“Master Mashai” - A Short Story by Rabindranath Tagore - 1921

The Reading Life Guide to Getting Started in The Indian Short Story







The first Asian Nobel Prize winner  was Rabindranath Tagore who won in 1913 for his vast output  of poetry and short stories.    Tagore (1861 to 1941) was born in Kolkata, Indian into a family whose wealth and life style can now only be seen in movies.    His father owned an estate so huge that at one point in his life Tagore traveled through it on a luxurious barge and was met on the river bank by tenants paying token rents to him.     Tagore was educated in classical Indian literature and at age eight began to write poetry and ended up reshaping the Bengali Language.      His moral authority became so great that he was able to write the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh,.   He is considered prior to WWII and perhaps even now the most widely read Indian author both in the west and in India.   He wrote a lot of very much loved short stories, mostly in Bengali.   His stories are almost like parables and read like they could be from the wisdom books of any of the great religions.

I have been Reading the short stories of Rabindranath Tagore on and off for about six years.  I was happy to find a few days ago a digital edition of his selected stories for sale for $0.99.  Yesterday I read for the first time a very interesting story about the relationship of a spoiled young man and his tutor.

The father of the young man lives from the interest on money he inherited from his family.  Until, somewhat late in life, his wife finally has a child, a son, he is very tight with his money.  Gradually he gets used to spending money on his son.  He hires a distinquished tutor but a riff develops between the tutor and his son.

One day the son of one of the families cooks brings her son to work.  The father finds out young man is an accomplished scholar and he offers him a job as live in tutor.  His son and tutor bond, the boy calls him “Master Mashai”.  

A lot will happen, much of it very sad, as the plot advances and the boy ages.  I will leave the remaining plot action unspoiled.  The characters are all very well done.  

Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore is published by General Press in New Delhi.  I wish they would have included the first publication data for the stories and credited a Translator but for $0.99 I guess you should not complain too much.

You may read the story online here 

http://www.online-literature.com/tagore-rabindranath/stories-from-tagore/5/

Mel u

"The Crocodile's Lady" by Manoj Das (1975)

"Is there something special about the Indian short story? I think there is. It sticks to the traditional rules of the craft. It is in fact short and not a novella or an abridged novel. It revolves round one or at the most two or three characters and does not have a long list of dramatis personae as in novels. It is limited in time and space and does not span decades or spread out in different locales. It also has a well-formulated central theme and does not touch upon several topics or clashes of personalities. It has a distinct beginning, a build-up and usually a dramatic end, frequently an unexpected one which sums up the story. Western short stories tend to be prolix, leaving the reader to guess what it is all about"   Khushwant Singh

"Crocodile's Lady" by Manoj Das (1975, first published in The Illustrated Weekly of India, edited by Khushwant Singh, 1969 to 1979, a premier source for the publication of quality short stories and poems) is a story in the tradition of magic realism.  It is a delightful story which can fairly be called a work of magic realism.  Some say magic realism was born in South America, in truth this tradition in India goes back at least to before Homer.

As the story opens a Western professor visiting India wants to see a real village.  He is taken deep country to a village where there are no other cars in eight miles, few residents have ever seen a movie and the village youngsters come just to look at him.

He tells the man who accompanied him, he was born in the village but moved to the big city long ago,  that he wants to bath in the river as long as the crocodiles are not dangerous.  He is told a wonderful story of "The Crocodile's Lady" who lives in the village, ninety-four years old, widowed at age four.

They had a daughter who had been married at the age of three and had become a widow at four. She lived with her parents and, people say, grew up to be a beautiful damsel. ‘One day while bathing in the river with the other women, she was dragged away by a crocodile. She was given up for dead. But a decade later she suddenly reappeared in the village. Her father had died and her mother was dying. Their little hut on the river was in shreds. ‘One morning, two days later, a crocodile was found crawling on the embankment behind her hut. The earth, loose at one place, gave way under its weight. It slipped down on the village side of the embankment and the people thrashed it to death."

I don't want to tell more of the story, but I really enjoyed this work.  It does an excellent job combining folk stories with magic realism techniques.

