Hindi Literature
Prabhakar Machwe
SIKKA BADAL GAYA: TWENTY-THREE STORIES ON INDIAN PARTITION by Dr. Narendra Mohan Simant Publications, Delhi, 1977, 247 pp., 35.00
Sept-Oct 1977, volume 2, No 5

This book is also available in English under the title: Writings on India’s Parti­tion edited by Ramesh Mathur, Maheep Singh and Mahendra Kulasreshta. The 22 page introduction analyses the influence of Indian Partition on fiction, giving the political background to this dark chapter in modern Indian history. The selection is very carefully done. Hindi is repre­sented by ‘Agyeya’ (S.H. Vatsyayan), Krishna Sobti (whose story is the title of the book), Devendra Issar, Bhishma Sahni, Mahip Singh, Mohan Rakesh, Vishnu Prabhakar and the lone Muslim Hindi writer Khwaja Badiuzzaman; Urdu is represented by Ashfaque Ahmed, A. Hamid, Rajendrasingh Bedi and Saadat Hasan Manto (his classic Toba Tek Singh is there); Punjabi by three writers, Kulwant Singh Virk, Gulzar Singh Sandhu, Lochan Bakhshi; Sindhi by Shekh Ayuz, Gulzar Ahmed and Motilal Jotwani; Bengali by Manoj Basu and Manik Banerji; Gujarati and Marathi by Jayant Dalal and N.G. Gore.

Continue reading this review