Lambardar: Nambardar, a title in India and Pakistan which applies to powerful families of the village or town. It is a state-privileged status which is hereditary and has wide ranging governmental powers.
Lashkar: (Persian) Army. Refers to the total might of an army.
Lassi: Buttermilk
Lavaan-phere: Punjabi wedding rituals
Loi: Large woollen shawl
Makhana: Dried lotus fruit
Mama: Maternal uncle
Mandasa : A chequered cloth tied around head by agriculture labourers
Mansabdari system: The system of taking back the ranks to the officials of the Mughal Empire. It was introduced in 1595–96 CE. The mansabdars governed the empire and commanded its armies in the emperor’s name.
Masjid/ Masit: Mosque
Mattha: Buttermilk
Maund : Measure of weight, about 38 Kilograms
Mausi: (Hindu) Aunt; Mother’s sister
Mem: A British woman
Mirasi: Caste of entertainers
Mishri: Lumps of clarified sugar
Mleccha: A person of foreign extraction in ancient India
Moosa: (Arabic) Moses
Motiyowale: Possessor of pearls; One who is rich and prosperous; A form of address
Mujar: Farm labourer
Mukhtar: (Arabic) The head of local government of a town or village.
Murabba: Unit of Land, 25 Acres
Murundas: Sweet made with puffed rice and melted jaggery
Mushki: Breed of horse
Mutiyar: (Mutiyaar) A girl in ripe youth
Neem: Tree; Azedirachta indica
Nikah: Muslim wedding ceremony
Odhni: Decorative length of cloth used by women, to drape the head and the upper part of body (as decorum)
Paataal: The underworld
Pachisi: A type of card game
Pagg: Turban
Pai/Paise: Minimum unit of a rupee (1 Rupee = 100 Paise)
Pairipauna: Touching the feet of elders to seek their blessings
Pand Nama: A Persian text by Hazrat Shaykh Farid al-Din Attar (d. 627 AH)
Pandaji: A Hindu priest
Panghad: A coin of small denomination
Panjiri: Sweet made of flour, sugar and dry-fruits
Paranda: Hair extensions; Braids made of silk thread, woven into plaits
Parvardigar: (Persian) God, who sustains all life
Pasaar: Bedroom
Peedhi: Low stool with four legs
Peer-Kauri: A game played with cowrie shells
Phirni: Pudding made with finely ground rice
Phitte Moonh: (Abuse) Shame on your tongue
Pehalwan: Body builder
Pesh kabz: A type of Persian-Afghan knife designed to penetrate mail armour
Phoophi: (Muslim) Aunt; Father’s sister
Phumman: Thread earrings
Pilchh: (Shrub) Pilkhan; Ficus infectoria
Pind: Village
Pinni: Sweet balls made with ground lentils, dry-fruits, ghee and sugar
Pipal: Peepul tree; Ficus religiosa
Poh: The month of January
Poodas: Sweet pancakes
Poori: Deep fried roti
Puttar: Son
Qissa: Anecdote
Qissa Zulekha: Qissa Yousuf Zulekha, a popular folk narrative of the region
Rajai: Quilt
Revari: Sweet made with melted jaggery and sesame seeds
Riyasat: Principality; Dominion
Rohaalchaali: A breed of horse
Sachche Patshah : The One True Supreme Lord
Sagun/Shagun: Auspicious offering
Sahib-Salamat: Offer due respect to seniors and to ask each other’s well-being
Saheli: (Female gender) friend; Girls as friends among themselves.
Sansi: A nomadic tribe
Sarovar: A pool or a lake especially at a holy shrine, used for sacramental ablutions, and other religious ceremonies. The primary association of sarovar is with the purificatory aspects of its water.
Satpurukh’s truth incarnate: The living manifestation of The One True God; Refers to Lala Vadde.
Satroopa: Image of Truth
Satt-Ajwain: Essence of carom seeds
Sauten: Co-wife, the relationship implies rivalry and bitterness
Sayappa/Siyappa: Ritual wailing at death
Sevaiyyan: (Sweet) Vermicelli
Shahukar: Money-lender
Shah Latif: Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai (1689–1752) was a noted Sindhi Sufi scholar, mystic, saint and poet. Widely considered to be the greatest Muslim poet of the Sindhi language, his work has been compared frequently to that of the Persian poet Rumi.
Shariah: Muslim or Islamic law which regulates many aspects of a Muslim’s life including the type of investments allowed.
Sharna: A folk percussion instrument, played along with Duffli, Duff, Dholak and Shutri
Sheesham: Tree; Dalbergia sissoo
Shraddh: (Sanskrit) A ceremony in honour and for the welfare of dead relatives, observed with great strictness at various fixed. It is not a funeral ceremony, but an act of reverential homage to a deceased person performed by relatives, and is supposed to supply the dead with strengthening nutriment after the performance of the previous funeral ceremonies has endowed them with ethereal bodies.
