R. K. Narayan-two short stories by the first great Anglo/Indian Writer

"The Gateman's Gift"  (10 pages, 1947)
"The Roman Image"  (8 pages, 1947)

Both of these short stories by R. K. Narayan (1906 to 2001-Chennai, India) were included in his 1947 collection of short stories, The Astrologer's Day and other Stories.   1947 was a terrible year for South Asia with millions displaced and uncounted numbers killed as a result of the partition of  India.    The stories in the anthology were all first published in the Hindu of Madras newspaper (established in 1878 and now called simply The Hindu).   The style and length of the stories were to a good extent shaped by their publication in a newspaper much of whose audience read English as a second language.  (Or a third or a fourth.)

There are thirty stories in this collection.   I have already posted on three of them.   (There is background information on Narayan in my first post on his work.)  So far I have really liked them all (Of course if I did not like the first three-I would not have pushed further into his work.)    The stories in this collection are interconnected in  way similar to that of Winesburg, Ohio.   I will just post briefly on the two stories of today.

"The Gateman's Gift" is a great short story.    The other stories by Narayan I have read so far are good  to very good.  In his book on short stories, The Lonely Voice-A Study ofe the Short Story Frank O'Connor (in words written around 1960) that the Indian Short Story was beginning to surpass in quality the contemporary Irish Short Story.    This was not, I think, an easy thing for the very Irish O'Connor to say.   One of  the writers he had to have meant was Narayan.   "The Gateman's Gift" almost perfectly exemplifies a  short story by the thoughts of  O'Connor.   (I will post soon on O'Connor's book and I will be measuring future short stories I read against what he says, for a while at least.)    The central figure in this story is a gateman (a door keeper).    He is employed by a fabulously wealthy man.    He has no idea what the man does or where his wealth comes from and would no more dream of asking than he would question a God.   The great man has spoken to him only twice in 30 years and he treasures those occasions as the greatest moments of his life.    When he reaches a certain age his wife gives him the courage to go to the great man and ask for a pension which he is granted.    On the last day of every month he goes to the accounting office where he once works, dressed in his finest clothes,  to get his pension.   Now that he has leisure time he begins to carve figures out of wood.    Soon he becomes very skilled at this and can make very involved artistic pieces.    He soon makes a practice of taking one to the office when he goes to get his pension to give to the people there.     One day he gets up all his courage and asks the people in the office to give what he regards as his best ever work to the great man.    In a few weeks for the first time in his life he gets a certified letter.   He is afraid to open it.   He thinks perhaps his old boss has decided to cut off his pension for creating a disturbance in the work place by giving out his carvings.   Or maybe the carving he gave him displeased the man.  His wife tells him he is an idiot and says he should open the letter but she is afraid to open it.     He even goes to the hospital and asks them to ex-ray the letter.   They tell him he must be crazy.   He then decides if he is crazy they will not cut of his pension and he begins to act as if he were crazy.   There is a really lot in this story.   Narayan constructs a world in just a few pages.   I have left the ending unspoiled so others can enjoy it.  

"The Roman Image" is a very interesting  story.   I would say for sure all five of Narayan's stories I have read have been a lot of fun to read.   One day a local man sees an advertisement in the paper seeking an assistant to a scholar of ancient Indian history who is on an expedition looking for artifacts.   The man could not be more thrilled when he gets the job.    What happens strains credibility a trifle but not so much I could not accept it.

All of the stories in The Astrologer's Day and other Stories can be read online .

I will, I hope, read more of his stories and at least one of his shorter novels soon.

Do you have a favorite  Indian short story?

