Rare, Human and Genius

Ashok Kumar: Professor

Centre for Creative Advertising & Screenwriting Skills

His novels have been translated into seventeen languages,  he lives through thirty two collections of short stories and  has  forty nine novels and many screenplays  to his credit. A writer who was of the same stature/calibre as Premchand has been totally sidelined by the Hindi walas. May be because he wrote in Urdu..but Premchand too wrote only in Urdu !!

I am talking of Krishan Chander, who was awarded Padmabhooshan in 1969 , in whose name there is a Park in  Poonchh  City of J&K where he stands tall in the middle of the garden.  There is a Chair in his name in the Mumbai University. His life was writing. 

It was one of those  usual mornings for him and he had just started to write a satirical essay entitled ‘Adab baray-e-Batakh’ (Literature for a duck).He had written just one line ‘Noorani ko bachpan hi sey paltoo janwaron ka Shauq tha. Kabootar, bandar, rang barangi chidiyaan… ‘ (since childhood Noorani was fond of pet animals such as pigeons, monkeys, multi-coloured birds…) but before he could complete the sentence he succumbed to a massive heart attack. The man who was born on the 23 November 1914 in Wazirabad (nowPakistan) died in Bombay on the 8th March 1977.

His literary masterpieces on the Bengal famine and the savagery and barbarism that took place at the time of the partition of India in 1947 are some of the finest specimens of modern Urdu literature, but at other times too he continued relentlessly to critique the abuse of power, poverty and the suffering of the wretched of the earth. He never stopped protesting casteism, fanaticism, communal violence and terror. He was a humanist and a cosmopolitan. He believed in the ascendancy of a socialist society and throughout his life dedicated his efforts to helping the marginalised, the peasants and the workers. Most of the heroes and heroines of Chander’s stories are from the oppressed class of society. He also comes out forcefully against communalism of every variety.

Lets, as an example,  look at a paragraph from his short story  ‘Do Farlaang Lambi Sadak’ (The Two-Furlong Long Road). It is a sharp comment on the injustices ordinary people have to face on a daily basis:

“No one pities anybody. The road is silent and desolate. It sees everything, hears everything, but remains unmoved, merciless, insensitive and savage like the human heart. In my angriest moments, I often think about what will happen if I have a chance to blow the road up with dynamite. Its pieces will be seen floating in the air with a high explosion. No one would be able to imagine my happiness. Sometimes I wish to dance naked on the road and shout at the top of my voice that I am not human, am mad, that I hate humans. Grant me the servitude of the asylum, I don’t desire the freedom of these roads. The road is silent and desolate.”

Chander was an atheist who used Pahari dialect while writing in Urdu.He was very disturbed with partition of the country. Its so clear from a line from his famous story “Peshawar Express”:

“मैं लकड़ी की इक बे जान गाड़ी हूं लेकिन फिर भी मैं चाहती हूं कि इस ख़ून और गोशत और नफ़रत के बोझ से मुझे ना लादा जाए।” ( I am a non living wooden vehicle but still wish that I am not laiden with blood,flesh and hatered.)

Its impossible to point put the best among his  49 novels and  32 collections of short tories but I am certain people still remember his Novels- “Ek Gadhe  ki Aatmakatha” and “Ek Violine Samunder Ke Kinare”.His writings, in many ways, could be compared to those of Kafka’s. Krishan Chander is a rare genius who needs to be read, understood and preserved for future generations.

*****

Professor – A renowned screenplay writer and an acclaimed author, Prof. Kumar boasts of an illustrious career spanning four decades. Prof. Kumar has worked across several prestigious institutions including FTII, MICA, SNDT Women’s University, ATN and Home TV. He has also directed almost 50 short films and has three novels to his credit. Prof. Kumar also has numerous published short stories in his name.