PATTERN IN PREMCHAND'S STORIES

Author(s): Robert O. Swan

Source: Journal of South Asian Literature, Vol. 21, No. 2, ESSAYS ON PREMCHAND
(Summer, Fall 1986), pp. 123-132
Published by: Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University
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Robert 0. Swan

PATTERN IN PREMCHAND'S STORIES

Three configurations

Premchand wrote almost three hundred short stories, first in Urdu, then in
Hindi. He died in 1936, but the stories for many years were presented to the
public in ill-assorted collections, his stumbling first efforts placed beside
the best works, undated. For a long time the bewildered reader could not but
wonder if all these stories had been written by the same author. The stories,
whose order of composition was finally established by Premchand's son Amritrai
in the famous biography of his father, Premoahd: kalam ka sipahl, cover the
span of his last thirty years from about 1907 to 1936.'

Though Premchand wrote something almost eyery day (even while on his death-
bed), he could not make an adequate living with his pen. To support himself
and his family he worked as a government school teacher, a sub-deputy inspector
of schools, an editor, and a publisher in that order during his life. Only
once (apart from nine months as a scriptwriter for a Bombay cinema company) was
his pay as much as two hundred rupees a month, or about $67.00 in the exchange
rate of those days. This need for money may have made him write too much
and too fast. Some of the raw first stories perhaps should not have escaped
the wastepaper basket. Some editors seemed ready to take anything they could
lay their hands on to fill their magazines. The small sums of money they paid
out, however, would have discouraged any writer who did not have an un-
flagging optimism.

If the need for money can be blamed for some of Premchand's less memorable
writing, it seems odd to say that when he wrote from an almost opposite
vantage point, he also produced a set of unsuccessful stories. This happened
when he felt the public-spirited need to teach his countrymen what virtues they
must possess if they expected to be free. He also reminded them insistently of
the lofty moral and ethical standards practiced in India's past, all of which
predated contact with the West.

One is compelled to remember again that he wrote during the most stirring
years of the Indian nationalist movement. The noble precepts of leaders from
Dayananda Saraswati to Gandhi were everywhere being quoted and put to noble
slogans or chanted before liquor stores, foreign-cloth shops, and the closed
iron gates of government houses. All of India's creative impulses seemed
drawn into a fixed fervor for independence and the blessings that would flow
therefrom. It is not surprising that the noble feelings of those times should
also require an ardency of language able to support the subject matter.
More than one hundred years after Premchand's birth, the world now knows
that all the heated rhetoric of those days has assuredly had its effect. When
to the newspapers, speeches, stories, and plays are added several hundred mil-
lion voices daily shouting "British Go Back.' British Go Back!" with many
variations on that theme, and being heard in the segregated cantonments, at
the club in the civil lines and in the viceroy's palace itself, then the sum
total of the effect-now that the British have indeed gone back- seems like
laboratory evidence for the power of words.

We can imagine Premchand in the midst of the national frenzy writing eyery
day.4 He wrote short stories, novels, and plays. Three volumes of his
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editorials have also been collected by his son Amritrai.5 All the genres
show that his thoughts dwelt daily upon the topics that were agitating the
country.

He wrote forceful editorials. In his last years his own periodicals, Hans
(The Swan) and Jãgran (The Awakening), both just one step ahead of bankruptcy,
were fined by the government for being too outspokenly anti-British.6 After
being called in to explain himself, he might soft-pedal the next few edito-
rials, but not too many days later he would renew his habits of lèse majesté.
One can say he did his editorial bit for independence.

It seems natural that the social and political subjects of the editorials
should infiltrate his fictional writing. Fiction is supposed to reflect life.
As new events happened before his eyes in the years from 1907 to 1936, his sto-
ries show a full fictional use of the passing scene in India. Although the
ideals recommended for obtaining independence, social change, or cultural and
religious revival made especially fitting topics for politicians, reformers,
scholars, and editorialists, there was no reason they should not also be ap-
propriate subjects for novelists and storywriters. Good fiction is noted for
embodying great ideals or great attempts at ideals.