Sipahi: Sepoy; Soldier
Sirwarna: Ritual of blessing that involves tracing a circle with a coin around the head of the one being blessed, and giving the auspicious offering either to the one being blessed or to the priest
Sittha Sonth: Dry ginger
Sitthani: Teasing songs sung by the bride’s sisters and girl friends when the bridegroom’s procession is being welcomed, and when the groom’s party sits down to the meal
Sooji: Semolina
Sunnat: Ceremony of head-shaving of a Muslim child
Svayambhu: Himself Incarnate
Swaang: A form of folk theatre, a farce involving masquerade, music and narration of witty anecdotes
Tai: (Hindu) Aunt; Wife of a paternal uncle who is older than one’s father
Tamba: See Tehmad
Tambol: Return offering to Sagun
Tappa: A short folk song of northern Indian origin
Taulbaaz: Brass bowl
Taveez: Magic charm
Thanedar: Inspector
Tehmad/ Tamba: Part of the male dress; A wrap around the lower parts, like a lungi
Tehsil: The administrative centre of a city or town
Theekri: Ritual observed at birth; Severing of umbilical cord
Thumri: A common genre of semi-classical Indian music. The text is romantic or devotional in nature, and usually revolves around a girl’s love for Krishna. Thumri is characterized by its sensuality, and by a greater flexibility with the raag.
Tonga: Horse cart
Trishna: Cosmic thirst; Insatiable desire
Turra: Crest of a turban
Upla: Dried dung pat, used as fuel in open stoves
Ustaad: Teacher; Expert
Vaidya: Medicine man of Ayurvedic medicine system
Vaikunth: The abode of Lord Vishnu; Heaven
Vairagi: Renouncer
Vairi: Enemy
Veer: Brave; Brother. In address it becomes Veera
Vishnusahasranam: A list of 1,000 attributes of Lord Vishnu, the preserver of all life. Along with Brahma (the Creator), and Shiva, (the Destroyer), Vishnu (the Preserver) forms the holy trinity of Hindu gods. Written in Sanskrit, the Vishnusahasranama, as found in the Anushasana Parva of the Mahabharata, is the most popular version.
Waqif of Batala: Poet Nur-ud-din Waqif. Ahmad Shah Durrani was a great admirer of Waqif and took him to his court in Kandahar.
Waris Shah: Peer Syed Waris Shah (1722–1798) was a Punjabi Sufi poet of Chisti order, renowned for his contribution to Punjabi literature. He is best known for his seminal work Heer Ranjha, based on the traditional folk tale of Heer and her lover Ranjha. Heer is considered one of the quintessential works of classical Punjabi
literature
Yajna/Yagna: See Havan-Yagna
Yakhni: Broth made of meat or chicken bones
Yug: Yuga in Hinduism is an epoch or era within a four age cycle. The cycle comprises of Satya Yuga (the cycle of Truth); Treta Yuga (associated with the birth of Rama); Dvapara Yuga (associated with the birth of Krishna, and the Mahabharata war) and Kali Yuga. Our present time is Kali Yuga, which started at 3102 BCE with the end of the Mahabharata war.
Zahira Sakhi Sarwar: Hazrat Syed Ahmad Sultan, popularly known as Sakhi Sarwar, was a 12th century Sufi saint of the Punjab region. He is also known by various other appellations such as Sultan (king), Lakhdata (bestower of millions), Lalanvala (master of rubies), Nigahia Pir (the saint of Nigaha) and Rohianvala (lord of the forests). His followers are known as Sultanias or Sarwarias. He was blessed with the gift of prophecy by three illustrious saints Ghauns-ul-Azm, Shaikh Shab-ud-Din Suhrawardi and Khwaja Maudud Chisti. He was known for his miracles performing abilities, and for protecting animals.
Zikr: Remembrance of Allah. All words of praise and glory to Allah, whether one utters them by tongue or says them silently in one’s heart, are known as Zikr.
Zinda Shah Madar: Sufi saint Sayed Badiuddin Zinda Shah Madar (d. 1434 CE). Based on his teachings, Tariqa Madariya is a Sufi order, which is known for its syncretic aspects, lack of emphasis on external religious practice and focus on internal dhikr.
About the Book
It is sometime in the fi rst decade of the twentieth century...
The British Imperialists have been in India for over 150 years. However, life in the small village of Shahpur in undivided Punjab has remained largely unchanged. The menfolk look to the wealthy and worldly-wise Shahji and his benevolent younger brother Kashi for support and advice, while it is Shahji’s wife’s home and hearth that is the centre of all celebrations for the women. Local disputes, trade, politics, a trickling of news from the Lahore newspaper are all discussed every evening at the Shahs’ haveli. But as the Ghadar Movement gains momentum elsewhere in Punjab and in Bengal, bringing into focus the excesses of the British, the simple village of Shahpur cannot help looking at itself. The discontent has set in.
Krishna Sobti’s magnum opus Zindaginama brilliantly captures the story of India through a village where people of both faiths coexisted peacefully, living off the land. First published in Hindi in 1979, this is a magnificent portrait of the Indian subcontinent on the brink of its cataclysmic division.
