, Delhi for the following stories: The Bed of Arrows — by Gopinath Mohanty (Oriya); Death of an Indian — by Kishori Charan Das (Oriya); Enlightenment by Yashpal (Hindi); Cannibal — by Vijai Dan Detha (Rajasthani); The Wan Moon — by Gangadhar Gadgil (Marathi); The Vulture — by Manoj Kumar Goswami (Assamese); The Bride's Pyjamas — by Akhtar Mohi-ud-din (Kashmiri); Housewife — by Ismat Chugtai (Urdu); The Farm — by Chaman Arora (Dogri); The Dislodged Brick — by Om Goswami (Dogri); On the Boat — by P. Padmaraju (Telugu).

  Visva-Bharati University for Cabulliwallah by Rabindra Nath Tagore

  Ms Kamala Suraiya for the Foreword

  Mr R. K. Gharai of Sahitya Akademi, Kolkata for his exemplary help which brought this project to fruition.

  Ms Neerja Mattoo for the Kashmiri stories

  All India Urdu Progressive Writers' Association for Housewife by Ismat Chugtai.

  Individual authors and translators

  Friends, who made this literary dream possible.

  Foreword

  About three years ago the New Yorker commissioned Salman Rushdie to write a special piece on Indian Literature. It was a foolish gesture. It was like requesting one of the tourists thronging the beaches of India to write on Harappan civilization. The result was calamitous. He obviously was not familiar with any Indian language other than English and knew even less of the literature each produced. A literary analyst must know the sensibilities from which emanated the peerless fiction and poetry read and loved by the natives of the country through the centuries

  Indian fiction has robust roots. Myth and reality, like the warp and woof together, construct the rich tapestry of our literature. In translation each story suffers a colour change. A sea change, infact. A reconstructive mode of translation is required but the authors, in distrust, seldom permit anyone to take liberties with their writings for effecting minor alterations or tidying up the phrases, however shoddy or tardy the originals appear in a word to word translation. Poets are effective translators if given the freedom to delete the clumsy passages but they would rather write their own verses than translate. Perhaps the Sahitya Akademi of Delhi can try to lure them into the translation arena by offering liberal grants.

  In my formative years I had the good fortune to live in Calcutta which was definitely the axis of the cultural world. Bankim, Sarat Babu and Tagore influenced us, the young hopefuls. The Bengali touch, like old lace enriched the silk of our writings. Then there was the mammoth shadow of Kalidas falling on each of us, Kalidas whose classic Shakuntala cast a spell on Goethe whose Faust employed the narrator and the chorus before the beginning of the play.

  Yes, it is with pride that I write today of Indian literatures that do not seem to wilt despite being ignored by the pundits of Anglo India.

  Kamala Suraiya

  August 12, 2001

  The Story Behind the Stories

  This anthology is a virtual canvas of human emotions. Its pages throb with everything primal to human nature: fear, angst, joy, love, lust and longing. It is my conviction that the map of India — from Kashmir to Kanyakumari lies stamped across the length and breadth of the Indian heart. The emotions that vibrate within each of these stories prove this point. Within the pages of this anthology, the reader may catch a flickering gleam of that intangible quality which has surpassed the boundaries of region, time, space and history. The reader may also catch a fleeting glimpse of some of the majestic highs and dramatic lows that have shaped the Indian character over the centuries.

  The inspiration behind this anthology has been the concern that some of the best short stories of India have remained imprisoned within their geographic and linguistic boundaries, flowering and withering away unnoticed. In the absence of translation they have been deprived from reaching a wider audience. What a waste of beautiful thoughts and ideas! How can one talk of understanding India or being Indian without understanding the motivations that drive our countrymen and women spread over distant regions of the country? Can one truly understand the whole without understanding the part?

  In my bid to redress part of this problem, over a period of five years, I visited various National Libraries, Sahitya Akademis and bookstores across the country t
o come up with literary gems. During the course of my search I wrote countless letters, met and interacted with dozens of writers and translators — seeking advice, getting acquainted, pursuing addresses, requesting copyright permissions. The sheer magnificence of my discoveries left me humbled.

