Premchand: The Giant of our times

[ratananmol]

Friends:
For some time now i wanted to post this and evoke some emotions and reactions from those of you who have read Premchand.
For a background his 125th birth anniversary was celebrated with hallmark official confusion in uttar pradesh and elsewhere.
Please see the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/news/cluster/2005/07/050729_premchand_anniversary.shtml
Whenever i have read Premchand it has bought me closer to the reality of real rural india; an understanding of the social structure prevailing in our areas is not very different from what we find in Premchand's masterpieces.
Would like to hear from elder members about their experiences with the writings of this giant of hindi literature. This assumes importance because we seem to pass into a phase where the membership on this site has grown, people are willing to talk outside their boxes and a rural jat convention seems underway. I think haryanvi would always dominate the popular parlance of jats anywhere but by watering our roots (Hindi) an equitable treatment can be meted out to those who per se feel "Tamilified" (i use this word because probably tamils have resisted the Hindi language vociferously-rightly or wrongly).
Anmol Ratan.
(I want to read "Hajje-Akbar" by Premchand and would be obliged if someone can send me a soft copy.)

[ratananmol]

Since Premchand was trained by Maulvis his "pakad"(grasp) of Urdu was probably more powerful it seems and his tremendous understanding of the comtemporary times in capturing the life of the poor in rural areas did not discriminate between the Hindu and the (Converted) Muslim.
When people get carried away by the powerful fundamentalist ideas of our times they fail to realize the damage done to the overall potential of our society by the resulting division of minds. Premchand's writings draw our attention to the fact that the life is cherished as much by a Muslim as a non muslim. This being said we should not close our eyes to the divisions already existing and those which will be created by our current actions (I hope it explains my outbursts at the sardar jokes). In the short run it does not really matters what we say or do but it matters for the future in more than significant ways.

[arunshamli]

if you want to read some wonderful stories by Munshi Premchand ....please visit this site
http://www.munsipremchand.iitk.ac.in

The site works only with Internet explorer.

you can create the pdf files online and save it on your computer.

[ratananmol]

Dear Arun:
Thanks for the response; the site has very few stories which are probably easily available elsewhere. I found the following link pretty useful:
http://mobilelibrary.cdacnoida.com/bookHindi.html
but "Hajje-Akbar" is missing on this link too. Though i think it is a great effort.Anyway i will post the links here if i find something. If you are "Premchand" fan welcome to the club.
Best
anmol.

[spdeshwal]

Thanks Anmol for the link.
Though I am not fan of Munsi Premchand in literary terms and have hardly had the opportunity to read his literature in recent past. I loved his stories and novels in my younger days.Godaan was my favourite.

I have recently seen a massive volume( double of Bhargava,s full size dictionary) containing his stories in one of the West Auckland Libraries. My friend has borrowed it and his Father is reading it currently. I thought of grabing it after he would finishit. Now, I am lucky to find this link as well.

[raj2rif]

Dear Arun:
Thanks for the response; the site has very few stories which are probably easily available elsewhere. I found the following link pretty useful:
http://mobilelibrary.cdacnoida.com/bookHindi.html
but "Hajje-Akbar" is missing on this link too. Though i think it is a great effort.Anyway i will post the links here if i find something. If you are "Premchand" fan welcome to the club.
Best
anmol.


Dear Anmol,

Thanks for the nice link. I have read a few Stroies of Premchand as part of my Hindi curriculum. I would like to read most of his books as they give a very realistic account of the society in those days.

[rkumar]

No doubt, Munsi Premchand was a great Hindi writer. Ratan is correct, Munsi Prem Chand was an authority in Urdu also. Infact he started his writings in Urdu under his original name (Ganpat Rai) and switched over to Hindi only later on. I am not sure if anyone of you have read the novel called " Ma" by Maxi Gorki. Two writers look almost twin brothers in literature.

I have no doubt that its the literary hybrid of people like Munsi Prem Chand, Ras Khan, Amir Khusro who contributed the most for communal harmony. They were the real sufis who blended abstract with the reality and spoke in the language of common man.

Rajendra

[dharmpaltakhar]

bhai Anmol ye link try karo
http://www.ildc.gov.in/hindi/hdlbooks.htm
i am a big Premchand and mahadevi varma fan though my best hindi story is "usne kaha tha" by Chandradhar sharma guleri.

[ratananmol]

Dear Dharampal Bhai and others:
your inputs are useful; hope this thread can yield some more links for the Hindi literature.
Anmol.

[arunshamli]

No doubt, Munsi Premchand was a great Hindi writer. Ratan is correct, Munsi Prem Chand was an authority in Urdu also. Infact he started his writings in Urdu under his original name (Ganpat Rai) and switched over to Hindi only later on. I am not sure if anyone of you have read the novel called " Ma" by Maxi Gorki. Two writers look almost twin brothers in literature.

I have no doubt that its the literary hybrid of people like Munsi Prem Chand, Ras Khan, Amir Khusro who contributed the most for communal harmony. They were the real sufis who blended abstract with the reality and spoke in the language of common man.

Rajendra


the correct name was Dhanpath Rai and he wrote Urdu stories as Nawab Rai and Hindi sotries as Premchand.

[vinodks]

well said Anmol... me haven't read Premchand much except some stories, would like to read something soon... and its saddening to see that no. of hindi language books in some of the libraries in some colleges(e.g. mine) in US can be counted on fingers while there are lots of book in some vague and non-descript language...

vinod

[singh1981]

Hi all,

When i opened that link it shows me some junk char. instead of hindi.Do i need to set some kind of Locale/Lang variable to some particular.Also i tried it with by changing character encoding to hindi devnagri...but still no result...I am using mozilla on a solaris sysytem..
Can anybody tell me exactly what to do?
==
Sukhbir

bhai Anmol ye link try karo
http://www.ildc.gov.in/hindi/hdlbooks.htm
i am a big Premchand and mahadevi varma fan though my best hindi story is "usne kaha tha" by Chandradhar sharma guleri.

[arunshamli]

Hi all,

When i opened that link it shows me some junk char. instead of hindi.Do i need to set some kind of Locale/Lang variable to some particular.Also i tried it with by changing character encoding to hindi devnagri...but still no result...I am using mozilla on a solaris sysytem..
Can anybody tell me exactly what to do?
==
Sukhbir


many hindi sites do not work well with mozilla browser.

user microsoft internet explorer and you should be able to see it in hindi script.