Review published in Muse India, Issue #21, Sept-Oct 2008

Review by

By Shaleen Kumar Singh, Jul 26, 2008 Budaun, India, drshaleen111@yahoo.co.in
Indian English Stories — A review

Though we have seen in past few years innumerable books of criticism on Indian English Poetry and Fiction being published, there has remained a dearth of books of criticism on short fiction. Murli Melwani’s critical and historical survey of Indian English stories, covering a broad spectrum from colonial beginning to Post-modern times, addresses this dearth. Indeed it is the first comprehensive study of this genre.

India has been the land of stories. The Jataka Tales and the Panchatantrastories continue to be read even today. The Katha Sarita Sagara, the largest collections of stories in the world, has been the inspiration for the Arabian Nights and others tales which traveled to Europe via the Middle East.

In the beginning the writers proudly documented the customs and traditions of Indian life. Between 1835 and 1935 we have a succession of writers with this aim. Cornelia Sorabji, Dhan Gopal Mukherjee, A.S. Panchpakesha Ayyar, Shankar Ram, among others, prepared the way for the giants who wrote between 1935 and 1950.

Among the giants, Mulk Raj Anand corrected the impression of India and its inhabitants created by Kipling and other Western writers. R.K. Narayan highlighted the drama of everyday life. Raja Rao incorporated elements of Indian folk tales in his stories.

In the fifties, Khushwant Singh observed Indian life with a satirical eye and Attia Hosian conveyed the horrors of Partition in restrained prose.

In the sixties, Ruth Jhabvala captured the foibles of Indians with a foreigner’s objectivity. Bunny Reuben introduced cinematic techniques to the short story. Ruskin Bond found moving moments in common lives. Bhabani Bhattacharya captured exotic aspects of Indian life.

In the Seventies Anita Desai brought the intensity of her novels to her stories. Keki Daruwalla set his stories in unusual locales. Padma Hejmadi wrote about life in South India. Jug Suraiya and Vivek Adarkar were the voices of youth at the time. Arun Joshi wrote parables of Indian life. The subject of Manohar Malgonkar’s stories was the army. Kamala Das brought the sensitivity of her poetry to her stories. Shashi Deshpande dealt with the questions of a woman’s lot and place in Indian society.

The writers who came in the eighties, and continue to write today, have branched out into newer territory. Life in the city - Bombay in the case of Vikram Chandra, Bangalore in that of Lavanya Sankaran, Calcutta in the case of Amit Chaudhuri - is very much the subject of scrutiny. Nisha Da Cunha writes about the states of women’s minds. Shree Ghatage examines the demands of tradition, family obligations and personal freedom on an individual. Gay life is the subject of R. Raja Rao’s stories. The exploration of new areas of India and the heart goes on in the stories of Githa Haiharan, Anita Nair, Sangeeta Wadhwani, Anjana Appachana, Meher Pestonji, Susan Visvanathan, and others.

Melwani is optimistic about the future of Indian English short stories. The richness of ideas and themes will provide more and more opportunities for story writers to pen stories of significance, beauty and power. Melwani’s book is a seminal work which will, in future, guide the critics to give the short story the same respect and study as they do to Indian English Poetry and Fiction.
_______________________________________________________________
Indian English Stories (from Colonial Beginning to Post Modern Tales), by Murli Melwani, Sampark: Calcutta, 2007, Rs-300/-Pages-174

Respected Dr. Shaleen,
Nice Review. Only a few can do it like you have done. Hope to get more from you.
Dr Kalpna Rajput, Budaun, IndiaAug 03, 2008

Review posted in www.shortstoriesforchildren,net

By ADMIN | Published: OCTOBER 4, 2011

As Murli Das Melwani states in the Preface, the aim of the book is to draw attention to the genre of Indian Short stories in English by critically surveying its historical development from 1835 to the present. He delineates the characteristic thematic features of various authors in seven sections divided into several sub-sections. However, as the writer says in the Preface, the scope of this book is limited to stories collected and published in the book form. neither the bookincludes uncollected published short stories, retold stories, fairytales and long short stories, nor does it include translated short stories.

In the ‘Introduction’, Melwani traces the development of short story from Kathasaritsagar to Raja Rao without excluding its development as a form in the West. He takes into account early practitioners such as E.T.W. Hoffman, N. V. Gogol, Merimee, Balzac, Gautier, Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Stephen Crane, O’Henry, and H. G. Wells etc in the West and Sudhin Ghosh, R. K. Narayan, Raja Rao and others in India.

