The Complete Short Stories

ki Bees Urdu–Hindi Kahaniyon ka Samantar Paath (op cit.) and Kamal Kishore Goyanka in Premchand ki Hindi–Urdu Kahaniyaan, second edition, (Delhi: Prabhat Prakashan, 2017) have drawn attention to this aspect by reading several stories in both the versions. However, this is still a work in progress. They have left out several stories from the ambit of discussions, as has been demonstrated in the Notes sections in the four volumes of this anthology. This anthology seeks to fill that gap. Now that the raw data has been made available, a new impetus in research in this area is expected.

¹⁶ Amrit Rai (ed.) (in Hindi: ‘Prastutkarta’ [Presenter], ‘Gupt Dhan’ [Hidden Treasure]; Premchand (Allahabad: Hans Prakashan, 1962), p. 6.

¹⁷ I am indebted to Harish Trivedi for this idea expressed in his essay, ‘The Urdu Premchand, The Hindi Premchand’, The Jadavpur Journal of Comparative Literature (1984), pp. 22–115.

¹⁸ Letter to Imtiaz Ali Taj, 25 December 1919.

¹⁹ The Hindi original is as follows: ‘Aisa lagta hai ke kai baatein Hindi mein zyada swabhavik dhang se kahi ja sakti hai, aur koi Urdu mein. Is pratyaksh anubhav ki jad mein kya kya chhupa hua hai—itihaas, sanskritik-samajik purvagraha, sahityik parampara—ye shod ka vishay ho sakta hai.’ Alok Rai and Mushtaq Ali (eds), Samaksh: Premchand ki Bees Urdu–Hindi Kahaniyon ka Samantar Paath (Allahabad: Hans Prakashan, 2002), p. ii.

²⁰ The following table shows such changes in ‘Hajj-e Akbar/Maha Teerth’ (‘The Greater Pilgrimage’) Hindi VersionUrdu VersionTitle of the storyMaha TeerthHajj-e AkbarHusbandMunshi IndramaniMunshi Sabir HusainWifeSukhadaShakiraChildRudramaniNasirMaidservantKailasiAbbasiPlace of pilgrimage the family intends to visitBadrinathHajj (to Mecca)Name for GodKhuda, AllahParmeshwar, Narayan

Apart from Hajj-e Akbar, similar changes can also be seen in stories like ‘The Call of Dawn’ (‘Shankhnaad’) and ‘The Correction’ (‘Pashu se Manushya’).

²¹ The Hindi original is as follows: ‘Adhdhyan hi ye bataayega ke kis parampara mein kaun si baat kahna zaroori samjha gaya, aur kaun ghair zaroori; kaun si baat kahi ja sakti thi, aur kaun si baat ankahi hi samajh li gayi. Us prarambhik daur mein ubharti mansikataon ke sanket in rupbhedaon mein luke chhipe hain, dekhe ja sakte hain.’ Alok Rai and Mushtaq Ali (eds.), Samaksh: Premchand ki Bees Urdu–Hindi Kahaniyon ka Samantar Paath, p. ii.

²² In a recent article in Wasafiri, Boyd Tonkin, former literary editor of the Independent and someone who has worked to give translation a place of honour in several international awards, reinforces this argument when he points out how translated works were profoundly transformative for him even though he did not know the original languages: ‘I can recall the late teen-age and early twenties frenzy of excitement inspired by my discovery of writers such as Kafka and Proust, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. Except, of course, that what I discovered were the standard English translations they circulated by Penguin Classics and a couple of other publishers.’ Boyd Tonkin, ‘Labours of Love: Literary Translation Inside and Outside the Market Place’, Wasafiri, Vol. 32, No. 1, (March 2017), p. 9.

²³ Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘The Politics of Translation’, in Lawrence Venuti (ed.), The Translation Studies Reader, second edition (New York & London: Routledge, 2002), p. 372.

²⁴ The recent works of Amitav Ghosh (particularly his Ibis trilogy), Amitabha Bagchi, Chandrahas Choudhury, Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar and others reveal how Indian words of cultural import and regional specificity have been normalized in the English that is being written in India, which embolden translators in English to be innovative and mould the English idiom to their own advantage.

²⁵ ‘Premchand in English: The Story of an “Afterlife”’ in M. Asaduddin (ed.), Premchand in World Languages: Translation, Reception and Cinematic Representations, (New Delhi: Routledge, 2016).

²⁶ Here, the case of Kamal Kishore Goyanka, a lifelong Premchand researcher who has written close to thirty books on different aspects of Premchand’s life and art, is salutary. Goyanka unearthed a hitherto unavailable story in the Urdu version with the title ‘Roo-e Siyaah’ (Black Face), but he read it as ‘Rooh-e Siyah’ (Black Soul) and translated it in Hindi as ‘Kalooshit Atma’. This story was first compiled in the collection, Premchand ki Aprapya Kahaniyaan (Delhi: Anil Prakashan, 2005), pp. 152–60. On the facing page the Urdu title page is given where the title ‘Roo-e Siyah’ is written in bold, clear Persian script. One cannot attribute this error to any other cause except for the inability to read the Persian script correctly. Now, how this error will impact the readers’ response to the story and falsify the intent of the author is anybody’s guess. This is not intended to undervalue the work of Goyanka, an assiduous researcher, but to underline the fact that we should spare no efforts to eliminate avoidable errors, understand our own inadequacy and seek help where it is needed. Many scholars, including Premchand’s son Amrit Rai, have rendered the Urdu versions of Premchand’s stories into Hindi, as indeed some have rendered some Hindi versions into Urdu. It will be a valid subject of research to examine how accurately these versions have been rendered.

¹ A geographical and cultural region, and also a mountain range in central India. It is now divided between the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

¹ The complete mantra appears later and is translated thus: ‘The eternal, the utmost, the fulfiller of all desires/It is for Ram’s grace that the heart aspires.’ The centrality of this mantra is emphasized in the Urdu version when the narrator refers to it as the only sign of life in Mahadev, who is otherwise described as a ‘moving statue’. He even tries zealously to teach this mantra to the parrot. A few more lines are added in the Urdu version, mildly caricaturing Mahadev as a toothless, bent-backed ‘lone warrior in the battlefield of life’.

¹ Hindu school of philosophy that foregrounds logic.

¹ The God of rain.

¹ During the Indian independence movement, the extremists were known as ‘garam dal’, implying ‘hot heads’, and the moderates were known as ‘naram dal’, meaning ‘softies’.

² Part of the story only makes sense if one follows all the ways that gaurav (which means pride, honour, dignity,