A Winter's Night and Other Stories Read online

  Ten classic stories from the master of Hindi literature

  Nearly a century after they were written, in Hindi and Urdu, Premchand’s numerous short stories, novels and plays continue to be a mirror to Indian society and its traditions.

  A Winter’s Night and Other Stories brings together, for young readers, some of his most powerful short stories. This is a world inhabited by people like Halku, forced to spend the bitterly cold winter night in the open, without a blanket; Kaki, the old invalid aunt, ill-treated by her own relatives; and Shankar, reduced to being a bonded labourer for the sake of a handful of wheat. Premchand describes their plights with unflinching honesty. Yet all is not hopeless in this world. There is also little Hamid, who buys tongs for his old grandmother rather than toys for himself; Ladli, who saves her share of puris for her blind aunt; and Big Brother, trying in vain to remember the strange names of English kings and queens.

  Greed, dishonesty, cruelty abound in this world, as do kindness, bravery and humour. These ten stories are an ideal introduction to Premchand and his concerns and ideas that remain relevant to this day.

  CLASSIC PLUS: FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR, HIS WORK AND HIS WORLD

  TRANSLATED FROM THE HINDI BY RAKHSHANDA JALIL

  PUFFIN CLASSICS

  Cover illustration by Harshvardhan Kadam

  Fiction/Translation

  www.penguinbooksindia.com

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  UK | Canada | Ireland | Australia

  New Zealand | India | South Africa

  Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  This collection published 2007

  Copyright © Penguin Books India, 2007

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  ISBN: 978-0-143-33038-7

  This digital edition published in 2011.

  e-ISBN: 978-81-84-75069-0

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Introduction by Gulzar

  1. A Winter’s Night

  2. The Salt Inspector

  3. Kaki

  4. The Tale of Two Oxen

  5. A Quarter and One Ser of Wheat

  6. The Price of Milk

  7. Big Brother

  8. The Shroud

  9. The Thakur’s Well

  10. Idgah

  Translator’s Note

  Classic Plus

  Introduction

  Munshi Premchand, one of India’s most loved and admired writers, died on 8 October 1936, succumbing to the stomach ulcers that had troubled him for some time. He was only fifty-six. I have often wished that he had lived longer, for I was destined to meet him in more ways than one. At that time of course, I was just two and lived in Dina, a distant town in a part of Punjab which now falls in Pakistan.

  The fact is that he is one of the authors of whom I have a distinct memory from a very early age. I must have been nine or ten then and that’s a very impressionable age. I can’t say that my impressions had only to do with what he wrote. In fact, it was a more intimate connection. His stories were a witness to what I saw around me as a child, a part of my earliest experiences and so they seemed a part of me.

  At the time of my first encounter with him, I was in the fifth standard at school. I read ‘Hajj-e-Akbar’, a very heartrending story and cried every time I re-read it. One day I saw my father sniffling as he read out something from a book to my mother. As I went up to them, I saw that he was reading the same story from my textbook.

  Another time, my mother asked me to read out the same story to her, for she didn’t know Urdu and I did. She began to sob even before I could finish the story. So did I. We never managed to finish the story, though we tried to, several times after that. The reaction was the same every time . . . we would both dissolve into tears before we could reach the end of the story. Looking back, I now wonder at Munshi Premchand’s powers as a writer and whether there was a particular age group he wrote for. His story had managed to elicit a similar reaction from a child as well as grown-up parents.

  At home, we had a tandoor in the courtyard, as was traditional in most households in Punjab. My mother used to bake rotis every evening. She would wet her hand, place the roti on her palm and in seconds would place it inside the burning tandoor to bake it. Despite her expertise she often had burn marks on her arms and occasionally bandaged fingers too, for the burns. That used to disturb me, but I never expressed it.

  A few years later my textbook at school had another story by Premchand. It was a story called ‘Idgah’ and uncannily it mirrored what I had observed in my own life. Hamid’s granny burns her fingers every day in the choolha (oven) while cooking and baking rotis. That used to disturb him, but he never said anything. Ultimately, on the occasion of Id, Hamid buys a chimta (tongs) after having saved up his pocket money to provide relief to his granny’s bandaged fingers.

  That was my early identification with Munshi Premchand. The stories were melodramatic perhaps, but effective. The characters looked simple, had simple desires, simple values, and simple morals. The narratives too were straightforward and everything was well explained. Nothing was left unsaid, not even the working of the mind. Whatever the character was thinking, was explained before his or her action.

  When I grew up, literature became a passion with me. Now, in college I started looking at things differently. I chose books from important writers in languages other than Urdu and English. These were books which I thought I must read, even if it meant reading them in translation.

  The social patterns of our world were changing too. We had travelled down a decade or so after independence. Like many others I was idealistic and full of great hopes for myself and the country.