The first section entitled ‘The Beginnings:1835-1935′ includes authors such as Pallab Sengupta, Soshee Chunder Dutt, Cornelia Sorabjee, S. B. Banerjea, Dhan Gopal Mukerji, a. S. Panchpakesa Ayyar, C. T. Ramabhai etc. These early Indianwriters in English paved the way for the great trio of Indian English Fiction, namely Mulk Raj Anand, R.K.Narayan, and Raja Rao who are all discussed separately in Section II of the book. in ‘The first Flowering: 1935-1945′ Melwani includes such other writers as Manjeri S. Isvaran, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Ela Sen, and Louis Gracious who enriched the nationalist movement of the period with their writing.

Section III deals with several celebrated authors of 1950s such as Attia Hossain, Khushwant Singh, G. D. Khosla, and others who reflected on human characters vis–vis economic development in the early phase of Post-Independence India.

Section IV, ‘The second Flowering: 1960-1970′ deals with some well known writers such as R. P. Jhabvala, Bunny Reuben, Ruskin Bond, Bhabani Bhattacharya who are less moral but more satirical and paradoxical in theirtreatment of themes.

Section V is aptly titled as ‘The Blossoming’ because it covers the plethora of short story writers such as Padma Hejmadi, Keki N. Daruwalla, Anita Desai, Hamdi Bey, Kamala Das, Arun Joshi, Manohar Malgaonkar, and others who flourished during the 1970s and 1980s.

They deal with a variety of themes such as changing ways of small town Indianlife, human psyche, parables, politics, the army etc.

The following chapter, Section VI ‘An Extended Spring’ takes into account contemporary writers such as Vikram Chandra, Amit Chaudhuri, Githa Hariharan, Anita Nair, Uma Parameswaran, Meher Pestonji, and others who contemplate on themes such as mystery, fantasy, migration, homosexuality, tradition versus modernity etc.

The final section ‘The Prospect’ provides details about the history of publishinghouses. It also mentions the neglected women publishers such as Kali, Katha, Stree, Tara, Tulika, Yoda, Karadi, Zubaan, Women Unlimited, and Biblio. It also talks about the future of Indian Short story in English. the section reflects on absence of literary prizes in India and mentions positive developments such as Vodaphone Crossword Book Award, Indiaplaza Golden Book Awards, Readerr’s Choice award etc for promoting short story writing and reading.

One of the significant features of the book is that it includes details about the lesser known writers along with well known writers. Critical surveys generally cover only the well known names.

The Bibliography can be of great help to researchers because it provides detailed information about anthologies of short stories from the time as early as 1908.

On the negative side, however, the book excludes mention of some well known contemporary writers such as Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy, Farrukh Dhondy, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Rohinton Mistry etc. the book would have been strengthened with their discussion even if the motive of the writer may have been to acquaint the readers to lesser known names which most books tend to ignore. yet, it is a significant publication, useful to every researcher and students ofIndian English Writing.

(jointly with Sudeshna Pandey, M.Phil Researcher)

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27TH MAY 2012

SHILLONG: A NURSERY OF LITERARY CULTURE

Along tradition of educational excellence, a salubrious climate, and a relaxed pace of life make Shillong a nursery of literary culture. I was witness to the growth of this culture from the fifties till the late seventies. It was my good fortune to know most of the writers personally. The contact with literary figures happened, less because I was a lecturer at Sankardev College, more because I gave time in the evenings to the bookshop I owned, Ratna’s Mascot.

Dr Verrier Elwin, a world-renowned anthropologist and ethnologist, who had donned khadi and worked with Gandhiji during the  freedom  movement, made Shillong his home. He was an impressive personality, with back-brushed collar-length hair and a perpetual cigar in his mouth. He wrote his autobiography, The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin, in Shillong.

EP Gee, renowned for his 1953 discovery of Gee’s  golden  langur (Trachypithecus geei), was  a member of  Wildlife Board of India, along with well-known figures like Salim Ali and M Krishnan. He wrote the authoritative The Wild Life of India during his retirement in Upper Shillong. AL Basham, author of The Wonder That was India, married Catherine Sen (Shadap), who taught history at St. Mary’s College, Shillong. Basham travelled between Australia, his native country, and Shillong. He was buried in Shillong.

