Especially for non-readers of Hindi, Premchand can be a rather intimidating figure. Sure, he is a shining beacon of Indian literature, and the piercing social commentary in his stories is evident even in translation. But in translation, the stories of his that one would have read would be the likes of Kafan — brilliant, sure, and serious. Heavy. Those of us who would later go on to enjoy the lightness of touch of, say, a Dharamveer Bharti in translation, perhaps wouldn’t dare to explore the oeuvre of Premchand further.
And thus is the joy of audio. Thanks to Bollywood, many of us non-native Hindi-speakers understand the language well enough, and especially since my mother tongue is a not-very-distant relation of Hindi, through audiobooks was how I re-discovered Premchand. A rather shaky recording on YouTube was how I encountered Bade Bhai Sahab for the first time and came to admire the simplicity, tongue-in-cheek humour and delightful common touch.
Bade Bhai Sahab (the respected older brother) is the delightful story of the relationship of the young narrator with his brother, who is five years older to him. Both of them stay at a boarding school, and the story starts with the older brother being only three years ahead of our young narrator in school, by dint of him failing to clear the year-ending examinations a couple of times. Premchand puts it across as — Bade Bhai Sahab was insistent on learning everything to the utmost detail. And to ensure that he became a master of the subject he’s taught, he would stay back at a level for a couple of years at a time.
The older brother was a strict disciplinarian, and would admonish our young narrator on the perils of being lackadaisical about his studies. English — how difficult a subject! A quagmire even for the most learned. How would the protagonist learn English if not through diligent effort? Does he think playing outside, jumping around and general mirth-making would help? Our protagonist, a timid boy, would be terrified. The chastisement was well deserved, he would think; and make daily, weekly and monthly study plans. Unfortunately, focus was not his forte, and the plans would be discarded after a few days.
The older brother, though, was perseverant in his studies. He would always be in front of his books —doodling away, writing the same thing over and over, in multiple fonts, and drawing caricatures. Our protagonist had once looked through the older brother’s notes, and reading through the jumbled sequence of words and phrases and doodling, naturally assumed that it was too sophisticated for his young mind to fathom his brother’s way of studying.
As luck would have it, come the time of examinations, our protagonist would come first in his section, and the older brother would fail his classes. How was that ever possible? And now, how would the older brother react to the changed circumstances? Would he continue to be as much of a disciplinarian to his brother?
I am glad that albeit late, I did discover Premchand eventually.
Shom Biswas
Twitter @spinstripe
The writer is a business development executive in Hyderabad