Murli Das Melwani: Themes in the Indian Brief Story in English: An Historical and A Crucial Survey. Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 2009. Pages 207. Cost: Rs. 175/-, ISBN-978-81-7977-323-9.
As Murli Das Melwani states in the Preface, the aim of the book is to draw interest to the genre of Indian Brief Stories in English by critically surveying its historical improvement from 1835 to the present. He delineates the characteristic thematic functions of different authors in seven sections divided into numerous sub-sections. Nonetheless, as the writer says in the Preface, "The scope of this book is restricted to stories collected and published in the book type." Neither the book contains uncollected published Quick stories, retold stories, fairytales and lengthy Brief stories, nor does it incorporate translated Brief stories.
In the 'Introduction', Melwani traces the improvement of Brief story from Kathasaritsagar to Raja Rao with no excluding its improvement as a kind in the West. He requires into account early practitioners such as E.T.W. Hoffman, N. V. Gogol, Merimee, Balzac, Gautier, Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Stephen Crane, O'Henry, and H. G. Wells and so forth in the West and Sudhin Ghosh, R. K. Narayan, Raja Rao and other individuals in India.
The 1st section entitled 'The Beginnings:1835-1935' incorporates authors such as Pallab Sengupta, Soshee Chunder Dutt, Cornelia Sorabjee, S. B. Banerjea, Dhan Gopal Mukerji, A. S. Panchpakesa Ayyar, C. T. Ramabhai and so forth. These early Indian writers in English paved the way for the good trio of Indian English Fiction, namely Mulk Raj Anand, R.K.Narayan, and Raja Rao who are all discussed separately in Section II of the book. In 'The Very first Flowering: 1935-1945' Melwani contains such other writers as Manjeri S. Isvaran, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Ela Sen, and Louis Gracious who enriched the nationalist movement of the period with their writing.
Section III bargains with various celebrated authors of 1950s such as Attia Hossain, Khushwant Singh, G. D. Khosla, and other individuals who reflected on human characters vis-à-vis financial improvement in the early phase of Post-Independence India.
Section IV, 'The Second Flowering: 1960-1970' bargains with some well identified writers such as R. P. Jhabvala, Bunny Reuben, Ruskin Bond, Bhabani Bhattacharya who are less moral Yet extra satirical and paradoxical in their remedy of themes.
Section V is aptly titled as 'The Blossoming' for the reason that it covers the plethora of Brief story writers such as Padma Hejmadi, Keki N. Daruwalla, Anita Desai, Hamdi Bey, Kamala Das, Arun Joshi, Manohar Malgaonkar, and other folks who flourished through the 1970s and 1980s.
They deal with numerous themes such as altering strategies of compact town Indian life, human psyche, parables, politics, the army and so on.
The following chapter, Section VI 'An Long Spring' requires into account modern writers such as Vikram Chandra, Amit Chaudhuri, Githa Hariharan, Anita Nair, Uma Parameswaran, Meher Pestonji, and other individuals who contemplate on themes such as mystery, fantasy, migration, homosexuality, tradition versus modernity and so on.
The final section 'The Prospect' offers particulars about the history of publishing homes. It also mentions the neglected ladies publishers such as Kali, Katha, Stree, Tara, Tulika, Yoda, Karadi, Zubaan, Girls Limitless, and Biblio. It also talks about the future of Indian Brief Story in English. The section reflects on absence of literary prizes in India and mentions good developments such as Vodaphone Crossword Book Award, Indiaplaza Golden Book Awards, Readerr's Option award and so forth for advertising Quick story writing and reading.
One of the substantial attributes of the book is that it incorporates particulars about the lesser recognized writers along with well identified writers. Essential surveys typically cover only the well recognized names.
The Bibliography can be of excellent aid to researchers for the reason that it offers detailed details about anthologies of Quick stories from the time as early as 1908.
On the damaging side, Having said that, the book excludes mention of some well recognized modern writers such as Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy, Farrukh Dhondy, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Rohinton Mistry and so on. The book would have been strengthened with their discussion even if the motive of the writer may possibly have been to acquaint the readers to lesser recognized names which most books have a tendency to ignore. However, it is a considerable publication, beneficial to every single researcher and students of Indian English Writing.
(jointly with Sudeshna Pandey, M.Phil Researcher)
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