  At this juncture, I came across Munshi Premchand again. He was an acclaimed writer of Urdu and Hindi. (He wrote in both the languages with ease, and also translated his work from one language to the other himself. ) The Utopian idealism underlying his work seemed both robust and attainable. His belief in social morals looked healthy and convincing. Premchand believed that these goals of reform could be achieved through ‘useful literature’. In one of his speeches at Madras in 1934, he had said:‘Without idealism, what is the use of literature? Without idealism, it is only to entertain and satisfy the lust for the amazing.’ He expected literature to play the role of a reformist.

  On a personal level, Premchand now sounded different to me from what I remembered of him during my schooldays. If anything, the social relevance of his stories became more striking. I began to see that his characters had a socioeconomic background, which was responsible for their behaviour patterns. Their acts and morals were the result of their economic vulnerability; in fact their poverty and deprivation denied them the luxury of having any ideals or convictions. Now his characters certainly didn’t look as simple as before. Or perhaps I should say that despite their simplicity, there was a hint that there was more to them than could be understood at the first reading.

  That was the time when I started making a more subjective selection and began to form a personal opinion about his stories. I liked some. Some I didn’t like at all. And now decades after independence, many a social issue had reared its ugly head once more in society. Evils, which we thought existed only because of the ills of British rule, persisted even a
fter independence. Take zamindari for example, which was a curse for the farmer and brought inhuman treatment to the landless peasant. Though it was abolished by law soon after India became an independent nation and the ‘land-to-the-tiller’ resolution was passed, for several years after that it remained an Act on paper alone. Today, several decades later, can we honestly say that we have seen a substantial improvement in the lives of poor Indian farmers?

  The curse of bonded labour still persists in many parts of India. In ‘Sawa Ser Gehoon’ Premchand elaborates on their misery. He shows us how an honest, god-fearing farmer finally becomes a bonded labourer on his own land.

  Then there is the caste problem. In the story ‘Thakur Ka Kuan’, the single well for the lower caste of people (chamaars) in the village has been polluted. Jokhu is sick and his wife struggles to get just one pitcher of clean water. The Thakur has placed guards around his well, and the one in the mandir is unapproachable for the lower castes. Her encounter with the ‘pujari’ is very crudely described, but Premchand hits the nail on the head, and spares us sophistry in the name of subtlety. She fails and Jokhu drinks the polluted poisonous water. Nothing had changed at the time of writing the story and for several years after that. Today, more time has passed. Who among us can say that these incidents do not happen in this free India that we live in?

  Premchand’s relevance became all the more important to me as I continued to mature as a reader. I realized he was one of the very few writers of Urdu and Hindi in the early twentieth century who wrote stories about the downtrodden and oppressed; those who form the bulk of our people. His protagonists were chamaars, kisans, and the corrupt Brahmins. Most other writers were busy writing either escapist romantic fiction or the increasingly slogan-ridden stories relevant to the nationalist movement for independence, which was gaining momentum in the country. Premchand’s stories and his complete and natural empathy with characters like Hori and Dhania in his classic Gaban made them come alive for his readers.

  Although he may not be known for a great show of craftsmanship, his portraits of ordinary rural people are brilliant. So detailed are his nuances of village life that he does not forget to describe even the caste and pedigree of cows and bulls and buffaloes. Not once does he use the names of months from the English calendar. It is always Chait, Baisakh, Phagun etc, as they are referred to in villages. His language, though not purely of the peasants, is not pure Hindi or Urdu either. It is the right blend of Urdu and Hindi and also our rural dialect. It is truly the language of the common man, and Hindustani in its full essence. Today it may sound a little difficult because of its leaning towards the Urdu idiom, but that was the spoken language in his times. Yet despite the changing times, his language still remains the role model for the most accessible form of Hindustani, the language of the common man.

  Meanwhile, two decades later, I had another encounter with Munshi Premchand. I decided to picturize his works for an audio-visual medium. I realized once again, inspite of many a conflict with him, Munshi Premchand had remained with me through the years. I started reading him again.

  This time I found some new stories which are rarely mentioned by the critics. In fact I was surprised that I had not come across them earlier either, despite having followed his writing for so many years. I also began to form new impressions after reading some old stories again.

  I began to wonder again at this quality in Munshi Premchand which made the reader respond in different ways at different times in his own life. This does not mean of course that I denied my earlier impressions, but perhaps some things hit with greater force. ‘Kafan’, for example. The climax of ‘Kafan’ is the most profound statement on poverty and against the society which fosters it.

  Ghisu and Madhav are a father and son duo from the lower caste. The most striking feature about their character is the fact that they are immune to their own poverty. They beg, but are not professional beggars. They want work, but are too lethargic to work. They indulge in petty thefts and are unmoved by their own deprivation. When Ghisu’s pregnant wife dies without food and medicine, with a child in her womb, they set out to beg so that they can give her a funeral. Later they change their mind and have a feast instead. Ghisu rationalizes his act by saying that society will take care of the funeral, since it is society which has caused her untimely death.

