Of Bharat, raga and reality

December 26, 2014 05:05 pm | Updated 05:05 pm IST

The jacket of the book "Raag Darbari"

The jacket of the book "Raag Darbari"

If one were to make a list of 10 most popular Hindi novels, Shrilal Shukla’s “Raag Darbari” will definitely be among the first five. It is one of those books whose popularity and literary status continues to go up and up with the passage of time. No wonder that it is now almost unanimously considered as a modern classic and has run into 30 editions so far.

When Doordarshan began to telecast a serial on the novel in the mid-1980s, even those who had not read the novel could savour its unique flavour. As things had not changed much – they in fact still remain more or less the same – viewers were able to appreciate the rural reality of post-Independence India as depicted in the novel and the serial became hugely popular.

Manohar Singh, one of the finest actors produced by the National School of Drama, had played the lead role of the wily village politician Vaidyaji in this serial. It was a happy coincidence that we were neighbours in South Delhi’s Jangpura Extension and, besides occasionally having evening addas at our houses, would run into each other quite often at a grocery shop called Morning Store. A warm-hearted person without any airs, his untimely demise in 2002 left his friends and admirers devastated.

During the mid-1990s, Gillian Wright translated the novel into English for the Penguin India and the National Book Trust got it translated into 15 Indian languages. However, when it was published in 1968, “Raag Darbari” received a frosty welcome in the Hindi literary circles. The first review was written by no less a person than the much-respected poet-cum-critic Nemichandra Jain, who tore it into pieces.

It was followed by a similar appraisal by Sripat Rai, the hugely talented elder son of Premchand, who made a name for himself as a painter as well as editor of the literary journal “Kahani”.

While Jain’s review was published in the widely circulated weekly “Saptahik Hindustan”, Rai’s critical evaluation was carried by literary magazine “Katha”. Both found Shukla’s depiction of rural reality rather “flat” and his unique usage of satirical language “unnecessarily shocking”. In view of these attacks, it was nothing less than a miracle that the Sahitya Akademi decided to confer its prestigious award for 1969 on Shukla for “Raag Darbari”.

A few months ago, Rajkamal Prakashan brought out a collection of old and new articles edited by Rekha Awasthi, who has done pioneering work on the Progressive Writers’ Movement in Hindi. She also contributed a detailed and well-written preface throwing light on the long-drawn controversy around the novel as well as on the overall literary contribution of Shrilal Shukla.

Titled “Raag Darbari: Alochana ki Phaans” (“Raag Darbari: Thorn of Criticism”), this book has all the relevant material about the novel as well as Shukla. It is thus a must-read for anybody who is interested in understanding the novel, its unique worldview and the literary tools that the author employed to express it.

The annals of literature are littered with instances when younger writers were able to grasp the significance of a new work while the seniors failed to appreciate it owing to their rigid views that led to a kind of “tyranny of taste”.

Two young writers – Neelabh and Kamalesh – were fascinated by the way “Raag Darbari” depicted the corrupt social and political system that had taken firm roots in the villages of post-Independence India. Shrilal Shukla had devised a new kind of colourful, satirical language bordering on the brutal to bring into sharp relief the extensive rot that had set in. One must acknowledge the fact that Neelabh’s father Upendranath Ashq, one of the top Hindi writers, was a notable exception among senior litterateurs who had showered generous praise on the novel soon after its publication.

One must mention that “Raag Darbari” is perhaps the only novel – Premchand’s “Godan” might be an exception – that attracted the attention of two of our top sociologists. Shyama Charan Dube, whose pioneering work “Indian Village” (1955) had placed him among front-ranking sociologists, had this to say about “Raag Darbari”, “Such interesting description of the changing rural scene is rare to find elsewhere. Its style is neither convoluted nor boring. What Shrilal Shukla has said about rural reality in this one novel, even 20 scholars, blessed with great sociological imagination, cannot say.” (Translation mine).Another eminent sociologist T. N. Madan wrote a full-length article and viewed the novel in the light of social resistance.

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