Those who partake of Sahitya Akademi’s frequent hospitality at the India International Centre in Delhi may not as frequently find use for the Akademi Library. And those who do use the Library may not know of the various bibliographic aids prepared or published from time to time by the Akademi.
1989
Thumri’s relationship with dance is evi¬dent even in its name which many musicians consider to derive from the word ‘thumak’—roughly translatable as the gait of the dancer, at once graceful, coquettish, sensuous. And almost all thumri singers will also say that thumri is (gale se bhav batana, gale se nirat karnd), showing bhav, dancing with the voice. So at the very deepest, inmost level, in its essence, thumri is dance.
An enormous metallic container of an unknown alloy, and a perfect cube at that, is uncovered during excavations for a deep underground gravity experiment. A scientific curio to be left to scientists to examine? But the container has strange carvings and symbols on its surface and is self evidently a relic of the past which only the archeologists should be able to decipher. Given this start a straightfor¬ward sci-fi tale would have a joint task force start work without much ado.
There is something strangely appropriate about Anjolie Ela Menon’s painting which is featured on the cover of Mrs. Baig’s book. A female, oddly nun-like, with a portrait on her lap, and another on a locket, stands framed in a window, seeing through shut eyes. Mrs. Baig is, of course, far less detached in her observa¬tions on the people she has known but she is at a secluded distance when she writes.
Premchand had gained national and inter¬national recognition as a great short story writer long before he died in 1936. The translations of his works, apart from being published in almost all the regional languages of India had also come out in Russian and Japanese. That Penguin has included a collection of Premchand’s short stories in its first batch of books to be published in India is a fitting tribute to a literary genius whose works revolutionized fiction-writing both in Hindi and Urdu.
This publication is valuable in as much as it contains not only an English translation of some of Manto’s stories but also has a critical appreciation of Manto as a writer. Part I contains an account of Manto’s life, an assessment of his contribution to short story writing and a critical apprecia¬tion of his literary efforts. Part II has seventeen of his stories translated into English by Tahira Naqvi including the well-known ‘Toba Tek Singh’, ‘Kaali Shalwar’, and ‘Mozel’.
So much of the cultural legacy to which both India and Pakistan are heir lies buried under layers of neglect and anony¬mity that it is indeed a singular service done by Penguin India to have brought out the English translation of a fine selec¬tion of Sadat Hasan Manto’s short stories.