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Panchlight and Other Stories THE cover photo best sums up the image we have of Bihar today—of a river in spate, with two children astride wading buffaloes and (probably) their parents following them clutching their meagre belongings. Bihar nowadays captures headlines usually because of its disasters, both manmade and natural, or because of its backwardness and poverty.
This collection adroitly captures the rich landscape of Bihar and the vagaries of its weather which make its people enduring and their tales endearing. They also engage us with the mindscape of rural Bihar with its caste divide, its political awareness, its resistance to change the old social order and its rich Maithali prose and poetry suffused equally with Khari boli, Hinglish (‘apabhrans English’ as Renu referred to it) and Nirguna poetry. He likened the language of his writings to raw silk—in its thick texture and its crudity lay its beauty. Its vocabulary can’t be thrust upon characters, but must collate with the rhythm and syntax of the narrative set in the remote hinterland, is what he believed. By his own admission (in an interview with Lothar Lutze, also a translator of his works), his stories were not built around a plot, character or idea. "It is the problems," he had reiterated, "one has to find (locate) oneself in the day-to-day problems of the common man". He, therefore, resented the tag of an ‘anchalik upanyaskar’ (a regional writer). It is "as if the regional writer has nothing to with the man, his problems", he protested. He was very much a son-of-the-soil and in close touch with its people and unfortunately, on the wrong side of the prevalent political ideology of his time. Panchlight, (Petromax) (and in parts, The Queen of Hearts) which lends the title to this collection, is a supreme example of the practical pacifism of the rural folk who sink differences to invite a banished member to light their lamp. The Wrestler’s Drum and The Hurt speak of the nobility of character of the common man who never abstains from his ‘dharma’ despite odds. The Messenger
and The Estrangement display the deftness of the storyteller’s
craft and play on the emotions of the characters as well as the
readers. Most of the remaining stories are a critique of ‘the party
politics’ culture in Bihar. Nevertheless, as Rakhshanda Jalil avers
in the introductory note, "if the writer can perchance touch the
reader at some level—be it emotional or intellectual—then the
remoteness of its setting or the strangeness of its characters is of
little consequence". Her fine translations have retained the
diaphanous nature of the stories. What more could a reader ask for?
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Phanishwar
Nath Renu, hailed as the second literary great after Premchand,
however, draws an intensely humane and vivid portrayal of the people
of this (now deprecatingly called) ‘cowbelt’ region. The selected
tales match the sweep of his maiden novel Maila Anchal and the
dexterity of his craft as in short stories like Mare Gaye Gulfam
picturised as Teesri Kasam with Raj Kapoor and Waheeda Rehman
in the lead roles.