I still remember the days of the meetings of the Cultural Forum. It was informal and friendly. No one was better or worse than the other; we would listen to each other’s work with open minds, freely offering our appreciation.
Then the Sahitya Akademi was established in Delhi. Countless writers were drawn to it. Its original offices were in Connaught Place, in the Regal Cinema building, on the first floor. That is where I first got the opportunity to meet Prabhakar Machwe, Nemichandra Jain and Bharatbhushan Agrawal.
The cultural circles began to change thus after Independence. People began to leave Allahabad, which had been the centre of Hindi literature. Dharamvir Bharati moved to Bombay. Bhairav Prasad Gupta and Kamleshwar moved to Delhi, as did Rajendra Yadav from Agra. Delhi and Bombay were now the main centres of gravity. They were also becoming the centres of literary activity in Hindi and they remained so for a long time. Namvar Singh moved from Banaras to Delhi later. Mohan Rakesh moved to Delhi from Jalandhar. This trend had an effect on the form and nature of literary activities. Various schools of literary thought also fought with each other. The tendency to claim territory and plant a flag also increased. Previously, there was more naturalness to literary production. Afterwards, stories took on ideologies and began to propagate “movements” – “New Story”, “Sensitive Story”, “Anti-Story”, “Contemporary Story”, etc.
It wasn’t the case that there was no literary basis for these various schools.
Before Independence, the goal of national independence was not merely a source of inspiration but was also a source of national unity, comprising the desire to merge with popular life and a hope to create equality, too. It was inevitable that there would be a change in people’s perspectives after Independence. It was also unavoidable that there would be disillusionment in several arenas. New complications were arising. In the struggle for independence, the masses played the crucial role, but when it came to creating laws, creating new policies, building new institutions, all these were in the hands of Parliament, the cabinet, and bureaucrats. It was inevitable that a critical attitude would develop towards this work. The mood began to change quickly. And accordingly, new voices began to be heard in literary activities. Observing the gap between past aspirations and contemporary reality inevitably produced a hypercritical disposition and, in some places, even disillusionment.
The development of multiple schools of thought was also damaging – literary works were all labelled. Works and writers, too. Camps developed. It was difficult to label a work. If you removed the writer’s name from a work, it was hard to say to which category it belonged. It was very easy to affix a label to a writer. And that’s precisely what happened.
Many people weighed in in their own ways on the issue of how the New Story was new.
Premchand’s chief accomplishment, from my point of view, was that he observed, from a social perspective, individuals who were struggling against their fates. His literary work was directed towards society. I believe that this approach was both correct and exemplary. Literature created in this way presents us with characters with multidimensional personalities. It seems reductive to me to look at characters merely from the perspective of their virtues and vices. And Premchand’s perspective also corresponded to the chaotic times through which our nation was passing, when our history was taking a major turn.
The New Story was an attempt once again to put more emphasis on the virtues and vices of a character’s psychology, and even more on the character’s feelings and moods. At least this is what I think, and I found that there was little room for variation in it. Man was in the clutches of economic and social pressures, but his will thrashed about to escape from those clutches. In his life, his will could only play a limited role. The two were mutually dependent on one another.
I couldn’t think much farther beyond this. I have never been able to understand the nuances of this New Story movement. It has been difficult for me to determine which writers write New Stories and which ones write Sensitive Stories—actually, I don’t think it very necessary.
Bhairav Prasad Gupta became the editor of New Stories. This journal was published by Rajkamal Prakashan. Bhairavji encouraged me; he published several of my stories. As far as I can remember, back then, no one harped very much on stories. All sorts of stories were published together. Sripat Rai published Kahani, whose annual special issue was all the rage back then. Another journal, Kalpana, was published by Pittiji which had its own reputation. Taken together, the short story was becoming the main genre of literature.
Meanwhile, I left to go to Banaras for a while. In order to get a permanent position at my college, I had decided to get a PhD. If I did it in English, it would take years. On the advice and supervision of Dr Indranath Madan, who was the head of the Hindi Department in Chandigarh, I took on the topic of ‘The Concept of the Hero in the Hindi Novel’ and went to Banaras to study. I had to write my thesis in English under the title, ‘The Concept of the Hero in the Hindi Novel’.
Those were also very pleasant days. For the first few days, I stayed with Dr Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, who was one of Balraj’s closest friends. Balraj continued to work under his leadership at the Hindi department at Shantiniketan. Later, he made arrangements for me to stay in a hostel at the university. It was summer vacation at the time. He had to go to his ancestral village with his family. He got everything arranged for me and even gave me his library card. I started going to the library of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for the Promotion of the Nagari Script). This is how I carved out a significant amount of time to study.