I read it in Best Indian Short Stories, Vol. 1, edited and introduced by Khushwant Singh.

Mel u

"The Death of Shaikh Burhanuddin" by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas (1963?)

Also known as Khama Ahmed Abbas, one of the greatest 20th century Punjabi authors

The Reading Life Guide to Getting Started in the Indian Short Story




"The Death of Shaikh Burhanuddin" by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas (translated from Urdu by Khushwant Singh, my date of publication information is a guess) is told from the point of view of a Muslim man living in New Delhi at the times of the horrible post partition religious based riots in which thousands were killed, massive amounts of property was stolen or destroyed.  The three primary opposed factions were Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs.  The narrator has a viscous hatred for Sikhs, partially coming from their support of the British during the period of the Raj.  He also feels contempt for what he sees as the filthy unkept beards and long hair of the men.  (He does admire the beauty of the women.)

"My name is Shaikh Burhanuddin. When violence and murder became the order of the day in Delhi and the blood of Muslims flowed in the streets, I cursed my fate for having a Sikh for a neighbour. Far from expecting him to come to my rescue in times of trouble, as a good neighbour should, I could not tell when he would thrust his kirpan into my belly. The truth is that till then I used to find the Sikhs somewhat laughable. But I also disliked them and was somewhat scared of them."



Abbas in just a few pages brings the sheer madness and terror of the riots very much to life.  Like any racist, he finds the cultural customs of the groups he hates ridiculous .  He is fixated on what he sees as the unkept long hair and beards of the men.  As a legacy of colonialism, he has a grudging admiration for the British.

Toward the close of the story, a Sikh mob has approached the narrators house.  They are bent mostly on stealing everything they can from his house, if he gets in the way or if he is unlucky, he and his family will be killed.  His Sikh neighbor comes out of his house and tells the Sikh mob that he is entitled to first picks of the items in the house as he has had to endure the man's abuse for years.  As the mob moves on (I will tell more of the plot than I normally would as most will not be able to read this story as it is not online, as far as I know), the narrator is shocked when the Sikh and his family return all the items they had taken from his house, their intention all along was to protect the narrator.

This is a very exciting story, violent, full of vivid descriptions and scenes of religious hatred magnified by post colonial attitudes redeemed by a very courageous act. I see it as a classic post partition short story.

This story is included in an anthology I highly recommend, My Favorite Short Stories, edited by Khushwant Singh and Neelam Kumar.  Their are a generous  selection of stories from the major language groups and a decent introduction with good mini- bios of the authors.  This would be a decent pick as your started Indian Short Story Collection.  My only fault with it is that they do not provide first publication data on the stories.



Khwaja Ahmed Abbas (1914-1989) was a journalist, novelist and film producer-director of international repute. A writer with leftist leanings, Abbas published over 40 books in Urdu including Diya Jale Sari Raat (novel), Main Kaun Hun, Ek Ladki and Zafran Ke Phul —all collections of short stories. His other important works include When Night Falls, Face to Face with Khrushchev, a 2-part biography of Mrs Indira Gandhi —Indira Gandhi: Return of the Red Rose and its sequel That Woman.

Mel u

"Descent from the Rooftop" by Anita Desai. (From Best Indian Short Stories, Vol 1, edited by K. Singh)

"All her first impressions of Bombay returned and sprouted –once more it was a city of lies, filth, noise, double-dealing, in which all fantasy, all grace came to a hideous end as soon as it descended from the rooftop to the lighted street."   From "Descent from the Rooftop" by Anita Desai

"Descent from the Rooftop" is the third short story by Anita Desai I have so far read and posted upon.  I think like this one best of all.  I loved this story of a woman from a desert region of India who has recently married an affluent Bombay business man.  We don't learn the circumstances of his their marriage was arranged.  We learn she is a "country girl" when her husband teases her for her fear of riding in elevators.

