Munshi Prem Chand - Finally !

In my view, Munshi Prem Chand is easily one of the best known and greatest literary figures of modern Hindi Literature.

My grand father Sh. Dev Narayan Sinha was a man of significant literary achievements. He had a great collection of books on subjects ranging from Poetry, Hindi & English Literature, Literary Fiction, Philosophy and various others. He also had a voracious appetite to read. I guess, my passion to read and collect books comes from him. He is Credited with some fantastic translations to his name as well.

Anyways, he had a fantastic Library and I used to attack it with vigour every year in summer holidays when I was a kid. This happened for more than 10 years and in the process, I managed to read a lot of Hindi Literature and Hindi Literary fiction, which was alien to my world in Bangalore otherwise - all my other friends read was Hardy Boys ! And so did I. But these summer Holidays introduced me to Munshi Prem Chand and I read almost everything that he wrote over the years. I loved it. Munshi PremChand had a very simple and conversational style of writing - he would write about ordinary people and every day situations. What set him apart for me was that he touches a level of emotion which many "so called" great authors do not even come close to. The kind of understanding I have gotten from his writings about Indian Culture, Indian Values, our ethos and Indianness in general I don't think I have received from any other single influence.

The last book of his that I read was in 1989 (18 years ago) - that was the last time I visited Patna to see my grand parents. After 89, they moved to Bangalore to my father's house. The years after that were years of Engineering, MBA, Ciggarettes, Old Monk rum, hangovers, stomach ulcers, deadlines, bosses, power point presentation, Love, Marriage, Jobs, Career, Promotions, Foriegn Holidays, Baby, "managing paradigm shifts", Travel, etc etc..life just moved on and on, and has become a thing that my pastr does not recognise. The kind of people that live this life are not known to that boy in 89, neither do these people know that boy !
In this life, there is no role for Musnhi Prem Chand. There can be no lunch table discussions around him, neither can he be discussed meangfully in late night alcohol sessions, while a Vikram Seth easily can be. He had no chance - and hence, Munshi Prem Chand was washed down by the way side and remained only a distant memory from a distant past, till all those memories finally completely and totally disappeared.

Today, I went to a book shop to buy Rama Bijapurkars latest book "we are like this only" and I saw a book by Munshi PremChand on the shelf by chance in the Hindi section (which was one shelf in the 2,000 sq feet shop) . I casually asked the salesman if he has more of these and he said that he has the whole collection. I bought all of them - the entire collection of short stories and Novels written by him. Many memories have come back today. I can clearly see my grandfathers room, with his 3 almirahs - two made of Sheesham wood and their glass covers with a quiant muslim style carving and one much newer one made out of steel with sliding glass doors, the door on the 3'rd shelf always got stuck if you tugged hard at it. I can recall my grandfather resting on his grand chair and us massaging his swollen feet (he had philaria in one leg), i can recall even some of the emotions and feelings and realisations on reading those fantastic books that I felt then.

I will now start the love story again, hopefully, I will discover some of the innocence and get back some memories from those hot summer afternoons. Hopefully, I will be able to get that boy from the summer to get too know this man better. I have given a lot to my education and my career and to life in general in the last 17 years. Hopefully, I will start to get some of that back. Hopefully, I will retain who I am and where I come from a bit better so that I can pass some of that to my Children so that they to have a sense of the past and their heritage. I hope with Munshi Prem Chand I have started that journey. I hope I can fill that strange void that I feel some times, I hope this will help me deal with some things better, at least I can hope...Finally !