Excerpted with permission from Today’s Pasts: A Memoir, Bhisham Sahni, translated from the Hindi by Snehal Shingavi, Penguin Books.
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Then the Sahitya Akademi was established in Delhi. Countless writers were drawn to it. Its original offices were in Connaught Place, in the Regal Cinema building, on the first floor. That is where I first got the opportunity to meet Prabhakar Machwe, Nemichandra Jain and Bharatbhushan Agrawal.
The cultural circles began to change thus after Independence. People began to leave Allahabad, which had been the centre of Hindi literature. Dharamvir Bharati moved to Bombay. Bhairav Prasad Gupta and Kamleshwar moved to Delhi, as did Rajendra Yadav from Agra. Delhi and Bombay were now the main centres of gravity. They were also becoming the centres of literary activity in Hindi and they remained so for a long time. Namvar Singh moved from Banaras to Delhi later. Mohan Rakesh moved to Delhi from Jalandhar. This trend had an effect on the form and nature of literary activities. Various schools of literary thought also fought with each other. The tendency to claim territory and plant a flag also increased. Previously, there was more naturalness to literary production. Afterwards, stories took on ideologies and began to propagate “movements” – “New Story”, “Sensitive Story”, “Anti-Story”, “Contemporary Story”, etc.
It wasn’t the case that there was no literary basis for these various schools.
Before Independence, the goal of national independence was not merely a source of inspiration but was also a source of national unity, comprising the desire to merge with popular life and a hope to create equality, too. It was inevitable that there would be a change in people’s perspectives after Independence. It was also unavoidable that there would be disillusionment in several arenas. New complications were arising. In the struggle for independence, the masses played the crucial role, but when it came to creating laws, creating new policies, building new institutions, all these were in the hands of Parliament, the cabinet, and bureaucrats. It was inevitable that a critical attitude would develop towards this work. The mood began to change quickly. And accordingly, new voices began to be heard in literary activities. Observing the gap between past aspirations and contemporary reality inevitably produced a hypercritical disposition and, in some places, even disillusionment.
The development of multiple schools of thought was also damaging – literary works were all labelled. Works and writers, too. Camps developed. It was difficult to label a work. If you removed the writer’s name from a work, it was hard to say to which category it belonged. It was very easy to affix a label to a writer. And that’s precisely what happened.
Many people weighed in in their own ways on the issue of how the New Story was new.
Premchand’s chief accomplishment, from my point of view, was that he observed, from a social perspective, individuals who were struggling against their fates. His literary work was directed towards society. I believe that this approach was both correct and exemplary. Literature created in this way presents us with characters with multidimensional personalities. It seems reductive to me to look at characters merely from the perspective of their virtues and vices. And Premchand’s perspective also corresponded to the chaotic times through which our nation was passing, when our history was taking a major turn.
The New Story was an attempt once again to put more emphasis on the virtues and vices of a character’s psychology, and even more on the character’s feelings and moods. At least this is what I think, and I found that there was little room for variation in it. Man was in the clutches of economic and social pressures, but his will thrashed about to escape from those clutches. In his life, his will could only play a limited role. The two were mutually dependent on one another.
I couldn’t think much farther beyond this. I have never been able to understand the nuances of this New Story movement. It has been difficult for me to determine which writers write New Stories and which ones write Sensitive Stories—actually, I don’t think it very necessary.
Bhairav Prasad Gupta became the editor of New Stories. This journal was published by Rajkamal Prakashan. Bhairavji encouraged me; he published several of my stories. As far as I can remember, back then, no one harped very much on stories. All sorts of stories were published together. Sripat Rai published Kahani, whose annual special issue was all the rage back then. Another journal, Kalpana, was published by Pittiji which had its own reputation. Taken together, the short story was becoming the main genre of literature.
Meanwhile, I left to go to Banaras for a while. In order to get a permanent position at my college, I had decided to get a PhD. If I did it in English, it would take years. On the advice and supervision of Dr Indranath Madan, who was the head of the Hindi Department in Chandigarh, I took on the topic of ‘The Concept of the Hero in the Hindi Novel’ and went to Banaras to study. I had to write my thesis in English under the title, ‘The Concept of the Hero in the Hindi Novel’.
Those were also very pleasant days. For the first few days, I stayed with Dr Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, who was one of Balraj’s closest friends. Balraj continued to work under his leadership at the Hindi department at Shantiniketan. Later, he made arrangements for me to stay in a hostel at the university. It was summer vacation at the time. He had to go to his ancestral village with his family. He got everything arranged for me and even gave me his library card. I started going to the library of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for the Promotion of the Nagari Script). This is how I carved out a significant amount of time to study.
Excerpted with permission from Today’s Pasts: A Memoir, Bhisham Sahni, translated from the Hindi by Snehal Shingavi, Penguin Books.
