What do you think?
Rate this book
बाबा बटेसरनाथ
अगर यह कहना सच है कि भारत की आत्मा गाँवों में निवास करती है, तो यह कहना सच को रेखांकित करना है कि नागार्जुन के उपन्यासों में इस महादेश की आत्मा साकार हो उठी है। वे सच्चे अर्थों में जनवादी कथाकार हैं -जनसाधारण की बात को जनसाधारण के लिए जनसाधारण की भाषा में कहनेवाले कथाकार। उनके भाषा-शिल्प में कहीं कोई घटाटोप नहीं, बनावट नहीं; अगर कुछ है तो जीवन का सहज प्रवाह; और इसीलिए मन को छू लेने की जैसी शक्ति उनके उपन्यासों में है, वह कम देखने को मिलती है। बाबा बटेसरनाथ रचना-शिल्प की दृष्टि से नागार्जुन का विलक्षण प्रयोग है। इसका कथानायक कोई मानव-शरीरधारी नहीं, बल्कि एक बूढ़ा बरगद है जिसके प्रति गाँव के लोगों की भावना वैसी ही है जैसी अपने किसी बड़े-बूढ़े के प्रति होती है, और इसीलिए वे लोग उस पेड़ को साधारण ‘ब
- GenresIndia
118 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1954
5 people are currently reading
93 people want to read
About the author
Nagarjun
74 books22 followersHe was one of the most influential poet of Maithili and Hindi. Besides poems, he also wrote a number of short stories, novels and travelogues. He was awarded with Sahitya Academy Award for his book "Patarheen Nagna Gach". He received Sahitya Academy Fellowship for lifetime achievement which is the highest literary award of India.
Born as Vaidya naath Mishra into a Maithil Brahmin family, he later converted to Buddhism and got the name "Nagarjun". He started his literary career with writing maithili poems and chose the pen name "Yatri". He became a teacher for sometime in Saharanpur, UP but his quest for Buddhism led him to Srilanka in 1935 where he converted to Buddhism following the footsteps of his mentor "Rahul Sankrityayan". There he also studied Marxisim and Leninism. After his return, he travelled a lot in India. He also participated in Indian Freedom Movement and was jailed by British govt. In post independence period, he played an active role in JP Movement.
Nagarjun is regarded as Jan Kavi and it is said that he was the first poet of India who took poems out of the hands of elite and spread it to masses.
सुविख्यात प्रगतिशील कवि-कथाकार। हिंदी, मैथिली, संस्कृत और बांग्ला में काव्य-रचना। पूरा नाम वैद्यनाथ मिश्र ‘यात्री’। मातृभाषा मैथिली में ‘यात्री’ नाम से ही लेखन। शिक्षा-समाप्ति के बाद घुमक्कड़ी का निर्णय। गृहस्थ होकर भी रमते-राम। स्वभाव से आवेगशील, जीवंत और फक्कड़। राजनीति और जनता के मुक्तिसंघर्षों में सक्रिय और रचनात्मक हिस्सेदारी। मैथिली काव्य-संग्रह ‘पत्रहीन नग्न गाछ’ के लिए साहित्य अकादेमी पुरस्कार। उत्तर प्रदेश हिन्दी संस्थान तथा मध्य प्रदेश और बिहार के शिखर सम्मान सहित कई पुरस्कारों से सम्मानित।
प्रमुख प्रकाशित पुस्तकें: रतिनाथ की चाची, बाबा बटेसरनाथ, दुखमोचन, बलचनमा, वरुण के बेटे, नई पौध आदि (उपन्यास); युगधारा, सतरंगे पंखोंवाली, प्यासी पथराई आँखें, तालाब की मछलियाँ, चंदना, खिचड़ी विप्लव देखा हमने, तुमने कहा था, पुरानी जूतियों का कोरस, हजार-हजार बाँहोंवाली, पका है यह कटहल, अपने खेत में, मैं मिलिटरी का बूढ़ा घोड़ा (कविता-संग्रह); भस्मांकुर, भूमिजा (खंडकाव्य); चित्रा, पत्रहीन नग्न गाछ (हिंदी में भी अनूदित मैथिली कविता-संग्रह); पारो (मैथिली उपन्यास); धर्मलोक शतकम् (संस्कृत काव्य) तथा संस्कृत से कुछ अनूदित कृतियाँ।
Born as Vaidya naath Mishra into a Maithil Brahmin family, he later converted to Buddhism and got the name "Nagarjun". He started his literary career with writing maithili poems and chose the pen name "Yatri". He became a teacher for sometime in Saharanpur, UP but his quest for Buddhism led him to Srilanka in 1935 where he converted to Buddhism following the footsteps of his mentor "Rahul Sankrityayan". There he also studied Marxisim and Leninism. After his return, he travelled a lot in India. He also participated in Indian Freedom Movement and was jailed by British govt. In post independence period, he played an active role in JP Movement.
Nagarjun is regarded as Jan Kavi and it is said that he was the first poet of India who took poems out of the hands of elite and spread it to masses.