Nari Rustomji, former chief secretary, Government of Meghalaya, recorded his experiences in the Northeast in Enchanted Frontiers.

JN Chowdury, author of The Tribal Culture and History of Arunachal Pradesh, The Khasi Canvas and Arunachal Panorama: A Study in Profile, would spend time at the Rabindra Library, from 7 pm till 9 pm, after a full day in government office. Everyone knew him as Mukul Chowdhury, not as Jyotindra Nath Chowdhury.

JD Baveja served as the director of All India Radio, Shillong for a number of years. A heavy-set man with casually combed hair, he had the look of an artiste. He wrote Across the Golden Heights of Assam and NEFA and The New Horizons of the North East, and collaborated with two others in writing The Land where the Bamboo Blooms.

DD Mali taught economics in the college where I taught English. My evenings in the bookshop taught me that there was a need for a book on the economy of Meghalaya. I persuaded Mali to write such a book; Ratna’s Mascot published it. Shortly after the publication of the book, Mali applied for the position of the director of the small-scale industries institute that was being set up. What secured Mali the job was the fact that he had published a book.

Mali subsequently wrote books like Economic Problems and Planning in Assam and Small Industry Development in North East India.

Radhon Singh Lyngdoh, who went on to become speaker of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly, was connected from the beginning with the movement for the creation of a separate hill state. He wrote a history of the movement. The manuscript was not published and is presumed lost. Efforts should be made to find out the manuscript and publish it, since it records an important phase of Meghalaya’s history by a person who was a lecturer in history at St. Anthony’s College, Shillong.

Chronicles of an Impossible Election by James Michael Lyngdoh gives the reader an insight into the functioning of the Election Commission. Lyngdoh, a winner of the prestigious Magsaysay Award, retired as the Chief Election Commissioner of India.

Mona Melwani won the first prize in the non-fiction category, for her entry, Tipu Sultan, in the Competition for Writers of Children’s Books, 1980, organised by Children’s Book Trust. The iconic Nirad C Chaudhuri, who completed a book at the age of 100, has written in some detail about Shillong, a city he was connected with, in The Autobiography of An Unknown Indian. Sanjoy Hazarika, author of Rites of Passage, Strangers in the Mist and Writing on the Wall, needs no introduction.

Non-fiction is often the precursor of fiction and poetry. Famous anthropologist Verrier Elwin was a poet too; a collection of 28 of his poems has been recently published by North East Zonal Cultural Centre. Jyoti Jafa, wife of VS Jafa, an IAS officer, is the author of a historical novel,NurJahan. Since Jyoti Jafa was connected to one of the royal families of

Rajasthan, she recreates the Mughal court in the novel in meticulous detail. Shillong is the background for most of the stories in Murli Melwani’s collection, Stories of a Salesman. William H Archer, who reviewed it in Books Abroad, wrote, “(these)…are not stories with complex plots so much as sketches after the manner of Lafcadio Hearn, sharp vignettes of the daily round of East Indian people”.

In the early sixties, three young men and two women, who had just graduated from college, started a literary magazine, Forward. It carried poems, short stories and articles. Forward died a quiet unannounced death after three issues. Reason: the obvious one, lack of funds.

I am tempted to include writers like Mitra Phukan, who went to school or college in Shillong, but I would be straying from my turf, because other cities nurtured their talent.

Preetika Venkatakrishnan, in a recent article in Seven Sisters Post, Guwahati, brought the literary narrative of Shillong up to date by focusing on contemporary writers and poets.I would like to add a few names to her list.  The story of Ankush Saikia’s debut novel, Jet City Woman, alternates between New Delhi and Shillong. The short stories in Saikia’s recent collection,Spotting Veron and Other Stories, move closer to Shillong. RG Lyngdoh, former home minister of Meghalaya, brought out a novel, Who the Cap Fits, that deals with the ethnic tensions in the Shillong of the seventies and eighties. Bikika Laloo Tariang, in her collection of short stories, Dad and The Salesman, presents both sides of the coin; she conveys the ignorance of fellow Indians about the people of the Northeast as well as the prejudices and insecurities of the locals.

The literary narrative of Shillong will move forward as more poets, novelists and short story writers draw on a tradition going back to the fifties and build on the groundwork done by the contemporary poets and writers. We look forward to more voices from the the Northeast presenting the unique points of view and sensibilities of seven fascinating cultures

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