A Winter’s Night and other stories by Munshi Premchand – A book review

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There’s short yet useful information provided at the end of the book about the author’s life and an introduction by one of India’s greatest poets Gulzar. Stories from Premchand have been part of textbooks; he was known as the ‘Upanyas Samrat’ – the emperor of novels though mostly in North India. It was surprising and a revelation to read that his early education was in a Madrasa, under a maulvi and his initial stories were written in Urdu.

This book is a collection of short stories and it is from a bygone era, an era from which India has evolved. More specifically it is from the villages of India, it is from a time India was engulfed by the caste system, the British rule, and hence poverty. It transports you to the villages in India, with wells accessible only to the elite, women drawing water from it, people in their traditional clothing, cattle working in the fields, lands and mortgages; no tractors, no high rises, no smart phones, no televisions – yes, a world still existed then. Though the settings have changed and life and India have moved on, the characters and their plight is believable. The forms have changed - the forms of oppression, the forms of sacrifice, the forms of love and belonging; replace a zamindar with one of today’s politicians, replace the moneylender with the big loan sharks of today and you have a new revised version of these stories.

The brilliance of these stories lies in their simple narrative. A story writer needs to be a good observer and Munshi Premchand was brilliant. In each story, he captures the innate capacity of individuals and the brazen thoughtless acceptance of a divided society at large. The lives in these stories are clearly divided between the oppressor and the oppressed. Stories like ‘The salt inspector’, ‘Kaki’, ‘A quarter and one ser of wheat’ and ‘The price of milk’ clearly portray this divide. Readers will relate with the laziness and shamelessness of drunkards in ‘The Shroud’ even today.

I believe these stories are pieces of history that children of today must be made to read if they are to know where their grandfathers and their grandfathers came from; they are as important as stories of Shivaji and of mutinies and of independence; they are stories of behavior, stories to ponder upon.

This is real history; unbiased, secular.  

Image courtesy:

Munshi Premchand - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premchand

Book cover - https://www.amazon.in/Winters-Night-Other-Stories-Premchand/dp/0143330381

Snow by Orhan Pamuk – A book review

Lately I’ve been inadvertently reading a lot about God. Graham Greene’s God, Iris Murdoch’s God, Jordan Peterson’s God and now Ka’s and Kars’s versions of God. Yes, versions. Kars is a city in Turkey and Ka is a Turkish poet and this is their story.

For some reason the story and its people have left me irritated. I don’t like them. At all!

And not ‘for some reason’; I know, I know why. They aren’t simply flawed in their beliefs like most beings are; they are ugly in their narrow minded thoughts and uglier in their actions; they want to see the world burn in the name of religion and God.

Ka’s Kars is a city you probably didn’t know about and when you do know, you don’t want to know anymore about. Nothing really happens there except for snowing. Nothing constructive, I mean. And yet people are so obsessed there with their beliefs. And when it thaws, and people are out of their frozen inertia, the ugliness drips with the thawing.

The kind of fundamentalism mentioned is so tiring - towards God, towards religion and yet it exists. And these so called fundamentalists and their beliefs in God and religion in their created capacities, in fact strengthen your thoughts that they are the creations of men. Created capacities for sure because God is a veil they hide behind, a convenience for their immorality and disgusting fanatical thoughts and acts.

God is a favourite of the idle and the disturbed; he, not He, has nothing worthwhile to do. The hard working person, the intellectual doesn’t need to talk about God all the time, he too needs assurance but he knows He’s there, if you do believe at all. All about the people of Kars is ‘Us and Them’; us is them and them is the West. And the West for them is a world of intellectuals and infidels, and intellectualism is atheism. Says who? Says they. And yet they are so concerned that the West disparages them, laughs at them, and finds them to be nobodies. Grow up you wonderful people of this wonderful city; probably the West doesn’t even know you exist! And why are you so insecure and unhappy when you so strongly believe in your God; why should what the West think of you matter? It’s a farce, it’s a farce!

