Contemporary Indian Short Stories, Series 1

by Humayan Foreword Kabir

1959 Sahitya Akademi HARDCOVER, 132pp, 8vo.

132 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1959

Reviews

[Sreya Mukherjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the title suggests, this book is an anthology of 15 regional language short stories by Indian authors, translated into English. The book was first published by Sahitya Akademi in 1959 and hence, the adjective 'Contemporary' has been used in the context of 1950s timeline. Therefore, reading this book in 2023 gives one a retrospective socio-cultural picture of erstwhile India, especially India in the early decades of the twentieth century. Consequently, some stories, especially those with gender stereotypes, appear to be dated. Unfortunately, this book does contain certain stories that are blatantly misogynistic and perpetuate the patriarchal narrative. One such story is the Tamil one, written by C. Rajagopalachari, which is titled 'The Nose-Jewel'. This story is written in the form of an animal parable with the underlying message that tragedy befalls such women who are obstinate and disobedient towards their husbands. Splendid, isn't it?! (exasperated sigh accompanied by eye-roll) Some other stories that sustain patriarchal narratives of abuse-tolerating and self-effacing women are the Assamese story 'Bhadari' by Laxminath Bezboroa, and the Telugu story 'On the Boat' by P. Padmaraju. One could argue that these stories depict the pitiable condition of women of those times, but there is a difference between depicting the patriarchal mindset of society and glorifying it. Both the above-mentioned stories do the latter. Even the Kanada story 'The Curds-Seller' by Masti Venkatesa Iyengar plays into the gendered stereotypes and employs the popular Indian misogynistic trope of 'saas-bahu' confrontation for gaining control over the man of the house. However, the story that I liked the best in this anthology is the one that poignantly portrays the pitiable condition of women and the degradation of humanity. It is the Urdu story by the veteran author Ismat Chughtai, titled 'Tiny's Granny'. The other three stories that I liked the most are the Bengali story 'The Price of Flowers' by Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyay, the Hindi story 'The Child' by Premchand, and the Sindhi story 'Brother Abdul Rahman' by Amarlal Hingorani. Also, the Malayalam story 'The Talking Plough' by Ponkunnam Varkey, and the Punjabi story 'Miracle' by Kartar Singh Duggal deserve special mention for redeeming the anthology from its selection of certain problematic stories.
My Rating: 4 stars