The inheritance of my grandfather, Munshi Premchand

In school HindustaniUrdu writer Munshi Premchand was a looming presence for this writer His short stories were a compulsory inclusion in the Hindi textbooks one each for every year If you hadnrsquot read him you probably werenrsquot reading Hindi Writereditor Sara Rairsquos introduction to her late grandfatherrsquos stories also happened inside the classroom ldquoHe was the unbelievable figure in the family cupboard that no one had seenrdquo she writes in her memoir Raw Umber Westland Books a collection of essays about her family which has been shortlisted for Tata Literature Live Book of the Year in the nonfiction category ldquoHersquod already been dead 12 years when my parents got married so there was no question of my meeting himrdquo she shares in the bookYet she tells us Premchand the pseudonym used by Dhanpat Rai Srivastava remained a large presence in their lives Mostly in the stories relayed by members of her family and his readersmdashldquothe clerk at the bank the watchman who sat outside the gate of the school that my mother ran the woman at the stationery shop or the man sitting across from you in the trainrdquomdashsome of whom would rattle off passages from his stories by rote ldquoPeople had memorised him He was on the streets he was everywherehellip he was so ubiquitous it was overwhelmingrdquo recalls Rai in a video call interview from Ranikhet UttarakhandSara RaiHis writings though eluded Rai for long ldquoHe was in the school textbooks of coursehellip right from Class V I think Everyone at my school in Allahabad knew I was Premchandrsquos granddaughter So when wersquod have these readings in class and open to his chapter my classmates would turn around to look at merdquo she says and remembers feeling embarrassed Studying in a convent meant that speaking in any language except English was discouraged for most part Itrsquos one of the reasons why Rai caught on to Hindi literature in her 20s ldquoI started reading Premchand only after I canrsquot claim to have read all of him even nowrdquoWith four classics of the late legendary writermdashthe novels Gaban and Godaan and two collections of his short stories Poos Ki Raat Aur Anya Kahaniyaan and Idgaah Aur Anya Kahaniyaanmdashbeing republished by the imprint Eka the renewed interest in Premchandrsquos writings are not lost on her His enduring appeal she feels is because he had a finger on the pulse of the common people ldquoAnd he brought them on the literary stagerdquo In his world as she shares in the book ldquomen and women live out their lives in poverty in a system that spares no one Women have a crucial role in his fiction they are credible and strong characters quite often decision makers who influence the resolution of the story Dalit tribal and upper caste Muslim and Christian live and breathe as themselves without coming across as mouthpieces of particular ideologiesrdquo ldquoWriting was a mission for him he wanted to change societyrdquo she tells us ldquoHe was writing at a time when there was so much going on in the country He was responding to that In a way he was shaping history and history was shaping himrdquo Premchandrsquos second wife Shivrani Devi whom he referred to as the ldquoyoddhastreerdquo or ldquowarrior womanrdquo was a child widow ldquoHe was quite vociferous about the movements affecting us and he wrote in a great hurry My grandfatherrsquos personal and political often came togetherrdquoMany of the problems he spoke about continue even today Rai says ldquoWe are probably even more fragmented nowrdquo It was however not Premchand as much as her father Sripat Rai who inspired her to pursue a career in writing ldquoMy father was a recluse even though he was always surrounded by artists journalists and writers whorsquod visit our Hauz Khas home He didnrsquot talk very much but remained a mentor figure I think I inherited his sensibility I read the same books that he did And I feel the solitude that he inhabited was also minerdquo she says adding ldquoI remember this one time talking to him often about pursuing a career in writing he told me how creative writing could only be done in onersquos mother tongue That stayed with me and led me to write in HindirdquoIn hindsight she is glad to have taken that advice because writing in onersquos mother tongue she says is ldquolayered with centuries of cultural memories that cannot be possibly transferredrdquo Rai has continued to write in HindimdashRaw Umber being an exception Her writings talk about people living on the margins ldquoThis doesnrsquot just mean the poor but also those psychologically on the marginsrdquoPremchandrsquos simplicity in life and his work though is a legacy that quite a few people in the family including her father inherited feels RaiPremchand she says ldquohad led the frugal life of a penurious school teacher rising at odd hours of the night or early morning to write what became the many volumes of his fiction often only by the light of a hurricane lamprdquo ldquoFor the longest time there was a general distaste for money in the familyrdquo she says ldquoCertainly this was transmitted from Premchand because he thought that money corrupts He didnrsquot think of it as a good thingrdquo Though Rai had never met her grandfather she imbibed those values perhaps ldquoby a complex process of genetic osmosisrdquo ldquoWhen I was a child someone asked me what I wanted to become I just said lsquoI would like to be poorrsquo It was considered an ideal and I thought this should be idolisedrdquo she laughs ldquoObviously I donrsquot think like that anymorerdquo