I guess this hypocrisy stems from the basic needs of humanity not being met, from Maslow’s pyramid of human needs. The city of Kars and its people are in poverty, a jobless dump where the youth and adolescents are idling their time away; what better thing to do than to fight for God then and to kill and destroy in his name. And not just kill thy neighbor, annihilate the world if possible – spread the word of God! I’ve come to realize that the things you hate are actually the things you most love or crave for. And most of the characters have an insidious affinity for the West but just can’t be them because they’re not supposed to, allowed to, because you are not allowed to love something you detest. And the internal conflict in their heads, a strong hatred emerging from helplessness creates their own inferno and they don’t want to burn alone.

Movement in this story by Orhan Pamuk where he himself writes about his friend Ka after his death, starts and ends with the changing laws of girls’ suicides in Kars and around for not being allowed to wear a headscarf. It took me a while to actually understand what the big deal of a headscarf was and how it was related to the girls’ suicides and then I realized. And it was a wow moment!

As a character in the book says; the world will grow in leaps and bounds and make technological advances while we are stuck with head-scarves and religion. Thinking logically or intellectually is an abuse in such a society where everyone knows everything about religion and God and good and evil and what you should do and more importantly what you shouldn’t; probably more than the God they believe in.

They are all shamelessly naked and exposed and yet they care about the wearing of a headscarf. Your religion, your religious books and your God don’t really advocate infidelity, deceit, hatred, do they? Ipek, a divorcee, who Ka is madly, rather lustily in love with, who he considers and portrays as nothing less than Aphrodite herself, sleeps with her husband’s friend whom he reveres. Her sister vies for the same man, is sleeping with him as well. And this man is a terrorist who thinks he has all the answers. They call him Blue and the sisters think he’s is truthful and heroic and just and doing the work of God. Just! Work of God! What’s that? Satiating envious vying blood sisters at the same time while their imbecile of a father is busy talking about politics – Is this the call for freedom? And freedom from what? And though the story tries to flavor a woman’s plight, I don’t see Ipek as anything but a selfish woman. She’s cunning enough to make love to Ka even though she’s not in love with him; she just wants to mislead him, she’s still in love with Blue. And these girls have opinions on wearing and the removal of head scarves! A fundamentalist, a fugitive sleeping with two sisters at the same time; how does your God allow that? God is your convenience and nothing else.

And then there’s Sunay Zaim, the theatre virtuoso, a crazy artist who’s ready to die for his art and beliefs and he does, yet not before deceitfully and ingeniously causing a military coup in the snowy city. He dies like the suicide girls; for pride they say. Pride for what you worthless creatures, for what? It’s a puzzle you don’t want to solve; just want to throw the pieces away and not think again.

“Don’t write what you see about us in your book”, a character tells Orhan while he’s leaving the city. Why not? Why aren’t you comfortable in your skin? Why don’t you act the way you want to be then; why hide behind this shroud of the unknown? Why do you need someone else’s assurance? If you yourself have so many conflicts within yourself, then how come you have such strong opinions about God and religion?

Just believing and trusting in God isn’t enough in Kars; you have to prove it every day else you are termed an atheist. You might be a rapist, a murderer but if you climb the cemented or stone steps of the house of God, you’re a believer. Here God isn’t important anymore but what you think of God takes precedence. No wonder they make such heartless terrorists. Kars doesn’t need God; it needs jobs and things to keep themselves busy. They need to clean their houses and city first before trying to build the Garden of Eden.

I’ve got to confess. I kept reading the book till the end because I derived a sadistic pleasure from hating them. Not healthy, I know; probably that shows my current state of mind.

My rating: 6/10

Image sources:

Book cover - https://www.thehindu.com/books/review-snow-by-orhan-pamuk/article24592316.ece

Orhan Pamuk - https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/orhan-pamuk-says-he-misses-turkeys-good-old-days--100243