Page 217 - DENG203_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_IV

Elective English—IV

Notes 12.1.1 Early Life

Munshi Premchand was born on 31 July 1880 in Lamahi, a village located near Varanasi (Benares).
His ancestors came from a large family, which owned six bighas of land. His grandfather Gur
Sahai Lal was a patwari also called a village accountant, and his father Ajaib Lal was a post office
clerk. His mother was Anandi Devi of Karauni village, who could have been the inspiration
behind the character Anandi in his Bade Ghar Ki Beti. Premchand was the fourth child of Ajaib
Lal and Anandi. The first two children were girls who died as children, and the third one was a
girl named Suggi. His parents named him Dhanpat Rai which means the master of wealth, while
his uncle, Mahabir, a rich landowner, nicknamed him “Nawab” (“Prince”). “Nawab Rai” was
the first pen name chosen by Premchand.
When he was 7 years old, Premchand began his education at a madarsa in Lalpur. Premchand
learnt Persian and Urdu from a maulvi in the madarsa. Premchand’s mother died after a long
illness when he was 8 years old. His grandmother, who took the responsibility of raising him,
died soon after his mother’s death. Premchand felt isolated, as his elder sister had already been
married, and his father was always busy with work. His father, who was now posted at Gorakhpur,
married again, but Premchand got little affection from his step-mother. The step-mother later
became a recurring theme in Premchand’s works.
After his mother’s death, Premchand found solace in fiction, and developed a fascination for
books. He heard the stories from the Persian-language fantasy epic Tilism-e-Hoshruba at
a tobacconist’s shop. He started selling books for a book wholesaler, thus having the opportunity
to read a lot of books. He learnt English at a missionary school, and studied numerous works of
fiction including George W. M. Reynolds’s eight-volume The Mysteries of the Court of London He
.
composed his first literary work at Gorakhpur, which never got published and is now lost. It
was a farce on a bachelor, who falls in love with a low-caste woman. The character was based on
Premchand’s uncle, who often scolded him for being obsessed with reading fiction; the farce was
probably written as a revenge for this.
After his father’s posted in Jamniya in the mid-1890s, Premchand joined the Queen’s College at
Benaras as a day scholar. In 1895, he was married at the age of 15, when he was in the 9th grade.
The match was arranged by his maternal step-grandfather. The girl was from a rich landlord
family and was older than Premchand. He found her argumentative and not good-looking.
Premchand’s father died in 1897 after prolonged illness. He was able to pass the matriculation
exam with second division. Though, only the students with first division were given fee
concession at the Queen’s College. Premchand then wanted admission at the Central Hindu
College, but failed due to his poor arithmetic skills. As a result he had to discontinue his studies.
Premchand then obtained an assignment to coach an advocate’s son in Benares at a monthly
salary of five rupees. He used to reside in a mud-cell over the advocate’s stables, and used to
send a major part of his salary back home. Munshi Premchand read a lot during these days. In
1899, after racking up numerous debts, he once went to a book shop to sell one of his collected
books. There, he met the headmaster of a missionary school at Chunar, who offered him a job as
a teacher, at a monthly salary of ` 18. He also started teaching a student at a monthly fees of 5.
Premchand, in 1900, secured a job as an assistant teacher at the Government District
School, Bahraich, at a monthly salary of 20. After three months, he was transferred to the District
School in Pratapgarh, where he stayed in an administrator’s bungalow and tutored his son.
Dhanpat Rai first wrote under the pseudonym “Nawab Rai”. His first short novel was Asrar e
Ma’abid (Devasthan Rahasya in Hindi, “The Mystery of God’s Abode”), which sees corruption
amongst the temple priests and their sexual exploitation of underprivileged women. The novel
was published in a series in the Benares-based Urdu weekly Awaz-e-Khalk from 8 October 1903

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