The couple are on their way to a party at the home of the "friends whom her husband is most proud". He wants to show off his new wife and we sense she is worried that she might not fit in with his sophisticated friends.  Everyone at the party is beautifully attired and I so much enjoyed reading the exquisite descriptions of the clothing.  The conversation turns to a woman from their circle now living in Paris.  She has a wonderful flat there marvelously decorated.  She teaches classical Indian dance.  Her life at first sounds perfect then through gossip we learn her husband has many debts and she had to fire her cook.  Still she sounded wonderful.

As they leave the rooftop apartment she sees the guests and their magnificent clothes seem very ordinary.  The ugliness and squalor underlying the surface glamour of Bombay let her see what her life will really be like.  

"Descent from the Rooftop" is a wonderful story.  It brought out so much in just a few pages.

I hope others will share their experiences with Desai with us

Anita Desai's (1937, Mussooire, India) mother was German, her father was a Bengali business man.   German was the language of her parents household but she also grew up fluent in Bengali, Urdu, Hindi and English.   Her literary language is English.   She has been short listed three times for the Booker Award and her daughter, Kiran Desai won the award.   Anita Desai has taught creative writing in numerous high prestige American colleges.   She is a fellow The Royal Society of Literature and Girton College in Cambridge.   She has also won numerous awards in India.   Much of her fiction deals with the lives of ordinary people in India and the hardships created by the 1947 Partition.    

Mel u

"Ramblings on a Beach" by Kabir Bedi 1977 A Story by leading Indian Media Personality

"Ramblings on the Beach" is right out of the Wordsworthian romanticism of children play book with a dose of post colonialism thrown in.   The narrator suggests what he sees as the timidity, the reflexive submission to  authority he claims is deeply ingrained in the Indian character is a result of centuries of rule by colonial masters and their local standins.   He ties this in with a cultural tendency to teach children to submit to authority, to follow customs, to refrain from originality.  Being childish becomes a pejorative term used to impart a colonial mentality to Indians.  

The language is lush and lyrical.   I enjoyed reading this story.   I also liked his role in Octopussy.

Kabir Bedi (Punjabi: ਕਬੀਰ ਬੇਦੀ) is an Indian television and film actor. His career has spanned three continents including India, the United States and many European countries in three mediums: film, television and theatre. He is noted for his role asEmperor Shah Jahan in Taj Mahal: An Eternal Love Story. He is best known in Europe for playing the pirate Sandokan in the highly popular TV mini series and for his role as the villainous Gobinda in the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy. He is very popular in Italy and is fluent in Italian.

Kabir Bedi is based in India and lives in Mumbai.

"Mataji and the Hippies" by Balwant Gargi -ਬਲਵੰਤ ਗਾਰਗੀ - 1976- Translated from Punjabi by Khushwant Singh)

Balwant Gargi began his life in a humble Punjab village.  He rose from these modest beginnings to become of the most highly regarded Punjabi dramatist, wrote several award winning novels and lots of short stories.  "Mataji and the Hippies" should be read in partnership with another great story by an Indian writer dealing with Indian reaction to the thousands of "hippies", dharma bums, who came to India in the 1970s seeking a wisdom not found in Europe and America, "God and the Cobler" by R. K. Narayan.  He was mentored by Rabinder Nath Tagore who advised him to write in Punjabi rather than English. 

"Mataji and the Hippies" opens in a very small ashram on the banks of the holy Ganges.  Mataji is a middle aged at least Punjabi woman who spends most of her time high on Ganga.  She is a follower of many Gods, most especially Shiva to whom marijuana is sacred.  Or so she and the five western "hippies" who stay with her.  We learn a little about Mataji's past.  She grew up working in a rough road side cafe.  She left home at eighteen and drifted about.  We don't know how the young foreigners decided she was a guru of some sort.  She feeds them, mothers them and everybody is stoned most of the time.   She tells them it is legal to smoke marijuana as they are doing it as part of a religious observations.  She is a vegetarian and when she receives gifts of fruit she first throws some of it into the holy Ganges.  One day the police arrive, no doubt planning to arrest the hippies for drug use in order to get a bribe from them.  Mataji confronts the police Sargent, tells him he is profaning the worship of Shiva and he tells his men to leave and release the hippies. 