  I have been fortunate to have shared a special relationship with Mr Khushwant Singh. It all began in the Spring of 1996 when I was asked to introduce him in Jamshedpur at a Rotary District Conference. At first I was hesitant about undertaking such a daunting task. Then, I decided to make use of the opportunity in full measure by telling Mr Singh a few home truths publicly — particularly about women's reaction to his outrageous descriptions of members of their species. There was much laughter from the audience when I described him as a one-man institution pounder as well as a one-man shock therapist. I also described him as a man who had swept through Indian society like a powerful blizzard, bent on changing hypocritical attitudes, taking taboo topics out of Indian closets, giving them a through dusting and painstakingly polishing them up for public viewing. By the end of my speech, I suspected I had overdone the malice bit a little. I waited with bated breath as he walked up to where I was standing on stage. I quite expected him to show his displeasure by reprimanding me. Instead, to my horror, he kissed me on the cheek publicly! I was more embarrassed when the local Press covered the incident in a colourful manner the next morning.

  Later, in his popular column, With Malice Towards One and All he described me as the fourth Neelam in his life and the act as a gesture of warmth to show his appreciation. He praised my poem Separation, which I had written after the death of my husband. My poem was read across the length and breadth of the country. Long lost school friends who responded to my anguished cry of 'With your going away, they have taken the bangles from my arms...' sought me out. The sheer reach of his column overwhelmed me.

  From them on, a warm friendship flowered between us. Mr Singh has been described as stingy, lecherous, malicious, flirtatious. Those who know him closely as I do, have stumbled on to the fact that he is none of these. In fact it is he who has revelled in feeding the gossip mills about this image of himself as 'Not A Nice Man To Know.' At 80 plus, he is without doubt, India's youngest man and has a fun-filled attitude towards life, which keeps him so. I remember how much he laughed his famous belly laugh when I wrote an article in The Times of India about how this tough man has no qualms about taking up cudgels with religious fanatics and pompous politicians but turns into a lamb the moment his wife commands him to follow his strict bed-time hour — 9.p.m.! He is actually as fun loving as a child and hides a soft heart beneath the tough exterior.

  This is how I came to requesting my very special friend, savant and confidante, Mr Khushwant Singh to utilise the six decades of his rich experience in literature to select his favourite short stories. That proved to be a very difficult task. What lifts a story from the level of ordinary to extraordinary, to finally become engraved in the mind as a favourite? Sometimes it is a childhood association or a fond memory of youth. Many times one just does not know why, but one simply likes a particular story.

  The Urdu and Punjabi sections did not prove to be difficult. Mr Khushwant Singh is an authority in these fields. He has been generous enough to include his own translations in this anthology. Making selections from other regional languages — those neither he nor I can read or write, proved to be an intimidating task. We went by the opinions of experts and literature lovers of that particular language.

  We are certain the reader will keep in mind that comparing fairly unknown writers to all-time greats such as Munshi Premchand or Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore may not be fair. As is bound to happen, many ideas may have been lost in the translation, despite our best attempts. We appeal to the reader to look beyond these into the story's essence. In some regions, short story writing is still a fledgling craft. We were compelled to include these as being representative of the language. The craft itself merited no special attention; the spark of promise in it did. Such stories have been included in the hope that they will provide a window to the distinctive culture of that region. This is why many stories have a 'regional flavour' about them.

  With an ancient history of 5,000 years, India has been the cradle of fascinating folklore, mythical tales and magical fables. Ancient writings of the land: the Upanishads, Panchatantra, Hitopdesh and Jataka tales bear testimony to this. Over the years, India's rich oral tradition has gradually crystallised into the formal short story as we know it today.

  The passage of centuries has seen India develop into a social structure with fascinating customs. The Indian consciousness down the decades has recorded all: the wonder, the anguish, the joy, the frustration, the pain and the pride of being born an Indian. Right through the grand sweep of time, the Indian imagination has remained alive to diverse stimuli and has expressed these emotions in creative outpourings. Besides national and geographic influences, each region's writings have been shaped by local influences too. Today's global Indian has aromas of all these flavours in his personality.

  From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, writers have spoken in myriad tongues which are as local as they are national — as insular as they are global. This is what makes India's regional writing so powerful.