Mel u

Naguib Mahfouz-نجيب محفوظ-"The Norwegian Rat"

"The Norwegian Rat" by Naguib Mahfouz (1962, 5 pages)

A Short Story by Nobel Prize Winner

from Egypt

Naguib Mahfouz (1911 to 2006-Cairo, Egypt) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988.    He is so far the only Egyptian to have won this award.   He produced a number of novels, essays, and short stories.    He was primarily a historical novelist using as his theme the full history of Egypt.   While maintaining a strict adherence to the tenants of his Muslim faith,  his work was considered a criticism of the corruption in the government and society of contemporary Egypt.    (You can read more about his life, work, and influence HERE)

"The Norwegian Rat"   reads like a story that could have been written by George Orwell.      The only real characters in the story (it is not a character development story) are a husband and wife living in a big city.    We are not told where they live and the story could be set in any big city world.   In his The Lonely Voice-A Study in the Short Story, Frank O'Connor says that when he taught creative writing he would tell his students that a good short story could be set anywhere.   

As the story opens the citizens of the city are being advised that the government fears there will be an invasion of Norwegian rats.   The citizens are advised of the precautions they must take.    Soon there are food shortages in the city and even though no Norwegian rats have been seen the citizens are told that the rats are the  cause.   Soon the citizens are told they must be even stricter in their fight against the rats and they must pay more taxes to fight the never seen rats.   All of the problems of the government are laid on the rats.    Soon a government inspector shows up at the couple's house to inspect it for possible rat infestation.   The inspector tells them it is nothing against them personally, all houses are being inspected.  

The couple were having lunch when the inspector showed up (spoiler alert) and they knew they should offer the inspector lunch.    The inspector sits down and begins to eat and eat.    The couple see him as looking just like a rat as he begins to consume all the food in their house.   

"Norwegian Rat" is almost more a political parable than a short story.    After a page or two you can pretty much see the end coming.   It was fun and well organized and made its point.    It was published in an at times harshly oppressive venue in which no dissent was allowed so Manfouz had to use parables and stories to make his point.  

You can read "Norwegian Rat" HERE

Mel u

Saadat Hasan Manto-سعادت حسن منٹو-Two Short Stories by the Greatest Urdu Short Story Writer

"Noor Jehan"  (1950, 3 pages, translated by Richard Mcgill-read HERE)
"The Return" (1949, 4 pages, translated by Khalid Hasan-read HERE)

Two Short Stories By The Most Famous Urdu

Short Story Writer of all Time

Saadat Manto (1912 to 1955-Punjab, India) had many accomplishments in his far too short life.   He his lasting legacy will be in his short stories about the human cost of the 1947 partition of India.    (I have previously posted on his by far best known short story, "Toba Tek Singh" and you can, if you wish, read more about his importance and background in my post on that story HERE)

"The Return" deals directly with one of the most terrible consequences of the partition of Indian in 1947 into Pakistan and India.    Women from bordering areas were (by people from each side-there is no good or bad  group here) kidnapped and taken across the border.   Some were forced married and converted in  their faith.   Others were forced into prostitution or sold as slaves.    1000s and 1000s died from the consequences of repeated rapes.   In the culture of the time and area, a raped woman was often regarded as a shameful person whom no respectable man would ever deal with again.   Many returning wives and daughters found themselves treated very badly when they did return home.   Husbands rejected returned wives and fathers and mothers often beat their daughters for bring disgrace on the family.

As "The Return"  opens we are in a train wreck.   Maybe it is an explosion or an attack we never really learn.   A married couple and their early teenage daughter were traveling on the train.   When the man awakes his wife is next to him but she knows she will soon die.   Their daughter is missing.   The wife tells him to leave her and go find their daughter.   He looks and looks but he never finds her.   He fears she has been kidnapped,  maybe by the people that caused the train wreck.    He has in time to give up and he returns home alone.   In time men from his area begin making cross border raids to recover women and they promise to bring his young beautiful daughter home if she can be found.     One day the man hears a truck has come back with a number of recaptured women on it.   The man cannot let himself believe his daughter is among them.  (spoiler alert)   She is on the truck but in perhaps the greatest tragedy of it all in this, she has been raped by all of the men that rescued her.    The story ends when the father finds her in a make shift hospital and slowly realizes what his daughters "saviors", his own neighbors and coreligionist have done.   Manto is his great wisdom, never tells us what country this story takes place in.