The implication often turns up in this paper, however, that something bad
can happen to a high ideal or noble aim when it is admitted into fiction.
Ideals brought into the contrived world of fiction should be carefully pre-
packaged in attractive boxes. In the event that such ideals are brought in
past the fiction border guards in heavy concentrations, they can confuse the
locals of this land of realistic make-believe with such practices as instant
conversion of incorrigible villains into incorruptible heroes, or insistence
upon covering the naked charms of the happy female indigens with long dresses
that will make them prone to diverse fictional diseases. To admit the mis-
sionaries of high ideals without rigid conditions (including >/ery brief visits)
written into their passports could make the inhabitants of a prose Eden self-
conscious and cause them to try and hide their natural nakedness. Harsh lights
turned on in the wrong places can ruin everything. Only certain genius sadhu-
types who can mix magic with their morals should be given extended visas.

In his early years Premchand called himself an "idealistic-realist." When

the whole sweep of his work is considered, however, one can say rather that
while his early stories stressed idealism, the later ones showed greater con-
cern that "realism should be mingled with it."7 These terms suggest that
there was always a struggle within him between stressing didactic purposes and
feeling that he might do better to camouflage them.
The stories develop in three major patterns. In the early period, 1907-
1920, they are didactic stories set in romantic environments. The stories of
the middle period, 1921-1930, are also generally didactic but placed in contem-
porary Indian settings, and appear to be strongly influenced by the teachings
of Tolstoy (1828-1910) and Gandhi in particular. The themes of PremchandYs
final stories, 1930-1936, are more various, and their point of view seems to
have shifted from the dictated prescriptions of the author to the individual
story problems of the characters.

1. Pattern One: 1907 to 1920.

In the early stories patriotism 1s acted out by romantic figures 1n whom

all ordinary human complexities are ironed out in order to stress the quality
of that patriotism. Premchand's first story, "Duniyã kã sab se anmol ratna
(The Most Precious Jewel 1n the World), one of a collection of five that was
confiscated and ordered burned by the British district officer of Mahoba Dis-
trict, U.P., as being subversive), 1s set 1n a region reminiscent of Persia.8
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The hero, commissioned by his beloved to find for her the most precious jewel
1n the world If he hopes to win her love, wanders all over the Middle East
until a messenger of God suggests that he turn his steps toward India. There
15 comes upon a battlefield filled with wounded and dying men. He tries to
staunch the blood of a dying Indian warrior who stops him, saying that he would
rather die than Uve on 1n a conquered land. The hero catches in his hand the
last drop of the warrior's blood and brings 1t to his beloved. It 1s this drop
of blood that proves to be the most precious jewel 1n the world.

Another series of early stories, those of medieval Rajput history, are a

step closer to realism only by virtue of the fact that they are peopled with
characters 1n whose veins runs Indian blood. However, the personalities of
these Rajputs, too, are wholly romantic and heroic. They die or kill for any
number of reasons- jealousy, hospitality, wifely duty and stubborness, revenge
for the death of a cow9- and all these situations serve to show that these
medieval characters are both brave and Indian.

2. Pattern Two: 1921 to 1930.

In 1921 Premchand heard Mahatma Gandhi speak at Gorakhpur In north

Uttar Pradesh (then the United Provinces); a few days later he resigned
as a government schoolteacher. Whatever masks of romantic setting or h
cal moment he had hitherto used to express his nationalism were now torn
His setting henceforth would be the contemporary Indian scene.

The decade of the 1920s began and ended with the non-cooperation and civil
disobedience movements. In between lay violent H1ndu-Musl1m Hots, the growing
rift between liberals and Congressmen, and the division among Congressmen them-
selves between those who wanted to contest elections under the provision of the
Montagu-Chelmsford reforms and those, following Gandhi, who turned away from
politics temporarily to devote their main attention to social programs.1"
Premchand, no longer a government servant, turned his eyes away from far-off
places and discovered his subject matter 1n the streets about him. Still
guided by the Idealistic part of his Idealistic realism, he created a host of
characters who at the beginning of a story act contrary to the Indian national-
ist program. They drink liquor, buy foreign cloth, or refuse to give up a fa-
vorite sari of Imported s1lk.lT By the end of the story, as 1f upon the ad-
vice of Gandhi, they give up liquor, burn their foreign cloth, and sacrifice
their silken wedding saris to aid the cause of Independence.

In the story "Dussãhas" (Brazeness) one character, a prominent lawyer of

Lucknow named Munshi Maikulal, always spends his evenings with rather disrepu-
table cronies drinking and taking drugs. They have stimulating conversations:
Apart from his profession and these Intellectual conversa-
tions, munsh1-jt borrowed no other headaches for himself.
He had no connection with any national movement, any organi-
zation, any social reform. The Bengal partition came and
also the swadeshi movement; the naram and garam dais were
organized; political reforms appeared; the desires for self-
rule had their birth pangs; the call for spiritual salva-
tion began to ring through the land; but they made not the
slightest difference 1n munshWt's deep equanimity.12
Nevertheless, one evening the munshi 's servant, sent to buy wine, comes
back from the liquor shop empty-handed. Congressmen, he says, were picketing
the shop. The munshi then goes off himself with his four friends. As they
approach the liquor shop one of his companions, a Muslim, 1s stopped by a
Muslim divine who says with some Irony, "Friend, this 1s your prayer time.
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How 1s 1t you've come here? Do you think you can solve the KMlafat problem
by this kind of religiousness?11"13

One by one the munshi's friends are quickly persuaded not only to turn away
from the liquor shop but to swear an oath that they will never touch another
drop of strong drink. The munshi, however, pushes his way through the pick-
eters, buys his bottle of liquor, and takes 1t home. As he tries to drink
alone, he curses his traitorous friends on whom he has spent so many rupees
uselessly. Then he remembers all the angry eyes that glared at him as he was
forcing his way Into the liquor shop. This makes him see himself as others
see him, a wastrel and a fool. In the end he throws his bottle of liquor
crashing Into the street.

Premchand has often been called a Gandhian writer, but 1t 1s difficult to

keep a good writer penned up all the time. His plots sometimes escape from
their non-violent denouements. Among his nationalist stories appear those In
which a central character goes ahead and defies all the accepted tenets and
achieves what he thinks are good Gandhian results by violent means; or a shop-
keeper sells forbidden English cloth 1n spite of Congress picketers; or a cus-
tomer, hoping not to be seen by the picketers out fr$nt, sneaks 1n though a
back door to buy a silk sari for his wife or mistress.'^
The conversion of a person sometimes takes place under humorous conditions,
which make it seem more palatable. But the purpose of the story Is usually the
same: to humiliate an Englishman, to castigate an Indian loyal to the British,
to have an Indian see the error of his ways, or to show that Muslims were as
true Indians as Hindus were.1**

In most of these stories the part of Premchand's "Idealistic-realism11 which

1s real1st1c~the setting, the action, the characterization up to the moment
of conversion- 1s often made lively by humor, dramatic and witty dialogue, and
a simple and supple language.16 In it one can see the home Ufe, the proces-
sions, the connivings, the sacrifices, the misery, the Hindu-Muslim riots, the
details of marriage parties, all kinds of people doing all kinds of things to
each other. To think over Premchand's stories 1n the aggregate Is to remember
what North India was Hke before Independence. Premchand often looked to the
Indian past for Inspiration. There he saw things that, 1f brought back and
shined up, could return the country to Its own animating principles. To empha-
size the old virtues he Hked to look to the West for apt contrasts. Justice
he saw served well by a panchayat but full of paper work and corruption 1n a
western court.17 The joint family (whose Impending breakup he seemed to see
towards the end of his life) he regarded as the upholder of qualities of un-
selfishness and cooperation, whereas the s1ngle-un1t family encouraged self-
Indulgence.1® He saw courtesy In India as opposed to arrogance and rudeness
1n the West.19 He saw possibilities of forgiveness, mercy, and non-violence
in the East, and a harsh, egotistic concentration on money, power, and pleasure
1n the West.20

On the subject of Indian women he also hammered home his point by contrast-
Ing traditional Indian women with modern westernized types who talk in public
with men, flirt, wear high heels and lipstick, and refuse to get married be-
cause it would Infringe upon their freedom. His Ideal 1s someone Hke Sita or
Savitri, who sacrificed all personal wishes to her husband, and whose glory
came as a reflection of her service and self-denial.21

This does not mean that Premchand was blind to the evil practices that had
crept Into Indian society over the centuries. He found much that was repel-
lent 1n modern marriage customs. He hated to see young girls married to old
men and young widows unable zz to remarry; he denounced the corruption and greed
1n the dowry system, zz yet his heroines, falling helplessly Into all the
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cruel traps laid by superstition and rusted custom, are generally true to the
description drawn of them by an Indian critic who writes: "In one sentence,
Premchand believes woman 1s the visible Image of service, self-denial, self-
sacrifice, purity, love, affection, self-control, courtesy forgiveness, firm-
ness . . . and other beautiful and generous emotions."" Luckily, virtues
thus strung out do not allow for the exceptional heroine or the more numerous
minor female characters who manage to break out of author-captivity.

In the story "Nairãsy" (Despair) a woman, Nirupama, keeps giving birth to

unwanted daughters and no sons; as a result, she 1s Insulted and treated as a
slave 1n her home. She finds that by going to see a famous holy man and get-
ting a sacred guarantee from him that her next child would be a son, she can
gain for herself nine months of respite:

When she became pregnant, new hopes began to flutter 1n

everyone's heart. Her mother-in-law, whose eyery Indrawn
breath before had Inhaled curses and ewery exhalation sar-
casm, now moved around her like a proffered dish of betel
nut. "Daughter, let It be; I'll prepare dinner; your head
will begin to ache"1

If Nirupama went to fill a jar of water or 11ft a bed,

her mother-in-law came running, "Daughter, let 1t be; I'm
coming, you mustn't lift anything heavy. It's a different
matter with daughters, nothing affects them; but boys must
be respected even 1n the womb."24

Premchand could look with tongue-in-cheek at his own society when he

wanted to. He was always prepared to lash out or mock men who acted evilly,
but 1t also seems that he felt social evils could be cured without destroying
the cherished Institutions Into which they crept. Indian women should be
treated better, he felt, but In marriage they should remain modest, self-
denying, and husband-adoring. If honest brahmans replaced dishonest ones,
temples and worship need not be destroyed. Of course, many brahmans 1n his
eyes were unsalvageable. He was merciless to temple priests and holy men who
preyed upon the credulity of the poor and unwary. In "Manuçy kã param dharm"
(Man's Highest Duty) he shows Pandit Moteram appearing on the ghats at Benaras
and gathering a crowd to hear his words:

"Brothers," he yelled, "you all know that when Brahma

created this Insubstantial world, He made the brahmans from
His mouth. Nobody doubts this matter?"

Audience: "No, maharaja you are telling the absolute

truth."

Pandit: "So . . . the brahmans come from Brahma's

mouth. This Is definite. Therefore, the mouth 1s man's
best part. So ... to give happiness to the mouth 1s
man's highest duty. Is this so or not?"25
Pandit Moteram then explains that there are several ways to give happ
to the mouth. One could sing the praises of many gods, worship Brahma a
assodate with pious men, but the highest method was to feed the mouth of a
brahman with the best quality sweets. He then lists his favorite kinds of
sweets and leaves no doubt- his brahman mouth watering- what he expects of a
proper, orthodox, Hindu audience.

To bring out the mendacity and greed of priests he elsewhere Involves them
1n heinous activities: helping the British rulers break up a nationalist
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satyagraha struggle, swindling villagers with a promise to double their cash
by mystic means, and ruining a farmer through the penances they set for the
accidental death of a cow on his property.26

Through this fertility of Invention emerged every Imaginable kind of plot

whose events and conflict were drawn from an Intimate knowledge of the country
1n which he lived. The extent and the detail of his description 1s so mani-
fold that 1t adds up to the creation of a whole fictional United Provinces.
To create something like this, even though 1t was not a whole world and took
Its creator more than seven days to complete, 1s something creditable even for
computerized times.

3. Pattern Three: 1930 to 1936.

Some of Premchand's strongest stories and his classic novel, Godãn, tell
about village Ufe.27 He knew the village well. He was born 1n one, and as
a sub-deputy Inspector of schools he wandered from village school to village
school through the poverty-stricken districts of eastern United Provinces for
several years. His pity for the peasant made him long for reforms on their
behalf. They worked against such Impossible odds.

In his earlier stories he sought to make a blueprint for reforms In fiction

by seeking the help of Tolstoy, Swami Dayananda's Arya Samaj, Gandhi, even
British art historian and social critic John Ruskin (1819-1900). Through their
teachings of love, mercy, self-denial, and nonviolent soul-force, he sought to
make evil landlords, corrupt police officials, and greedy priests see the error
of their ways and become kindly fathers of their people.28 These stories,
unfortunately, make one feel that Premchand was forcing his subject down roads
1t did not want to go. He knew the villagers yery well but may never have seen
the prototypes for an idealistic landlord or a social -reforming moneylender.

Even 1n these earlier stories the parts that are truest to life are pre-
cisely those where the peasants are left to themselves. Premchand had heard
their kind of humor, had seen their selfishness, their generosity, and had wit-
nessed their despair and endurance. When stories concern conflict between
peasant and peasant, they bear the mark of his master knowledge.29

After 1930 Premchand's village stories are generally more self-contained.

They are not programmed to Gandhian to Tolstoyan prescriptions. Heroes do not
travel from town to the village to convince case-hardened landlords and money-
lenders why they should forego their ruthlessness and become fatherly for free.
Thus no pink glow on the fictional horizon suggests hope for tomorrow. The
outcastes and poor are on their own. One reads the stories as 1f looking 1n
and seeing everything without being seen oneself. The comedy and the tragedy
are unpostured.30

Some critics see 1n this change simply the fact that Premchand was
becoming disillusioned with Gandhism and Interested in more revolutionary
Ideas. On the other hand, Premchand's own words on the writing of the short
story at this period show that he had begun seriously to question the validity
of using fiction as a deliberate arm of legislature or moral reform. ^ One
could hope for those kinds of things, he felt, but let them now come Into the
story as cleverly disguised fringe benefits.

During the last five or six years of his Ufe Premchand wrote a series of
stories sometimes connected with village Ufe but also often set In city or
town. These may stand through time as among his best writings. The charac-
ters appear to have taken over their own world, the creator to have concealed
himself. Instead of abstract themes sent down from above, such as "In order
to get rid of the British we must be strong and brave" or "The landlord should
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be self-denying 1n order that the peasant may get a decent living," the new
stories are content with smaller, more concrete bits of the great truths: "How
can an older brother maintain his pride and authority over a younger brother
who 1s smarter than he 1s?" or "What happens to the fixed principles of a
young socialist when he goes for a weekend to a rich landlord's house?" or
"What are the reactions of certain passers-by at sight of a respectable-
looking, middle-class girl sleeping on a bench in a public park in broad
daylight?"32

One such example will suffice. The story of the big brother and younger
brother ("Bare bhãT sãhab" ) is seen through the observant eyes of the latter.
The boys go to the same school. The younger brother plays all the time and
never studies, while the older stays in his room and pores over his books.
Nevertheless, when the examinations are held, the younger brother always
passes, and the older fails. This goes on year after year until only one
class separates them. The elder brother scolds the younger severely for not
studying. When several classes still separated them, the elder says:

"Don't go by the fact that I failed. When you come to my

class, even your teeth will begin to sweat when you have to
chew the iron gram of algebra and geometry and English his-
tory. It's not easy to remember the names of the kings.
At least eight Henrys lived. Do you think it's easy to
remember what happened in the time of which Henry? If you
write Henry VII instead of Henry YIII, you'll lose all your
points. . . . There have been dozens of Jameses, dozens of
Williams, scores of Charleses. Your mind begins to go round
and round. You get cyclone sickness. ... And geometry-
for that you'll need the help of God! Write a-j-b instead
of a-b-j and all your marks will be lowered. ... If you
eat lentil s-r1ce-bread instead of bread-rice-lentils, what's
so special about that? But do the examiners care?"33

But when the younger brother has almost caught up to the big brother and
has proved capable of passing history and geometry with yery little study, the
elder 1s forced to alter his sermons. He turns to other arguments such as:
after all, education 1s not everything. And finally, one day when he catches
his younger brother flying kites with some bazaar youths, he shouts:

"Don't you even respect the fact that you're no longer in a

low class and that you've reached the eighth class and are
only one class behind me? A person should consider his po-
sition. There was a time when people who passed the eighth
class became assistant tahsïldars. How many middle-school
graduates don't I know who are Class-1 deputy magistrates or
superintendents. . . . How many eighth-class passers are
now our leaders and editors. . . . And you, you come into
the eighth class and play with bazaar loafers."3^
The reader laughs and sympathizes. As time passes, year after year, the
older brother keeps falling and 1s forced to devise new sermons as he twists
and maneuvers to hold on to his slipping pride. At the same time his baffle-
ment in the face of a curriculum that Includes all the Henrys and Charleses
but no Ashokas or Akbars offers- without the author's outrage showing- a theme
on freedom that can capture a reader's feelings as well as his credence.
Premchand's name is now a part of Indian history. Critics with pens like
picks and shovels will dig around among his writings for symbols. Politicians
will call attention to his name in order to draw attention to their own.
Children, under duress, will have to read him 1n class and graduate perhaps
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remembering only his name. So his name will somehow last. Whether 1t will be
honored and his work loved will be seen more clearly on his bicentenary 1n
2080 A.D. Then Premchand will have found his own level of rememberance 1n his-
tory. By then 1t will be known whether he 1s remembered only by his statues
or 1f he Uves on 1n much-thumbed paperbacks.

Notes

1. Amritrai, Premcahd: kalom ka sipahl (Premchand: Soldier of the Pen) (Al-

lahabad: Hans Prakashan, 1962).

2. Ibid., p. 143. When he was thirty-five years old his salary was Rs. 50 and
then sixty. But he was not unshrewd. Such paychecks only drove him to find a
house In a poor Muslim quarter that rented for just Rs. 4 a month.

3. Dayananda Saraswati: for a note on him, see p. 53.

4. Pyare Lai Shakir, In Premcahd smrti (Premchand: In Memoriam), ed. Amrit-

rai (Allahabad: Hans Prakashan, 1959),' p. 130. Shakir says he came to visit
Premchand and found him lying on his stomach writing furiously, his feet wav-
ing about in the air as If keeping time with his pen. He claims Premchand did
not like sitting at a desk unless he had to.

5. vividh prasahg (Miscellaneous Topics), ed. Amrîtrai, 3 vols. (Allahabad:

Hans Prakashan, 1962).

6. Amritrai, Premcahd: kalam kä sipahï, pp. 484-85.

7. Kuch vicãr (Some Thoughts) ed. Amritrai (Allahabad: Saraswati Press,

1961), p. 30. "The idealists," he wrote, "ask what is the value of showing
the realistic shape of the real? We see that with our own eyes. . . .
Idealists do not regard literature as a mirror of society, but as a light.
The ancient literature of India supported this idealism. Of course, realism
should be mingled with it that it may not go far from the truth."
8. Soz-e-vatan (Passion of the Fatherland) (1908; rpt. Allahabad: Hans Pra-
kashan, 1961), pp. 1-14.

9. See respectively "Rãjã hardaul" (King Hardaul), Mãnsarovar, 8 vols. (Al-

lahabad: Saraswati Press, 1962), 6:12-26; "Rãni sãrahdhã," (Queen Sarandha),
45-62; "Maryãda kî vedi" (Worshipper of the Proprieties), 98-114; and "Pap ka
agnikurtrf1 (The F1re of Sin), 127-38.

10. Montagu-Chelmsford reforms: revisions 1n laws promised to India during

World War I; these were to serve as the basis for the 1919 Government of India
Act, which introduced the concept of dyarchy.

11. See respectively "Dussãhas" (Brazenness), Mãnsarovar, 8:202-10; "ÄkhTrT

tohfã" (The Final Gift), Gupt dhan (Hidden Treasure), 2 vols. (Allahabad: Hans
Prakashan, 1962), 2:81-93; and "Suhãg kf sãrT" (The Wedding Sari), Mãnsarovar,
7:270-79.

12. Mãnsarovar, 8:202-203.

Naram (soft) and garam (hot) were names given to the moderate and extrem-
ist groups of the Indian nationalist movement led by G. K. Gokhale and B. G.
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T1lak. The word "extremist" has been Inflated since then. For a note on
Gokhale and Tilak, see p. 121.

Bengal partition, swadeshi movement: the partition of Bengal Into two ad-
ministrative units took place 1n 1905; resentment by the Bengalis was so deep
that leaders such as Surendranath Banerjee (1848-1925) agitated against the
partition by advocating the use of 8vadeéhï,i.e.9 Indigenous manufactured pro-
ducts, and the boycott of British goods; the partition was annulled In 1911.

13. Khilafat "problem": a movement among Indian Muslims after World War I
which opposed the dismemberment of the Turkish Cal1ph1te.

14. See respectively "Maiku" (a proper name), Samar yãtvã (The Battle March),
7th ed. (1930; rpt. Allahabad: Saraswati Press, 1953), pp. 95-100; "Cakmã"
(Deception), Mänsarovar, 6:220-26; and "Holí kã upahãr" (The Hol1 Gift), fofiat
(The Shroud), 10th ed. (Allahabad: Hans Prakashan, 1961), pp. 111-17.

15. See respectively " Istîfâ" (Resignation), Mãnsarovav, 5:321-32; "Vici tra
holT11 (The Strange Holí), 3:227-32; "Lai fftã" (Red Tape), Prem caturthl, 2d
ed. (1929; rpt. Benaras: Saraswati Press, 1959), pp. 48-72 (caturthl refers to
the fourth day of a lunar fortnight); and "Mandir aur masjicf' (Temple and
Mosque), Gupt dhan, 2:156-69.
16. For a discussion of humor In Premchand's language, see Michael C.
Shapiro's "The Language of Humor 1n Premchand's Short Stories," pp. 99-111.
17. See respectively "Pane parameávar" (Inspired Power of the Panchayat), Man-
sarovar, 7:152-64, and M lava riy nyãy" (Divine Justice), 5:248-68.
18. See respectively "Bare ghar kî betf (Daughter of a Respectable Home),
Mãnsarovar, 7:142-51, and "Algyojhi" (Separate Arrangements), Gvamy jivãn H
kahãniyãh (Stories of Village Life) (Allahabad: Saraswati Press, 1961), pp.
13-38.

19. "UnmSrf1 (Insanity), Mãnsarovar, 2:120-41.

20. Ibid., pp. 122-23.

21. Sita, the wife of Rama, and Savitri, the bride of Satyavan, are classical
heroines of Hindu legend. Their utter devotion to their husbands cannot be
matched. For discussions of various aspects of Premchand's women In this
volume, see Suresht Renjen Bald, "Power and Poweriessness in Rural and Urban
Women in Premchand's Godãn3n pp. 1-15; Ninnala Jain, "Women in Premchand's
Writing," pp. 40-44; and Ranjini Obeyesekere, "Women's Rights and Roles in
Premchand's Godãy," pp. 57-64.
22. See respectively "Nayã vivãh" (New Marriage), Mãnsarovav, 2:335-71; "Nai-
rãáy-lílã" (The Play of Despair), 3:53-65; and "Ek ãnc kT kasar" (A Dwindled
Flame), 87-95.

23. Gita Lai, Premcand kã navi oitran (Premchand's Portrayal of Women) (Delhi:
Hindi Sahitya Samsar, 1965), p. 9.
24. Mãnsarovar, 3:119-20.

25. Ibid., pp. 206-207.

26. See respectively "Sa tySgraha" (Truth -Force), ibid., pp. 282-96; "Neyur" (a
proper name), 2:275-85; and "Mukti-mãrçj" (The Path of Salvation), 3:233-44.

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27. Goâãn (The Gift of a Cow) (1936; rpt. Allahabad: Saraswati Press, 1972);
this work has been translated Into English twice: Godãn, trans. Ja1 Ratan and
P. Lai (Bombay: Jaleo, 1957) and by Gordon C. Roadarmel as The Gift of a Cow:
A translation of the Hindi novel, Godaan (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
Press, 1968).

28. "Updeé" (The Lesson), Mansarovar, 8:279-300.

29. "Mukti-mãrg" (The Path of Salvation), Ibid., 3:233-44. See also "Balidãn"
(Sacrifice), 8:64-73.

30. For example: "Pus kf rat" (A January Night), Mansarovar, 1:157-63),

"Kafan" (The Shroud), Kafan, pp. 5-14); "Düdh kã dãm" (The Price of M1lk),
Mãnsarovar, 2:212-22; "Sadgati" (A Good Place 1n the Hereafter), Mãnsarovar,
4:18-26); and "Thakur kã kuãh" (The Landlord's Well), Mãnsarovar, 1:139-42.
31 . Mänsarovav, 1 :5-l 1 .

32. See respectively "Bare bhãl sãhab" (My Big Brother), Ibid. , pp. 88-98;
"Nasa11 (Intoxication), pp. '113-21; and "Manovrti" (Mental States), pp. 331-38.
33. Ibid., pp. 92-93.

34. Ibid., p. 93.

Tahslldãr: a collector of revenue in a tahsil, an administrative sub-

division of a district.

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