  Ms. Neelam Kumar

  August, 2001

  Our Writers

  Hindi

  PREMCHAND

  Premchand (1880-1936) was the greatest novelist and short story writer in Hindi. He was the author of Sahitya ka Uddeshya (criticism); Kuchh Vichar (essays); Rangabhumi, Sevasadan, Nirmala, Kayakalpa, Premashram, Ghaban and Godan (novels) as well as several collections of short stories.

  YASHPAL

  Yashpal (1903-1976) was a prominent writer in Hindi. Has published fourteen collections of short stories, nine novels, three volumes of reminiscences and four volumes of socio-political satirical essays. His works have been translated into many languages.

  NIRMAL VERMA

  Nirmal Verma (1929—) was born in Simla and lives in Delhi. From 1959 to 1968, he lived in Czechoslovakia where he translated a number of Czech works into Hindi. For a brief while he was a member of the Communist Party of India, but resigned in protest against its support for dictatorships. He has so far published five novels, eight collections of short stories, three travelogues, six collections of essays and three plays. Many of his works have been translated into English, German and French. His awards include Sahitya Akademi (1985); Moortidevi Award (1997) and the Jnanpith Award (2000).

  RAJENDRA AWASTHI

  A prominent political journalist, poet, author and fiction writer, Dr. Rajendra Awasthi has pioneered new trends in post-independence Hindi fiction writing. He has more than 60 fictional works to his credit and has received numerous awards including the National Citizens' Award (1990); the Sahitya Bhushan and Bharat Bhasha Bhushan Awards.

  He first joined The Times of India group publication — Sarika as its editor (1960-64); left Bombay for Delhi and joined the Hindustan Times Group in 1964, continuing as editor of all periodicals. He is currently editor of Kadambini. He holds positions in several prestigious bodies.

  USHA MAHAJAN

  Usha Mahajan (1948— ) represents the New Short story style in Hindi. A prolific writer, she is also a freelance journalist. Important among her works are Savitri Ne Kaha (story collection); Samay Ke Sakshi (interviews with journalists); Chatur Charvaha (childrens' stories); Utho Annapurna Saath Chalen (research) as well as translations of several books by Khushwant Singh.

  Bengali

  RABINDRA NATH TAGORE

  A master of the short story genre, Tagore was Bengal's leading writer and poet. He continues to hold sway over readers' hearts even after so many years of his death. Tagore's writings have a firm narrative thread and delight young and old alike. In all his writings, Tagore had a remarkable capacity to empathise with people in different situations. His writings reflect a great deal of psychological and creative insight.

  MAHASWETA DEVI

/>   Mahasweta Devi (1926 — ) is a progressive Bengali novelist and short story writer. She is the author of over 50 publications and has won several awards including the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1979 for her novel Aranyer Adhikar. She has taught English in a Calcutta College and works among the tribals for their welfare and for creating new social awareness among them. She now lives in Calcutta. There is a deep influence of the Naxalite movement on her works. She has also been the recipient of Jnanpath Literary Award and the Magsaysay Award. Her book has been made into a Hindi movie called Hazaar Chaurasi ki Ma.

  Urdu

  SAADAT HASAN MANTO

  Manto (1912-1955) is widely regarded as one of the best Urdu writers. In a literary and journalistic career spanning more than two decades, he wrote over 200 stories apart from plays, film scripts, novels and essays. Toba Tek Singh Mozail and Mummy are some of his powerful stories. He lived in Amritsar, Bombay and Lahore.

  ISMAT CHUGTAI

  Ismat Chugtai was a leading short story writer in Urdu. Known for her bold writing, Ismat Chugtai is regarded as a gifted woman writer. Her collections of short stories include: Chotein, Chhui Mui, Kaliyan Shaitan. She has also written novels like Ziddi.

  Punjabi

  AJEET COUR

  Born in 1934, Ajeet Cour is one of the better known Punjabi writers. Some of her important collections of short stories are Gulbano, Mahik Di Maut, But Shikan, Saviyan and Churiyan. And among her novelletes are Postmortem, Dhup Wala Sheher, Khana Badosh and Kachche Ranga de Sheher. She is the recipient of Punjabi Academy Award (1984) and Sahitya Akademi Award (1986) for Khana Badosh.