"Noor Jehan" is a much "lighter" story than "The Return".   It is pretty much a comic story about adulation heaped on an aging once glamorous female movie star by a four year old boy and other males.    It is mostly an entertainment read (there is nothing wrong with that!).

On Manto I would say for sure his most famous short story "Toba Tek Singh" belongs in  the world canon of short stories.  "The Return" is very much worth reading.

mel u

"Educating The Maid Servant" by Nuggehalli Pankaja

"Educating the Maid Servant" by Nuggehalli Pankaja (3 pages, 2010)

A Powerful Story About Maids in Bangalore

In India, just as is in the Philippines, there are millions and millions of women from rural backgrounds without the skills to participate in a technology based boom. Many of these women become full time maids, either live in or out. Country maids are a figure of fun throughout much of Asia. This is probably also true in much of Africa and Latin America also. There was even a TV show here in the Philippines making fun of a Yaya (a maid for a young child).

"Educating the Maid Servant" by Nuggehalli Pankaja is a very moving and eyeopening story about what happens when a woman tried to help one of her maids.

Pankaja (1929-Bangalore) writes in both English and Kannada. Kannada is the language of 50 million people in southern India. It has been designated as a classical language by the Indian government. Pankaja has written several novels, two of which have been made into movies. Her short stories have also been collected. She has written numerous articles about the lives and rights of women and children. She has received numerous awards.

"Educating the Maid Servant" gives us in three pages a vivid look at the perpetual cycle of poverty in the lives and families of maid servants. As the story opens we listen into a conversation with the lady of the house and her maid.

"“You should have been in the films, not sweeping-swapping,” I thought aloud soon after engaging her - the new maidservant. Her name was also modern, behaviour not that crude. How come she came to this field?

“I can scrimp and manage somehow within my husband’s income if only he stops drinking.” She sighed. “But he won’t stop however much I beseech. There are young mouths to feed, amma. How then can I help not working? And what other work can I get when I don’t know even the basic letters of our Kannada?”

When she asks she maid why she never went to school, we learn it because her father took any money that might have gone to pay for her schooling to fund his drinking. He ended up losing everything he owned including land he had inherited from his family. "Finally he sold us, the sisters to worthless fellows … my sisters are even more good looking…” I am not quite sure what "sold us" means here but I am assuming it means sold them as brides. It is not mentioned here but we know attractive maids are subject to all sorts of harassment.

The maid works for a few years for the household. Her health and situation are made worse by a constant stream of babies. Her husband abuses her in front of the children and may near-rape her in front of them also (they have no privacy at home). If the wife complains, her husband tells her he will, as supported by law and custom, marry another woman and make her his main wife. In time the maid has to be replaced when she dies in childbirth. We did learn what will happen to the maid's children in these heartbreaking words from the maid: "“And your children? Aren’t they going to school?”
“No, amma, they are not interested; can’t afford the fees also…if only their father had a little sense of responsibility…”

The unfinished words hung in the air…I could understand. The miserable atmosphere was slowly perverting their personalities. The insidious frustration would make them also drunkards - shady characters in the long run, resulting as bane of future generation …What a vicious circle!"

One day one of the new maids tells the householder that there is a free educational program that might allow her to break her family out of the cycle of poverty. Her boss in a kind gesture tells her maid to go to the classes and she can get her full pay even though she will not be able to come to work until noon. (spoiler alert) In a few months she notices the maid (who still comes in late) is using the book bag the school gave her for a shopping bag. The boss is mad over what seems to be happening as she still pays the maid for her time when she is supposed to be in school. Sadly we learn what has happened:


"I noticed the schoolbag (given by teacher) turned into a market-bag. Suspicious, I confronted her. Evasive at first, she admitted, “I no longer attend classes, amma… can’t find time…”
“Why? I gave you half-day off with full-pay! What do you do then? Gossip?”
“No, amma. I work in another flat…they pay me well. I need the extra money, amma.
He…he drinks more now…,” tumbled out the faltering words."

