Story of the Indian short story

By Usha Bande

INDIA was a fabulously rich storehouse of fictional literature. Stories from the Puranas, Panchtantra, Jatakas, Katha Sarit Sagar and a whole range of myths, legends, and folk tales prove that the art of story-telling existed in India from time immemorial. These stories were full of fantasy, didacticism, narrations of the joys and sorrows of life, and exposition of emotions and philosophy.

The short-story in its present form, as a finished work of art is relatively modern. It made its beginning under the influence of the West. Guy de Maupassant, O. Henry, Anton Chekov, John Galsworthy, Somerset Maugham, Rudyard Kipling and Edgar Allan Poe, were great short story writers who greatly inspired the Indian masters in many ways. Today, the Indian short story in Hindi, Punjabi, Marathi, in fact, in almost all regional languages and of course in English, has spread its wings. It incorporates the charms of traditional touch, modern reality and an artistic style.

Since the Independence, the Indian short story has matured considerably. It is able to portray the social realities and to record, with precision, the blows dealt out to Indian traditions and value system. Nothing escapes the notice of the argues-eyed story-teller. Political behaviour, the joint family system, the generation gap, changing attitudes towards love, marriage and sex and the faminist ideology — have all been subjected to incisive analysis.

These fiction-writers are watching with concern the shift in moral values and are trying to analyse the period of transition. Since they too are a part of the game of see-saw of the old and the new values, the tussle between tradition and modernity, they consider it their duty to focus on the issues that concern the society.

Here I would like to survey the scene of the past half a century, since Independence. The single major event to herald changes in India and the Indian vision was the Independence. This significant historical event, followed by the trauma of Partition, the dream to establish an ideal state, the philosophy of non-violence bequeathed to us by Mahatma Gandhi, the call given by Baba Saheb Ambedkar to the Dalits, the rapidly changing family scenario with the spread of women’s education, were some of the themes taken up by the creative writers.

These fiction writers were not unaware of the political realities and minced no words when it came to depicting the fall from the image of a selfless, all-sacrificing, simple and honest politician to the all-grabbing, selfish and dishonest individual. Short stories by Bharav Prasad Gupta Ek Paon Ka Juta, Sukhbir Lekhak aur Lekhak, Rajendra Awasthi Janseva expose the harsh realities of a hypocritic system which has bred a breed of such dishonest men.

While the writers from the North who had borne the brunt of Partition or had witnessed the gruesome incidents of rape, arson and killings depicted the fractured psyche of the affected people, the call given by Baba Saheb Ambedkar gave rise of the Dalit short story in Maharashtra.

Ajit Cour’s Suraj, chidiyan aur Rabb (Punjabi short story) beautifully portrays the loneliness of an old man - Dadaji - who is biding his time after having lost everything during Partition. Bhisham Sahni’s stories, too, show the traumatic effect of Partition on his characters. On the other hand, the Dalit short story came up in Maharashtra revealing the sorry state of the Dalits due to the rigid caste system. Writers like Anna Bhau Sathe, D.D. Thorat, Shankar Rao Kharat, Baburao Bagul and others relentlessly attacked the society that does not give human status to the Dalit. This was a revolutionary step.

The country in the 1950s and 1960s was passing through rapid changes. On the one hand there was increasing urbanisation, giving rise to an urban middle-class caught in the vortex of change; on the other, rural life was gaining popularity. In Hindi short story Kamleshwar, Krishna Sobti, Dharmvir Bharati, Mahip Singh and many others wrote incisive stories dealing with rural life. Atma Ki Awaz (Kamleshwar) Zindagi aur Jonk (Amarkant), Ek Naav Ke Yatri (Shani) provide an analytical study of village mentality.

In Marathi Vyankatesh Madgulkar, Shankar Patil, D.M. Mirasdar and others have portrayed the village life in Maharashtra. These writers have not eulogised or glorified villages as abodes of peace and simplicity but have brought to the fore the superstitions, illiteracy and the difficulties faced by the rural folk.