  ‘Poos Ki Raat’ is another story that may have been written by the master Russian storyteller Chekov, who incidentally was Munshi Premchand’s contemporary. It deals with just one character, one mood, one situation and yet it lays bare the sheer burden of poverty with very little fuss or grand statements. In my third encounter with Munshi Premchand I was also struck by the visuals he was able to provide to me. ‘Thakur Ka Kuan’ and ‘Namak Ka Darogha’ are a visual treat for any filmmaker. So is ‘Bade Bhai Saheb’ and ‘Kafan’.

  And finally there is a beautiful, restful and effortless communal harmony invoked by his characters and the worlds they occupy. It would never even occur to a reader to wonder about the communities or religious identities of his characters. Moreover, it is not an academic or assumed secularism. It is simply a part of the world he describes in a way that defies further probing. ‘Panch Parmeshwar’ is one such story. One longs for that kind of society even today. Premchand himself was an example of an unselfconscious and perfectly secular mind. The kind that has become very rare today.

  December 2006 Gulzar

  1

  A Winter’s Night

  Halku came up to Munni and said, ‘The landlord has come again. I will have to give him the money you had kept aside for a rainy day. There is no other way of getting rid of him.’

  Munni was sweeping the floor. She turned around and said, ‘We have just those three rupees. If you give him two, how will we buy the blanket? Without a blanket, how will you sleep out in the field in the cold winter night? Tell him, we shall pay him after the harvest, not now.’

  Halku stood still, undecided for a moment. What his wife said was true. Winter was setting in. He couldn’t possibly keep watch over his crop in the chilly nights without a warm covering. At the same time, the landlord was not going to agree; he would threaten and abuse. It seemed simpler to shiver through the winter nights than listen to the landlord rant endlessly. Halku (an inappropriate name, meaning ‘light’, for someone so huge) stepped closer to his wife and tried persuading her, ‘Give me that money or he will never go away. We shall think of some other way of getting that blanket.’

  Munni looked at him angrily. ‘That will be the day! Let me hear which other way you have thought of for getting that blanket? Is anyone likely to gift us one? We have been paying off this debt for years—god knows how many instalments are still left! I keep telling you, why don’t you leave tenant farming? You work so hard in the fields, yet the money the crop brings in goes into paying back the interest on the loan. Where does that leave you? You still have the debt amount to pay off! Were you born to simply pay off old debts? You can earn enough to fill your stomach if you take up work as a casual labourer. I tell you, there is nothing for you in farming. I won’t give you that money, I won’t.’

  Halku listened to her in silence, then asked sadly, ‘Do you want me to listen to his abuses?’

  Munni asked angrily, ‘Why would he abuse us? Is he our lord and master?’

  But no sooner had she spoken these words that the anger left her. The bitter truth hidden in Halku’s sad words hit her.

  She took out the money. Placing it on Halku’s open palm, she said, ‘Leave farming after this harvest. If you work as a hired hand, at least you will earn enough to eat. We will have some peace from this constant fear. How I hate farming! It takes back everything you put into it, and on top of it all, you have to listen to abuses and insults.’

  Halku took the money and went out feeling as though he had torn his heart out and was giving it away. How hard he had saved, paisa by paisa, to put together those three rupees to buy a blanket! Today, he was being forced to give it away. Wit
h every step, his shoulders bent under the weight of his helplessness.

  II

  It was a bitterly cold winter night. Even the stars seemed to shiver with the cold. At the edge of the field, under a shelter of sugar cane leaves, Halku lay shivering on a string cot, wrapped in an old piece of sack. Beside him lay his companion, Jabra the dog, with his head pressed into his stomach whimpering softly. Neither was able to sleep.

  Halku dug his head deeper between his knees and asked, ‘Feeling the cold, are you, Jabra? Didn’t I tell you to stay home? Why did you come here? Now get chilled to the bone; there is nothing I can do. You thought I was coming here for a feast, didn’t you? So you ran ahead and came here. Now whimper and whine all you want!’

  Jabra wagged his tail, whimpered a little louder, yawned hugely and then became quiet. His canine mind had perhaps understood that his master could not sleep because of his whimpering.

  Halku stroked Jabra’s cold back and said, ‘Don’t come with me from tomorrow or you will be laid out cold yourself. The biting westerly wind comes laden with darts of ice at this time of the year. I will get up and fix myself another pipe of tobacco. I have smoked eight pipes already. Such are the joys of farming! And look at those blessed few who, even in the dead of winter, feel too warm for comfort. God forbid that they should feel the cold with their thick mattresses, blankets and woollens! Blame it on luck . . . one man works hard while another lives on the fruits of his harvest.’

  Halku got up, dug out some live coals from the nearly dead fire and lit his pipe. Jabra too got to his feet.