Best Loved Indian Stories of the Century Volume I

Introduction

It was some months back that Penguin Books India wrote to us, asking if we would be interested in putting together an anthology of Indian writing that would put between two covers the best-known and most enduringly popular short stories written in the twentieth century. Yet another anthology of Indian writing, we thought, would it really have anything new to offer? But then, as the idea took root, its significance and relevance came home to us.

This is a corpus of stories that we are well-acquainted with, stories that we are fond of reading over and over again. Some of these stories are written in English, others translated from various regional languages. They are written at various points of time in pre- and post-independent India, and reflect the milieux familiar to older generation Indians as well as more contemporary readership. All the stories have one thing in common—a universality of experience that appeals to young and old alike.

Hence the name, Best Loved Indian Stories, indicative of the long-felt need to rediscover and enjoy these narratives that have withstood the test of time and continue to engage readers with their freshness and vitality. They hold a mirror to life and we recognize in some of the characters our own selves, young or old. The writers included in this collection are well known and these stories are some of the best expressions of their art. They are also a mix of old and new, balancing the relevance of the contemporary with the significance of the past. All the stories have a message for us, though the themes vary widely—from the pathos of coming to terms with old age to childhood joys and sorrows from modern expatriate experiences to tender tales of romance.

Given the subjective nature and wide scope of the volume, selecting the stories for it was not an easy task. Selecting short stories is not like choosing clothes where you can mix and match, adding to or removing from the selection by going back to the wardrobe. The criteria used for this selection include universal appeal, emotional range, the novelty of situations and of course, literary merit.

For this first volume, we have restricted our selection to Indian writers writing in English; a subsequent volume will be devoted to regional writing translated into English. Novels and works of non-fiction have come of age in Indian writing in English. Till a few years back, although Western short story writers like O. Henry, Maugham, Mansfield, Saki and Dahl were read at the school and college level, only a few Indian writers like Premchand and Tagore were included in textbooks. But now, writings by authors ranging from R.K. Narayan and Khushwant Singh to Anita Desai and Padma Hejmadi are required reading for students. This volume brings together some of the most widely read stories in India today.

The ‘big three’ of Indian writing in English—R.K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao are represented here. Santha Rama Rau and Attia Hosain too belong to this generation. R.K. Narayan’s hilarious account of an American tourist talking to a Tamil rustic who knows no English in ‘A Horse and Two Goats’ ends with an unusual convergence. Underlying the humour is the tragedy of poverty that is the bane of rural India. It is a faithful portrait of the Indian countryside woven skilfully by the master story-teller in his inimitable style. Mulk Raj Anand uses humour in ‘A Pair of Mustachios’ to highlight the misguided sense of pride in the impoverished ‘nobility’ as they try to come to terms with the rise of the ‘trading class’.

Raja Rao’s ‘The Cow of the Barricades’ set in pre-independent India narrates the story of Gauri the cow, a martyr to the cause, venerated and loved by the people of Gorakhpur. The legend of Gauri lives on in the wooden toy cow. ‘The Mahatma is right about the fullness of love in all creatures—the speechful and the mute’.

‘Martand’, by Nayantara Sahgal, takes the reader into post-independent India ravaged by the Partition and reeling under the influx of refugees. It highlights the private torment of the protagonist even as the public space around her becomes vitiated and changes forever. The unexpected denouement changes perceptions.

Old age and the travails of time are the themes of K.A. Abbas’s ‘Sparrows’, Attia Hosain’s ‘Phoenix Fled’ and Githa Hariharan’s ‘The Remains of the Feast’.

In ‘Sparrows’, Rahim Khan, thwarted in early youth in love and ambition, grows into a misanthrope—‘the iron having entered his soul’. Deserted by his sons and his wife, his lonely existence undergoes a change with the advent of a family of sparrows which builds its nest in his hut. In ‘Phoenix Fled’ Attia Hosain describes with sensitivity and understanding the ravages of time on a ‘parasitic old woman whom time refused to drop into releasing oblivion’, yet whose eyes grew bright and sharp when the great-grandchildren raced through the door. Hosain’s deft strokes create a picture that reveals more in the unsaid. In ‘The Remains of the Feast’, Githa Hariharan describes with consummate artistry the special relationship between the narrator and her great-grandmother whose extraordinary and amazing last wishes were a revocation of a traditional existence. Told with humour and sensitivity, the story captures the sights and smells of death, of special relationships and bonds.

Khushwant Singh, Anita Desai and Ruskin Bond relate charming stories of childhood and the pains of growing up. In ‘The Mark of Vishnu’ Khushwant Singh makes wonderful use of irony to delineate the brash thoughtlessness of youth, while Anita Desai captures familiar scenes of childhood in ‘Games at Twilight’. It is a story which will strike a responsive chord in all those who have experienced that inexplicable feeling of loneliness even in the midst of one’s nearest ones.

Ruskin Bond’s sensitive portrayal of the college student smitten by the smouldering eyes of the basket-seller at Deoli is a vivid recreation of teenage love. The writer uses the incident of a chance encounter in a remote railway station to skilfully weave a tale of longing, of hope and dreaming.

Keki N. Daruwalla’s ‘Love Across the Salt Desert’ is a wonderful tale of youthful romance. It is a story of love that knows no boundaries; of star-crossed lovers; of timid bashful Najab transformed into a valiant hero, blazing a lonely trail across the dangerous border to Pakistan, unmindful of bullets and the burning desert. Triumphant in love he brings back the beautiful Fatimah.

Three stories that deal with confidence tricksters have a different twist to each tale. Manohar Malgonkar, that master spinner of stories, weaves a deft tale of intrigue and smuggling in ‘A Cargo from Singapore’. Set in post-war Singapore, the story is a fast-paced account of the flashily dressed Mathrani, customs informer, trapped in his own web of deceit and lies. Padma Hejmadi’s Appa-mam is a familiar figure in every large family. The lazy, no-good wastrel and loafer who has the supreme confidence and breezy nonchalance of the conman is the hero of the children’s circle and ‘has no compunctions about taking [and] no hesitation about giving either’. Miss Krishna, the magpie-like connoisseur in Nergis Dalal’s story of the same name has an underlying pathos as the lonely ‘spry thin spinster’ walks away with artifacts and rare curios to add to her secret collection.