सुविख्यात प्रगतिशील कवि-कथाकार। हिंदी, मैथिली, संस्कृत और बांग्ला में काव्य-रचना। पूरा नाम वैद्यनाथ मिश्र ‘यात्री’। मातृभाषा मैथिली में ‘यात्री’ नाम से ही लेखन। शिक्षा-समाप्ति के बाद घुमक्कड़ी का निर्णय। गृहस्थ होकर भी रमते-राम। स्वभाव से आवेगशील, जीवंत और फक्कड़। राजनीति और जनता के मुक्तिसंघर्षों में सक्रिय और रचनात्मक हिस्सेदारी। मैथिली काव्य-संग्रह ‘पत्रहीन नग्न गाछ’ के लिए साहित्य अकादेमी पुरस्कार। उत्तर प्रदेश हिन्दी संस्थान तथा मध्य प्रदेश और बिहार के शिखर सम्मान सहित कई पुरस्कारों से सम्मानित।
प्रमुख प्रकाशित पुस्तकें: रतिनाथ की चाची, बाबा बटेसरनाथ, दुखमोचन, बलचनमा, वरुण के बेटे, नई पौध आदि (उपन्यास); युगधारा, सतरंगे पंखोंवाली, प्यासी पथराई आँखें, तालाब की मछलियाँ, चंदना, खिचड़ी विप्लव देखा हमने, तुमने कहा था, पुरानी जूतियों का कोरस, हजार-हजार बाँहोंवाली, पका है यह कटहल, अपने खेत में, मैं मिलिटरी का बूढ़ा घोड़ा (कविता-संग्रह); भस्मांकुर, भूमिजा (खंडकाव्य); चित्रा, पत्रहीन नग्न गाछ (हिंदी में भी अनूदित मैथिली कविता-संग्रह); पारो (मैथिली उपन्यास); धर्मलोक शतकम् (संस्कृत काव्य) तथा संस्कृत से कुछ अनूदित कृतियाँ।
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 14, 2013
From Pastoral to Political
One more Hindi novel goes waste in trying to proselytize, in trying to turn itself into an idealism.
Three young men sleep under a hundred year old banyan tree, and the tree manifests as a humanoid in the dream of one. It goes on to enumerate the history of the listener's family, conjoining it with the history of the village. 19th century pastoral life in what is today's northern Bihar, rife with superstitions and calamity, is evoked. Feudalism is bashed. Even Hindu tradition is bashed. One likes the novel here, likes its naivete and its simple execution. A passage from the novel will exemplify this:
मनुष्यों की बलि चाहनेवाले यक्ष-गन्धर्व, देव-देवियाँ और ब्रह्म अब बाहर नहीं रह गए -- मोती जिल्दोंवाले पुराने पोथों की बारीक पंक्तियों के अन्दर आज वे नज़रबंद हैं। राजाओं, पुरोहितों, सामंतों और तीर्थकरों की बातों का बढ़ा-चढ़ाकर बखान करनेवाले बहुत सारे विद्वान सुदूर अतीत की उन क्रूर घटनाओं पर अब भी पर्दा डाले हुए हैं; वह उन लोगों के लिए सतयुग है, स्वर्णयुग है ! साधारण जनता का स्वर्णयुग तो अब आने वाला है बेटा !
But then the novels takes a historical turn - it zooms out of the village and acquires a nationalistic tone. India's struggle for independence is given as a crash course. One wonders why one is reading a compression like this one - till one realizes that Nagarjun's desire is to move the entire discussion toward a political ideology. Suddenly the novel becomes disingenuous; it loses its earlier qualities.
Ultimately the political aim becomes clear. The banyan tree falls in an area that can be understood as a commonly owned area. With the fall of the old-Zamindari system, such lands are also up for grabs in the market. What was public property is on course to become private. The novel thus proposes, as a counter to this post-feudal effect, Socialism through its tool of Socialist Realism. The establishment of pseudo-communist Kisaan Sabhas is posited as a synonym for progress. While there is no real problem in this per se, one has to evaluate it considering the effect it has on the novel - for Nagarjun chose the medium of the novel and not of the essay to say what he had to say. The novel fails, because it wants to do too much. It remains simple throughout, but that innocence that it needed to strengthen its simplicity with, is shed somewhere in the middle. And when that happens, the novel just becomes silly. In the end, the idea of the old banyan tree dying and a new one planted in its place, while meant as a sign of progress, falls flat as bad propaganda.
One more Hindi novel goes waste in trying to proselytize, in trying to turn itself into an idealism.
Three young men sleep under a hundred year old banyan tree, and the tree manifests as a humanoid in the dream of one. It goes on to enumerate the history of the listener's family, conjoining it with the history of the village. 19th century pastoral life in what is today's northern Bihar, rife with superstitions and calamity, is evoked. Feudalism is bashed. Even Hindu tradition is bashed. One likes the novel here, likes its naivete and its simple execution. A passage from the novel will exemplify this:
मनुष्यों की बलि चाहनेवाले यक्ष-गन्धर्व, देव-देवियाँ और ब्रह्म अब बाहर नहीं रह गए -- मोती जिल्दोंवाले पुराने पोथों की बारीक पंक्तियों के अन्दर आज वे नज़रबंद हैं। राजाओं, पुरोहितों, सामंतों और तीर्थकरों की बातों का बढ़ा-चढ़ाकर बखान करनेवाले बहुत सारे विद्वान सुदूर अतीत की उन क्रूर घटनाओं पर अब भी पर्दा डाले हुए हैं; वह उन लोगों के लिए सतयुग है, स्वर्णयुग है ! साधारण जनता का स्वर्णयुग तो अब आने वाला है बेटा !