A massive change is visible in the pattern of life in the cities which provides inexhaustible themes for creative writing. These are the breakdown of middle-class values, the changed attitude towards marriage, love and sex, man-woman relationship, generation gap and the resultant alienation. In Hindi one could read Usha Priyambada’s Vaapsi in which the author depicts the loneliness of an old man. Ajit Cour’s Suraj, Chidiyan aur Rabb (Punjabi) has an undertone of Dadaji’s loneliness. The joint family is breaking and with it we encounter several problems. Prabhakar Dwivedi’s Teen Vaishyain and Deepti Aggarwal’s Vidya take up the case for the joint family system, while Anita Desai’s Studies in the park, is its critique.

Woman’s education and her economic independence have given rise to conflicts as the society is dangling between the traditional values and the new outlook. It is interesting to note that whereas some writers are successfully portraying woman’s plight, advocating change, others are not quite sure whether the economic independence is giving them the desired self-confidence or making them wayward.

In Marathi short story, Gangadhar Gadgil’s treatment of his women is incisive, authentic and convincing. His women seem to walk straight out of real life. For example, in his story Farewell, Janakibai is a spineless, docile woman who does not evoke the writer’s sympathy. Nor does the writer has any sympathy for a woman who aspires to academic distinction without any evidence of independent thinking like the research scholar in A Contented Soul. Gadgil wants his women to have the zest for life, the fire and the sparkle of the real womanhood.

Mahinder Singh Joshi’s Punjabi story The Silken Chain, takes up the case for a young, beautiful and virile Tejo who is forced into marrying a 40-year-old, one-eyed man, when she is passionately in love with a young man. Ramesh K. Srivastava’s stories portray women with a variety of foibles and follies. The story The Downing Man points to the fact that a rural, raw girl need not be an innocent angel in the modern context. Daleep Kaur Tiwana has focused on subtle nuances of the man-woman relationship. For her, a woman in India "at once, lives in different ages: pre-historic, historic, medieval, colonial and post colonial". Sudha Arora’s stories, collected in Bagair Tarashe Hue depict the paradoxes of a woman’s life.

Women writers, in particular, disdain spineless women characters and expect them to react and ask for their right. Amrita Pritam (Punjabi), Krishna Sobti (Hindi), Ajit Cour (Punjabi), Gauri Deshpande (Marathi), Shashi Deshpande (Indo-English), see their women as individuals and not types. They want them not to accept the age-old subjugation and victimisation. Some of the women writers enjoy paying the male back in his own coin. One such story is Dina Mehta’s Absolution (Indo-English). The husband has numerous affairs and after every act of infidelity he brings home a bouquet of carnations for his wife.

"This is for you," he says. She suffers mutely. But once while the husband is away on his usual jaunt, she spends the night with his colleague. The next morning the husband sees fresh carnations on the dining table in the usual vase. When he asks who brought these, she stuns him, with a simple: "This is for you."

Adultery, considered a sin so far is upheld as nothing serious. Some valid reasons are advocated by both the sexes. There are writers who look at it with sympathetic understanding. In Hindi, we have Nirmal Verma’s Weekend, Mridula Garg’s Duniya Ka Kavada, Mrinal Pande’s Gandhi, in Marathi, Gauri Deshpande’s Kavlya-chimni chi Gosht, Padmaja Phatak’s Divey Lagni trying to understand extra-marital relations sympathetically.

Love, marriage, divorce and the problem of children have been dealt with by many writers — both men and women. Shiela Rohekar’s Dishantar is the story in point. In Marathi, Vibhavari Shirurkar had advocated the right to divorce. Later writers, like Vasudha Patil, Priya Tendulkar have taken up the case for divorce as not to be shunned.

Vasudha Patil’s Bela shows the efficacy of the system. Bela, a happily married young woman has a shock when her husband becomes insane. Instead of living in his shadow and spending a useless life of self-sacrifice, Bela takes her mother-in-law in confidence, seeks divorce, ramarries and settles happily, giving a good life to her children.

Some of the short story writers are bold and frank in presenting life as it is lived. In Krishna Sobti’s Mitro Marjani, (a novel though) the protagonist accepts her sexuality and flaunts its power.

In an interview, Krishna Sobti reiterates her faith in contemporary Hindi literature and says that "The deepest part of a creative writer is his or her honesty and concern to reach to the truth, to look into things, not at them."

Some writers have been "looking into" the truth and giving us harrowing pictures of life. Mahashweta Devi’s Bengali short story Draupadi, for example and C.S. Lakshmi’s Tamil story Black Horse Square. These stories centre round the reactions of women activists to rape and violence. Draupadi deconstructs the established patriarchal conceptualisation of rape and develops a rhetoric for retaliation. The Black Horse Square argues that by delinking sexuality and crime, one could reject the patriarchal power. Shashi Deshpande’s stories revolve round women’s right to her body. The fears of newly married women are shown very subtly by Shashi Deshpande in her Intrusion and by Asha Bage in Rukhmini (Marathi). Without being unduly obvious, both these writers successfully probe a woman’s psyche.

While the big three — Raja Rao, Mulk Raj Anand and R.K. Narayan gave shape to the Indian-English short-story in its early years, it is later writers who explored numerous other possibilities in the post-Independence era. In Hindi, Munshi Premchand and his contemporaries gave the platform to the Hindi short story. In Marathi names like Haribhan Apte, Vibhavari Shirurkar; and in Punjabi Amrita Pritam, K.S. Duggal are to be reckoned with.

Contemporary short story has taken sufficient cognisance of movements like feminism, Marxism, the new story, existentialism, realism, naturalism and surrealism. It has been aware of these trends which the fiction writers borrow from the West but use it to suit our typical social environs. Most writers even the rebellious ones like Gauri Deshpande — do not want the Indian women to follow the Western model of feminism.

In an interview with the present writer, Ms Deshpande said that feminists should first try to probe Indian social history and see what the pioneers had done and then choose their path. Similarly, Dilip Chitre’s existential hero portrayed in his Orpheus, or Vilas Sarang’s alienated man in the absurd world are recognizable modern Indian urbanite. About the modern Indian, Arun Joshi has this to say in his short story The Survivor, through his hero Kewal Kapur:

"I am a survivor of card parties, of wedding receptions, of five-year plans, of nosy neighbours, of conjugal bliss, of well-meaning friends and bloody-minded bosses. I am a survivor of life insurance schems, of stock exchange and of family planning techniques. In brief, gentlemen, I am survivor of that fantastic racket that passes for Modern Indian Society."

A short story, says Poe "is a piece of fiction dealing with a single incident — material or spiritual — that can be read at one sitting. It is original; it must sparkle, excite, or impress and it must have a unity of effect or impression. It must move in an even line from its exposition to its close." Indian short story — be it in Hindi, English, Punjabi or Marathi is subtle, alive and direct.

It has unity of effect and is hard-hitting. It is alive to the present realities and has shown a sharp reaction to the changing values. A short story reaches the common reader more easily than a novel or poetry as it is short and can be read within "half-an-hour," as H.G. Wells once remarked. Moreover, the modern short story is the product of the magazine age and magazines are within the reach of the common reader.

  Pooja’s Zakhm must heal

By Vimla Patil

POOJA BHATT’S film Zakhm has hit turbulent times with the censors. Well, not exactly with the Censor Board but with its chairperson Asha Parekh, who wants the Home Ministry to clear it. "With its release scheduled for the third week of November, we are working hard to solve the problem. Our distributors are getting impatient and Mukesh Bhatt, who is head of distribution, is naturally a bit nervous," says Pooja, who lives with her mother Kiran and young brother in suburban Mumbai. "We showed the film to the members of the Censor Board, and with a mere one line cut, they passed it for adult viewing. But then the chairman, Asha Parekh, who has not yet seen the film, has decided that the film should be cleared by the Home Ministry. First, Ashaji wanted the Maharashtra Home Ministry to pass it but we said that since it is to be shown all over India, it should be referred to the Central Home Ministry.

The matter is in limbo just now and no one is willing to give any definite answers to us. With this uncertainty, we are a little uneasy. We wish the censors would say yes or no clearly. In case the film is banned, we are then free to go for a review, or to the tribunal and finally, the Supreme Court. But we must have a sure answer before we take any step. I have shown the film to Shatrughan Sinha and he just loved it. He too has promised to take up our case with the Government."

Bhatt’s Zakhm is truly nowhere near a ‘communal’ film. It seems full of passion and intensity not because of any religious zeal but because of the incredible relationship between a mother and her love child, which is portrayed in it. In fact, this is the fictionalised story of director Mahesh Bhatt and his mother Shirin, who died just six months ago. Zakhm is the final catharsis of the wound which Mahesh Bhatt has carried in his heart for a lifetime. He earlier tried to wash away its pain in Naam and then in Najayaz but he needed a strong film like Zakhm to complete this mother-son trilogy. Zakhm, which stars Pooja Bhatt (as the Muslim mother who passes on the heritage of love and a secular way of life to her illegitimate Hindu sons) and Ajay Devgan (as the elder son who is privy to his mother’s secret personality as a child), runs the full gamut of anger, sorrow, humiliation, love, anguish, loyalty and a determined passion, till at the end, Ajay insists on giving his mother a burial according to Islamic rites as per her last wish. This simple but power-packed narration of the love of a mother and son is presented against the background of the 1992 Mumbai riots. The riots are a mere backdrop, not the main issue in the film. The soul of the film is the tragedy which envelopes a mother who is not married to the father of her children and a son who cries out for social and familial respect for his mother, who has shown him how all religions can co-exist in the same home with love and understanding.

The film is so effective in showing a son’s devotion to his mother and in displaying true secularism in practice rather than mere theory. Every adolescent Indian must see it to experience the stark reality of Indian life. The film shows the soul-stirring trauma of a woman’s life when she is denied a legal marriage by a fanatic society, a child’s longing for love and security and a man’s helplessness in the face of his dual duties. It also shows how political opportunists of all shades use people in tragic situations to fulfil their heinous ambitions.

That Pooja Bhatt should produce such a film is no wonder at all. While she began her acting career at 17, and won immediate superstardom, she always hankered after ‘something more meaningful to do’. "Why not production?" she reminisces, "My father had often mentioned the script of Tamanna to me but had wondered who would be willing to produce such a film. I took him up and began working on the production of that film. In production, one learns so much more than when one is acting in someone else’s film. I learnt the value of time, the function of money, the personalities of people involved and the many other aspects of film management. I made Dushman too to satisfy this passion to make a good product. This does not mean that I won’t act or work in others’ films. Being a producer has indeed affected my acting career. First, people thought I’d work only in my father’s films. Then they thought I’d work in my own films. Neither presumption is correct. I’ll do any good role. But, I don’t have to work for just money. I’m secure and can afford to contemplate on what really grabs me. Just now, I’m looking at new scripts. I’m doing Neil Simon’s play — called Khubsoorat in Hindi — in the US with Bharat Kapoor.

"I am producing and acting in Dhadkan a TV serial based on Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, directed by Vikram Bhatt (who made Ghulam) and shot by Pravin Bhatt. I manage my personal life well and am proud that from being a teeny-boppers’ glamorous heroine, I have graduated to being their real soul-mate. I started earning at 15 and am financially independent. I have a young brother in school and my mother lives a quiet life with her gardening and other hobbies. My grandmother, about whom the film is, was my father’s and my greatest admirer and loved to see our names on the marquee. She saw every film we made or I acted in. My grandfather has ‘heard’ Zakhm but not seen it because he is blind due to age. My father, Mukesh Bhatt and Robin Bhatt are step brothers. Vijay Bhatt, (whose son Vikram is) is not a relation but a colleague and the two families have worked together for decades. My mother is an Anglo-Indian, with British and Armenian blood in her. I am a cocktail of Muslim, British, Armenian and Hindu descent. I am grateful for my looks which are a gift from my lovely mother."

Pooja’s talent is well pitched against Ajay Devgan in Zakhm. "We chose Ajay because he has more happening within him than the average chocolate hero of Hindi films. His silences have an uncanny strength. My father told him the bare outline of the script and he accepted the role immediately. That was wonderful. The depth of his acting really lights up the screen. He is tremendously moving. The role of the mother too is strongly etched out and I am proud of the work I’ve done, especially in the ambience created for the character by Tanuja Chandra, who was assistant director and screenplay writer."

Now, Pooja, the maker of Zakhm, waits with baited breath for its release. "Those who have seen the film, think it is beautiful," she says, "We hope all Indians will see it, because it celebrates the victory of love and peace over hatred and violence time and time again!