Divya
Contents (18)
YASHPAL
Divya
Translated from the Hindi by
ANAND
Foreword by
NAMITA SINGH
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
Foreword
Preface
The Festival of Spring
The Palace of the Chief Justice
Prestha
Acharya Pravardhan
Self-surrender
The Harsh Reality
Grandsire Chief Justice
Dara
Anshumala
Sagal
Prithusen and Rudradhir
Mallika
Divya
Translator’s Note
Copyright Page
PENGUIN BOOKS
DIVYA
YASHPAL (1903–1976) began to write while serving a life sentence for his participation, as a comrade of Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad, in the armed struggle for India’s independence. What he wrote formed his first collection of short stories, Pinjare ki Udan, published in 1938. After his release Yashpal dazzled Hindi readers with the political journal, Viplava, which he founded and published with the help of Prakashvati, a revolutionary, whom he later married in prison. He wrote more than fifty books including collections of short stories, novels, essays, a play and memoirs of his revolutionary days.
Yashpal died in 1976 while writing the fourth volume of his reminiscences.
ANAND has translated Yashpal’s novels and short stories into English and French. He has also translated the works of Alice Munro, Mordecia Richler and Hugh McLennan into Hindi. He lives in North America.
NAMITA SINGH is the editor of the leading Hindi literary magazine, Vartaman Sahitya. She is the author of seven short story collections and one novel. Her stories have been translated into English, Urdu and other regional languages. She has also edited a book on historical, cultural and feminist readings of Divya.
To you
In whose heart the glow of love
has never been dimmed by unremitting
suffering and hardship …
Foreword
ONE OF THE REASONS YASHPAL STANDS OUT FROM HIS contemporaries is that he is a writer of ideological conflicts. His social commitment and objectivity influence his works very apparently and provide an ideological base to Hindi fiction. Most of his novels either have a political background or his characters are politically conscious and active. Dada Comrade, Geeta, Manushya Ke Roop, Deshdrohi, Meri Teri Uski Baat and his most acclaimed novel, Jhootha Sach, which ranks among world classics, all have the socio-politically charged pre-independent India as a backdrop.
Yashpal witnessed India’s freedom struggle and the county’s partition thereafter. He was a part of an extremist organization and worked with great revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad; he was even imprisoned for a long period, due to his anti-British activities. It was in prison that he started to write and later decided to make writing a full-time career. Jhootha Sach is a comprehensive account of Partition and the great human tragedy that followed in its aftermath. It is a saga of love and hate, political ambitions and the pressure of society and, above all, the suffering of the common masses, be they Hindu or Muslim.
Women are another focus in Yashpal’s novels as well as stories. In his novels Divya, Amita, Apsara ka Shap, Dada Comrade, Geeta, Jhootha Sach and his last one, Meri Teri Uski Baat, women play an important role. His women characters are not passive but energetic and conscious about their identity and dignity as human beings. Both Dada Comrade, Yashpal’s first novel and Divya, published in 1945, are women oriented. So contemporary are the themes and issues addressed in these books that though published before Independence and set in completely different times, they hold true even today.