In a strange twist he returns to the ashram alone.  I know it will be hard for most to access this story (first published in The Hindu Times and reprinted in Best Indian Short Stories, Vol Ii edited by Khushwant Singh -this and Vol I are probably your best introductory volumes to the Indian short story. You need to also read Malguidi Days Short Stories of R. K. Narayan) but I still do not want to tell the ending.

This is a very intriquining story.  We never learn how the hippies ended up on the Ganges and we never know how things will work out.  

I would certainly buy an anthology of stories by Balwant Gargi. 

Balwant Gargi was born on December 4, 1916 in Neeta Khandan in Bathinda, Punjab. He was a popular dramatist, theatre director, novelist, and short story writer, and academic. He completed his undergraduation at the Government College Lahore, and pursued M.A.(English) and M.A.(Political Science) from FC College in Lahore. Gargi is the author of many popular plays, including Loha Kutt, Kesro, Kanak Di Balli, Sohni Mahiwal, Sultan Razia, Soukan, Mirza Sahiba and Dhooni di Agg; and some unique short stories Mircha Wala Sadh, Pattan di Berhi and Kuari Disi. His plays were translated into 12 languages, and have been performed around the world, including Moscow, London, New Delhi and around the USA. From The Economic Times of India 

"The Bed of Arrows" by Gopinath Mohanty

an award winning novelist.

"Gopinath Mohanty (Oriya: ଗୋପୀନାଥ ମହାନ୍ତି) (1914–1991), winner of the prestigious jnanpith award, eminent Oriya novelist of the mid-twentieth century is arguably the greatest Oriya writer after Fakir Mohan Senapati."

Source(s):

http://en.wikipedia.org/

"The Bed of Arrows" is an interesting story about a marriage.  The couple in the story have been married a long time.   It was customary for girls to be married, via brokered arrangents, shortly after reaching puberty.   By age forty, women were off very physically taxed, worn out, by numerous yearly child births and household work.   In the marriage in this story the 45 year old wife see herself as an old woman while her husband is in his prime.   We see them slowly drift apart.  It is obvious the husband is  having affairs but the wife cannot or does not want to see it.

Mel u

"The Flood" by Thakazhi Sivasankaran Pillai - തകഴി ശിവശങ്കര പിള്ള. Translated by Samuel Mathai

Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai (1912 to 1999) was a novelist and short story writer of Malayalam language. He is popularly known as Thakazhi, after his place of birth. Born in the village of Thakazhy, in Kuttanad, Alappuzha district of Kerala, he started to write stories when he was a schoolboy.  His literary taste was nurtured by his high school headmaster Kainikkara Kumara Pillai who exposed him to Indian literature.  He met Kesari A Balakrishna Pillai while pursuing his law studies in Tiruvanantapuram.  He introduced Thakazhi to modern European literature and thought  He focused on the oppressed classes as the subject of his works, which are known for their attention to historic detail.  He has written several novels and over 600 short stories. His most famous works are Kayar (1978) and Chemmeen (1956; film adaptation, 1965). He was awarded India's highest literary award, the Jnanpith in 1984. This week eighty percent of metro Manila was flooded by the co-arrival of a typhoon and a monsoon.  I have experienced hurricanes and the rains of monsoons put them to shame.  Any way I was looking over a collection of Indian short stories I have on my IPAD and I saw there was one called "The Flood" by a new to me writer, Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, so I decided to read it.  After another monsoon flood years ago I read and posted on a story by Emile Zola, also called "The Flood".   The flood in the story has to be partially tidal flooding.   As the story opens we are on the third floor of a temple where hundreds of people have taken shelter.   Everyone who has a boat has left,lots of people are on the roof of their house hoping to be rescued as the waters continue to rise.  The story is focused on a family dog left behind by his family.  We feel the bewilderment and terror of the poor dog as the waters rise.   It is a very poignant story.    Dog lovers will be very moved.   If you have a favorite Subcontinent short story, please tell us about it. Mel u