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Unit 9: The Shroud by Munshi Premchand
Digvijay Pandya, Lovely Professional University

Unit 9: The Shroud by Munshi Premchand Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives

Introduction
9.1 The Shroud

9.2 Analysis
9.3 Summary
9.4 Keywords
9.5 Review Questions

9.6 Further Readings

Objectives

After reading this unit, you will be able to:
• Introduce one of the greatest literary figures of modern Hindi and Urdu literature,
Premchand;
• Discuss The Shroud.

Introduction

Munshi Premchand, (July 31, 1880 - October 8, 1936) was one of the greatest literary figures
of modern Hindi and Urdu literature.

Premchand, whose original name was Dhanpat Rai Srivastava, was born on 31 July 1880, in
the village Lamahi near Varanasi, where his father was a clerk in the postoffice. He was also
known as Saala. Premchand’s parents died young—his mother when he was seven and his
father when he was fourteen and still a student. Premchand was left responsible for his step-
mother and step-siblings.
Early in life, Premchand faced immense poverty. He earned five rupees a month tutoring a
lawyer’s child. He was married at the early age of fifteen but that marriage failed, later he
married again, to Shivrani Devi, a balavidhava, (child widow), and had several children. She
supported him through life struggles.
Premchand passed his matriculation exam with great effort in 1898, and in 1899 he took up
school-teaching job, with a monthly salary of rupees eighteen.
Later, Premchand worked as the deputy sub-inspector of schools in what was then the United
Provinces of Agra and Gorakhpur. Now, there is a very lushgreen park on the name of Premchand—
“Premchand park”and government of India has also an autonomous body for research purpose
on his literature in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh.

In 1910, he was hauled up by the District Magistrate in Gorakhpur (near Normal school where
DIET - Training centre for B.Ed and B.T.C is eshtablished nowadays)for his anthology of short
stories Soz-e-Watan (Dirge of the Nation), which was labelled seditious. The first story of the

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