I know there are vast treatises written on the cycles of poverty but none of them will teach us more than Pankaja does in "Educating The Maid Servant".

Frank Connor in his classic study of the short story, The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story, says that the best short stories are about what he calls "submerged groups or people", people outside the main stream of society. Maids and Dalit people in India for sure are parts of a submerged group of people. As I mentioned before I really respected the honesty and high intelligence of the very Irish Frank O'Connor when he said (in 1961) that the Indian short story was starting to surpass current Irish short stories in quality. I will post on O'Connor's brilliant wonderful book (OK I like it!) soon. Once I do I will look at future short stories I post on to see if the best of them are in accord with O'Connor's conclusions.

I liked this story, I think Frank O'Connor would also and I recommend it to all.

You can read it online at Muse India.

The author has her own web page that lists her writings and awards.

Mel u

Rajendra Yadav -राजेन्द्र यादव- "Two In the Next World"

"Two In the Next World" by Rajendra Yadav-राजेन्द्र यादव-(1958, 2 pages-trans. in 2006)

Medical Corruption

A Story by an Eminent Hindi Author

"Two in the Next World" by Rajendra Yadav is a starkly realistic look at how medicine is practiced (or was in 1958) in the North  Eastern India.   Yadav (1929-Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India) comes from a very distinguished family that traces its origins back 1000s of years.   He was born into a Maratha caste many of whose members are government officials, land owners, and army officers.   His own father was a medical doctor.   Yadav studied Hindi literature in college and began to publish short stories and essays while still in college.   He has written several novels, one of which in the 1960s sold over a million copies.   He edited a prominent literary journal.   His wife, Mannu Bhandari, is also a well known author.   He has translated Russian and French literary works into Hindi.  

"Two in the Next World" is narrated from Hell by a man who died as a result of surgery by an incompetent doctor.   He was scheduled to have his surgery done by a government doctor but he found out the doctor was "a reserve quota doctor" meaning he came from once discriminated castes (Dalit or untouchables) which in the mind of the man telling the story that the doctor was just given his degree no matter how stupid he might have been to satisfy government quota requirements that there must be a certain number of Dalit doctors.   Instead he takes all of his families spare cash and hires a young very professional looking doctor right out of medical school.   It turns out the doctor got through school by bribes and passed his medical exams in the same way.    The narrator is now in what he thinks is hell.   He says he will look up the second wife of the doctor that killed him as she killed herself when her family could not give her husband all the money he demanded from them.


"Two in the Next World" (the man and the doctor's second wife) is a simple tale about a world where it is just natural that doctors are all either corrupt, incompetent or uncaring.   It is just how life is!   


The story was translated from Hindi by Pratik Kanjilal.




Mel u

"Green Goggles-A Pastiche" by Katherine Mansfield

"Green Goggles-A Pastiche" by Katherine Mansfield (1912, 2 pages)

An Early Uncollected Mansfield Story

The Reading Life Katherine Mansfield Project

It has been nearly a year ago since I read my first Katherine Mansfield short story, "Miss Brill".   My post on "Miss Brill" has turned out to be the most viewed item on my blog.    "Miss Brill" is must reading in English classes in Moscow, Mumbai, Manila, Mexico City and Milwaukee.     After reading a few more of Mansfield's (1888 to 1923-New Zealand) short stories I decided to post on all of them.     It took me about six months to read and post on all the stories.      I read most of the stories at the New Zealand Electronic Text Center. There are four collections of Mansfield's work that were published under her either her direction or that of her husband John Middleton Murry. It is the stories in these collections that are online. Mansfield wrote a few short stories that were not included in these collections (all are very early stories that she or her husband did not consider worthy of being published in a collection). I think there are about ten of these stories. For the sake of completeness and to see the development of Mansfield I wanted to read and post on all her stories but I could not find links to many of these early stories (they might be in print collections but I prefer to read short stories online).