But then the novels takes a historical turn - it zooms out of the village and acquires a nationalistic tone. India's struggle for independence is given as a crash course. One wonders why one is reading a compression like this one - till one realizes that Nagarjun's desire is to move the entire discussion toward a political ideology. Suddenly the novel becomes disingenuous; it loses its earlier qualities.
Ultimately the political aim becomes clear. The banyan tree falls in an area that can be understood as a commonly owned area. With the fall of the old-Zamindari system, such lands are also up for grabs in the market. What was public property is on course to become private. The novel thus proposes, as a counter to this post-feudal effect, Socialism through its tool of Socialist Realism. The establishment of pseudo-communist Kisaan Sabhas is posited as a synonym for progress. While there is no real problem in this per se, one has to evaluate it considering the effect it has on the novel - for Nagarjun chose the medium of the novel and not of the essay to say what he had to say. The novel fails, because it wants to do too much. It remains simple throughout, but that innocence that it needed to strengthen its simplicity with, is shed somewhere in the middle. And when that happens, the novel just becomes silly. In the end, the idea of the old banyan tree dying and a new one planted in its place, while meant as a sign of progress, falls flat as bad propaganda.
August 4, 2018
What do you read after a book in which a Neem tree is the narrator? Of course a book where a Banyan tree is a narrator! Both the books talk of the times straddling independence. As a literary device, large trees, seemingly standing around passively, are apt witnesses for those turbulent times when everything else was undergoing huge changes.
This is the second novel of Nagarjun that I read. Set in the rural Bihar, his novels often speak at the whole community and area level rather than going deep into individual characters. Just like Varun ke Bete focused on the fishing communities operating on large ponds, this one talks of the situation around the times of independence when Zamindaars are doing everything they can to salvage their properties. The balance between them and the cultivators was upended and everyone was trying to find a standing in the new scenario. It is like hearing the oral history of the area rather than of few individuals there.
His novels are also choke full of traditional knowledge and wisdom related to agriculture, various usage of trees. In this book, he also describes various things people ended up eating in case of severe drought.
But unlike Neem ka Ped, where the Neem tree is merely a witness, Nagarjun gives a full personality to the Banyan tree and keeps him in the center of the story. How it was born, how it grew up, narrating various incidents relating to itself. He assigns it the place that such trees often hold in the consciousness of those around them - of a wise elders.
PS: Tanuj Solanki's review reminded me of it. The novel as it progresses, becomes a very open apology for political ideology, thus defeating the purpose. In that sense, Rahi Masoon Raza's Neem ka Ped remains far superior.
This is the second novel of Nagarjun that I read. Set in the rural Bihar, his novels often speak at the whole community and area level rather than going deep into individual characters. Just like Varun ke Bete focused on the fishing communities operating on large ponds, this one talks of the situation around the times of independence when Zamindaars are doing everything they can to salvage their properties. The balance between them and the cultivators was upended and everyone was trying to find a standing in the new scenario. It is like hearing the oral history of the area rather than of few individuals there.
His novels are also choke full of traditional knowledge and wisdom related to agriculture, various usage of trees. In this book, he also describes various things people ended up eating in case of severe drought.
But unlike Neem ka Ped, where the Neem tree is merely a witness, Nagarjun gives a full personality to the Banyan tree and keeps him in the center of the story. How it was born, how it grew up, narrating various incidents relating to itself. He assigns it the place that such trees often hold in the consciousness of those around them - of a wise elders.
PS: Tanuj Solanki's review reminded me of it. The novel as it progresses, becomes a very open apology for political ideology, thus defeating the purpose. In that sense, Rahi Masoon Raza's Neem ka Ped remains far superior.
October 6, 2019
यह उपन्यास कम और लेखक की राजनीतिक टिप्पणी ज़्यादा है. और आधा दूरी तय करने के बाद ऐसा लगता है जैसे कि लेखक को इसे बस खत्म करने की जल्दी थी.
December 4, 2021
Nagarjun ki behad khubsurat kitab, kaise ekk pedh pura angrez hukumat ke raj ke uskay gurne ki baya krta hai aachi Kitab hai.
March 7, 2022
Story of rural India from the eyes of a Banyan tree. Marvelous writing.
January 13, 2016
It was a different kind of book. It's almost a fairy tale in some ways, and yet it talks about the society as if it's a social book, which it actually is. There is not so much story, and it gets a little preachy in a few places, but still a good book that gives you some good idea of history, some that isn't written as history.
April 26, 2013
baba batesharnath is an old bargad (banyan) tree which tells the story of a village, its people, their life, their history in a very touching manner. A nice read.
Read
December 18, 2013rr
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews