Page 166 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Indian Writings in Literature

Notes them in life; they had no ambition. It was as if the very source of their life had dried up; all its
verdure was gone. It was the harvesting season, but there was no corn. Unhappiness was writ
large upon every face. A major portion of the produce had been sold away, while it had not yet
gone beyond the winnowing place, to the moneylenders and the petty officials. That which was
left belonged to others....The future of the peasant is dark; he sees no way out; all his senses are
dead and dulled; before his house, there are heaps of refuse and waste which stinks, but his sense
of smell is dead. His eyes are without a beam. At dusk, jackals roam about his house. None,
however, takes notice of it, or feels sorry about it...Whatsoever is placed before them, and howsoever,
they eat-just as the engine eats coal. What a shame that even their oxen do not put their mouth into
the manger, unless there is gram flour. But they have just to fill the stomach. Taste is immaterial.
Indeed, their palates do not know what taste is. They, these peasants, therefore, would be dishonest
for half a pice, strike anybody for a handful of grain. And so deep is their degeneration that they
cannot differentiate between self-respect and shame.*
One is led to ask what is the peasant's ambition. When Sobha asks Hori if ever they will be free
from the moneylenders clutches, Hori says:
There is no hope in this life. We ask neither for a kingdom nor for a throne, not even for comfort.
We want to have coarse meals and coarse clothes, and to live with honour intact. But even that is
denied to us.
For Hori, his life is a living death. Premchand says:
After a struggle lasting for thirty years, to-day Hori has lost his battle. His defeat is final. He has
been, as it were, made to stand at the city gates. Whosoever enters it, spits at his face and he cries
out to them: 'Brethren, I deserve your pity. I never knew what the June heat or what the winter
chill or rain was. Dissect this body and see if there is life in it. See how hard it has been kicked to
pieces and trampled under foot. Ask it: 'Have you ever known what comfort is? Have you ever
enjoyed shade?"
And in spite of all this, what he gets is mere insults. Still he lives-impotent man, greedy, mean...
Horis end comes soon, sooner than one could have expected. He is heavily under debt. To earn his
bread and to pay the interest on the loans, he has been forced by circumstances to take loans and
these are ever piling up, he makes ropes by night and works on double shift as a labourer on the
road, for now only that is left to him. After days of semi- starvation, one day he collapses on the
roadside, to be brought home to die. There is no money in the house to send for the doctor. And
now again, the moneylender comes this time in the shape of the heartless brahmin, with the
sanction and authority of religion and custom behind him. Pandit Data Din says: "The end is
come. Let Hori give away a cow with his dying hand to seek his salvation." But there is no cow in
the house, nor is there money for it. There are only 20 annas in the house, the previous night's
earnings. Dhaniya brings it, puts it into the hand of the brahmin and says: "Maharaj, there is no
cow in the house, not even a she-calf. And there is neither money, save these 20 annas, which is
all that is left in the house. This is his gaudan." She faints: Hori dies. The curtain drops: The novel
ends.
Self-Assessment
1. Fill in the blanks:
(i) Premchand died in ............... and has since been studied both in India and abroad as one
of the greatest writers of the century.
(ii) Premchand was the pen name adopted by the Hindi writer ............... who was born on 31
July 1880 at Lamati near Varanasi.
(iii) He leads an inconsistent life with his wife ..............., and his three children.

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