Yesterday I was thrilled to find two of her uncollected early stories on the web page of Kathleen Jones, author of by far the best biography of Mansfield, Katherine Mansfield: The Story Teller. I will do a short post on both of these stories, one today and one later in the week. I am actively looking for the remaining stories and hope to post on all of her wonderful short stories eventually.

"Green Goggles-A Pastiche" is a very brief short story. It was written during Mansfield's "Russian Phase" during which she was reading a lot of the work of the big Russian writers. (Her work was heavily influenced by Anton Chekhov). "Green Goggles-A Pastiche" is about a young woman who has killed five government officials and kidnapped three children. I admit I am not sure if this is an homage or a play on the Russians. There is a long conversation about good and evil, life and death in the story that sounds very much like a satire of Dostoevsky. When one of the characters beings to speak in French for no real reason it has to remind us of War and Peace. This is a funny, clever well done story.

You can read it online HERE

I will be posting on Mansfield's "Sunday's Table" very soon. It felt good to be reading another Katherine Mansfield story. Katherine Mansfield will always be in my often changing header collage. I am currently reading Frank O'Connor's The Lonely Voice: A Study in the Short Story in which he devotes a chapter (or a lecture) to Mansfield. I will probably do a post on his remarks to help me digest his thoughts on her work.

I am always happy to receive reading suggestions of any sort.

Mel u

Ashapoorna Devi আশাপূর্ণা দেবী-Two Stories by One of The First Female Bengali Authors

"Grieving for One's Self" (1955, 3 pages,)
"Matchbook" (1949, 3 pages)

Ashapoorna Devi

Leading Bengali Female Author

Ashapoorna Devi আশাপূর্ণা দেবী (also translated as Ashapurna Debi) was one of the first Bengali women to write in a realistic fashion about the lives of women. Devi (1909 to 1995-Calcutta, India) was born into an affluent family (it seems all of the early 20th century South Asian authors I have read so far came from wealthy families) dominated by her very conservative grandmother. The grandmother believed, as was the common practice, that female children should receive no formal education at all. Devi learned to read and write by listening into the lessons from the tutors of her brothers. Her father was a well known artist and her mother was very into classical western and South Asian literature and was able to pass along a love of reading to her daughter. Devi had no duties as a child and read constantly. At age 13 she published her first poem and began a life time of authorship . She married by parental arrangement at age fifteen, the normal marriage age for girls.

Devi always put her family first in her life. She lived completely according to the customs of her time which meant she rarely left the house while her children were young. She produced a stream of novels, short stories and essays portraying the lives of women in Bengali. She never rebelled against the strictures on women in an overt way but her writings vividly portray the many injustices in the lives of women of her time. She received many awards and honorary degrees. Without a day of school, she became the first great Bengali women writer. Her work has been translated into several western and South Asian languages.

"Matchbox" is about a married couple. The man has had a live time practice of opening his wife's mail and reading it. Then if he feels like it he will give her the letters. He tells her it is his right to screen her mail to see if she has a lover. She is more or less confined to the house by custom and her husband is free to go where ever he wants and stay out at all hours without being questioned. One day the wife explodes with rage. This wonderful story is about what occurs when that happens. I really enjoyed seeing the husband trying to get himself out of trouble.

"Grieving For One's Self" is a another story about a married couple. The couple in this story have been married a very long time. The husband decided to fake a stroke in order see the reaction of his wife and his children. He very much resents the fact that she now has her own room. The story is just brilliant in the way it shows us the relationships between the husband and wife and their adult children. It has a lot to tell us about long term marriages.

Both of the stories were translated from Bengali by Prasenjit Gupta.

You can find both of these stories online HERE.


I enjoyed both of these stories. There are very much worthy of the few minutes it will take you to read them.


Mel u