To celebrate 25 years of publishing in India, HarperCollins proudly presents special editions of 25 of its most iconic books.
About the Authors
Krishna Sobti was born in 1925. Her first short story ‘Lama’ was was published in 1944. Her early novels Channa (1954) and Dar Se Bichchuri (1958) marked Sobti as one of the voices in contemporary Hindi prose that could not be ignored. Subsequent works such as Mitro Marjani (1966), Yaron Ke Yar (1968), Tin Pahar (1968), Suraj Mukhi Andhere Ke (1972) further established Sobti as an unapologetically outspoken female voice, and created a sensation amongst both readers and critics. She won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1980 for Zindaginama and in 1996, she was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship. In 2005, the English translation of her novel Dil-o-Danish won the Hutch-Crossword Award. She was offered the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 2010, which she declined, stating that, ‘˜As a writer, I have to keep a distance from the establishment. I think I did the right thing.’
Neer Kanwal Mani has translated a variety of literary and non-literary texts. Her twelve books in translation include the comic Du-Rex ke Jalwe for United Nations Development Programme, four books from The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, two novels by Paulo Coelho along with folk narratives and oral epics for IGNCA, New Delhi. She translated Kerstin Ekman’s Blackwater as a part of Indo-Swedish Writers Union Project in 2001-02.
An Associate Professor in English, Neer has been engaging students in literature, critical theory and translation for twenty-six years. To many, her approach is life-altering; her methods, thought-provoking and multi-layered.
Moyna Mazumdar is an editor and occasional translator based out of Kolkata with an interest in literary translation, long walks and cycling.
PRAISE FOR ZINDAGINAMA
‘Zindaginama is an abridged Mahabharata of our times before India’s independence and partition. Epical in ambition and dimension, through deep and irrepressible lyricality, it created a new narrative language coalescing tradition and modernity. An unparalleled classic of modern Indian literature, candid and controversial, human and revealing, interrogative and affirmative. A monument of magnificent imagination.’
– Ashok Vajpeyi
‘Zindaginama is a miracle … A great hymn to the soil of Punjab which it evokes in its complexity as well as totality; it contains cosmogonic myths, legends and lores, history and traditions, its subtle tissues integrating its different communities. The novel has chronicles of living beings, but it also has those of ghosts and spirits, mythical and legendary heroes and saints. As a novel, Zindaginama is remarkably plural in its formal variety and includes genres and modes as various as poetry, farce, tragedy, folklore, legends, visions, comedy, clowning, subversive parody, modernist self-consciousness, political post-colonialism, feminism …’
– K.M. George in Masterpieces of Indian Literature
‘Krishna Sobti is perhaps the single most spectacular novelist in modern Hindi. There is something absolutely inspired about the hymn–like evocations of folk life, history and culture in this depiction of the rural novel. Nothing that is alive escapes her attention, and she celebrates life everywhere … in the living speech of the rural folk, in their unconscious poetry and their oral narrative and songs, in rivers and trees, in crops and seasons, in human loves and sorrows … above all, on the Punjab soil, at once the beloved and the great mother. Her magnum opus, Zindaginama acquires an aesthetics of its own, a desi aesthetics …’
– Jaidev
HarperCollins presents special editions of 25 of its most iconic books
Akshaya Mukul Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India
Amitav Ghosh The Hungry Tide
Anita Nair Lessons in Forgetting
Anuja Chauhan Those Pricey Thakur Girls
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Turning Points
Aravind Adiga The White Tiger
Arun Shourie Does He Know a Mother's Heart?
A.S. Dulat with Aditya Sinha Kashmir the Vajpayee Years
B.K.S. Iyengar Light on Yoga
H.M. Naqvi Home Boy
Jhumpa Lahiri Interpreter of Maladies
Karthika Naïr Until the Lions
Kiran Nagarkar Cuckold
Krishna Sobti Zindaginama
Manu Joseph Serious Men
M.J. Akbar Tinderbox
Tarun J Tejpal The Story of My Assassins
Raghuram G. Rajan Fault Lines
Rana Dasgupta Tokyo Cancelled
Satyajit Ray Deep Focus
Siddhartha Mukherjee The Emperor of All Maladies
Surender Mohan Pathak Paisath Lakh ki Dacaiti
S. Hussain Zaidi Byculla to Bangkok
T.M. Krishna A Southern Music
Vivek Shanbhag Ghachar Ghochar
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First published in India in 2016 by Harper Perennial
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
This edition published in India in 2017 by
HarperCollins Publishers India
First published in Hindi by Rajkamal Prakashan, 1979
Translation copyright © Neer Kanwal Mani 2016, 2017
Translators’ Note copyright © Neer Kanwal Mani 2016, 2017
P-ISBN: 978-93-5264-514-5
Epub Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 978-93-5277-286-5
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Krishna Sobti asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction and all characters and incidents described in this book are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under The Copyright Act, 1957. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers India.
Cover illustration: Allen Shaw
Series design: Bonita Vaz-Shimray
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