Send us a text

Saadat Hasan Manto’s name should be familiar to listeners of this Podcast because his short story Toba Tek Singh was the first story to be featured in this Podcast. Manto gained great fame as a playwright and a short story writer in pre-partition India, but his greatest achievement was how he captured the brutality unleashed by India’s partition and how women suffered the most in this carnage. Khol Do or Open! is truly a very short story consisting of 3 ½ print pages but it encapsulates more than anything written about the animality and brutality of partition. 

Send us a text

In this episode, I present a short story written by Yashpal, an eminent Hindi writer whose work has been compared with that of Munshi Prem Chand. Yashpal was born in Kangra Hills in 1903. He was an early follower of Gandhi Ji's non-violent approach, but after meeting Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev at the National College in Lahore, he became a full-fledged revolutionary, turning himself to be a fugitive in 1929 when he tried to blow up a train carrying Viceroy Lord Irwin. On release from prison, he dedicated himself to writing fiction and propagating the communist ideology. He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 1970. He died in 1976 at the age of 73. He left behind a rich literary legacy consisting of a dozen novels, five collections of short stories, and a travelogue.

Send us a text

It is a romantic story written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, who is remembered as a novelist, story writer, film director, and distinguished journalist. Although I did not fully subscribe to the communist worldview, when I picked up a copy of BLITZ weekly magazine as a student, I immediately jumped to what was called the Last Page. This place was reserved for a column by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. He was born in Panipat, a town in Haryana that we often associate with Maulana Hali. Abbas’s grandfather Khwaja Ghulam Abbas was, in fact, a chief rebel in the 1857 Rebellion. We also remember Abbas for his films like Dharti Ke Lal, Pardesi, and especially Raj Kapoor films such as Awara, Shree 420, Jagte Raho, Mera Naam Joker, and Bobby. Abbas got a bachelor’s degree in English literature and a law degree from Aligarh Muslim University. He authored dozens of books that were published in Urdu, Hindi, English, and numerous foreign languages. He died in 1987.

Send us a text

Bhisham Sahni, the younger brother of famous Bollywood actor Balraj Sahni, was born in Rawalpindi in 1915. Throughout his life, Bhisham Sahni’s name was associated with progressive causes and movements. He is most remembered for his epic novel Tamas in which he soulfully narrated the 1947 riots he witnessed in the city of his birth. Sahni also wrote plays, and two of his creations, Kabira Khada Bazaar Mein and Madhvi, earned critical acclaim. About his literary contributions, Kamleshwar wrote: “Bhisham Sahni’s name is etched into the 20th century of Hindi literature that it cannot be erased.” Some critics have compared his short stories to that of Munshi Premchand. He passed away in 2003. 

Send us a text

Welcome to IndiStories Episode 22. Qurratulain Hyder, Aini Aapa to her friends, was an outstanding literary personality who wrote both in Urdu and English. Her novel Aag Ka Dariya (the River of Fire), her magnum opus, bears a comparison to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. In this episode, I present her Urdu short story Nazzara Darmiyaan Hai, which is one of the best Urdu short stories ever written. Aini Aapa won several literary awards, including Jnanpith Award in 1989. She passed away in 2007.

Send us a text

When we look at the landscape of modern Hindi fiction, there are a few names like Munshi Prem Chand that take the top spot, but there are a few others who made lasting contributions to the art of storytelling. One such name that comes to my mind is Agyeya. He was born in Kasia, a small town in Uttar Pradesh, in 1911 in a Punjabi Brahmin family and he adopted an unusual pen name, Agyeya, meaning the unknowable. Agyeya wrote poetry, published novels and short stories, plays, travelogues, and several works of literary criticism. As an academic and journalist, Agyeya was the voice of modernism and experimentalism in Hindi literature. He was awarded many honors including Sahitya Akademi Award in 1964, Jnanpith Award in 1979, and the Golden Wreath Award in 1983. He passed away in 1987. I present ROZ a short story written by Agyeya. Let us hear the story.

Send us a text

In this episode, I present FALLS, a short story by Geeetha Nair G. It is about a romance that happened many years ago. Still, a chance encounter brought back memories of what looked real at one time, but underneath, it was a show rather than a commitment. We calculate how our future will play out, but the arc of life is unpredictable. All our plans and schemes can unravel as time marches forward. The story is drawn from the Punch Magazine Anthology of New Writing by the Woman Writers and is presented here with the permission of Shireen Quadri, Anthology’s editor. Geetha Nair G is a retired professor of English from Kerala. She has authored numerous short stories and poems and won the Rabindranath Tagore Poetry competition in 2019.

Send us a text

If you love good Urdu prose, we have a real gift for you. A. Hameed was a Pakistani novelist and story writer who wrote fiction with a poetic flair. Using metaphors, mainly drawn from the beauty of nature, he weaved a net of words that enveloped the reader in its fold. He was born in Amritsar in 1928 and wrote about 200 novels and nearly 100 books for children. He was awarded the Pride of Performance Award by the government in 1997. He passed away in 2011. The story ‘Aur Pull Tuut Gaya’ selected for this Podcast is a romantic tale that breaks the reader’s heart with its slow-moving march towards the shattering of a romantic alliance.

Send us a text

The story  “Kashmir Valley’s Soofiya Bano” was written by Humra Quraishi. Set against the backdrop of the devastating floods in the valley in 2014, we learn from the story about the painful search of a mother for her missing son. The son was arrested and then he fell into the black hole of the security apparatus. The story starts with the description of the flooded Srinagar home of academic Agha Ashraf Ali, father of Agha Shahid Ali, the well-known poet, and his wife from Awadh, with a nostalgic touch. This part is real and not fiction. One family’s tragic end, which is actual history, is then mingled with the fictional account of the destruction of another family, a family of an imagined mother and her son. The real is thus combined with the magical, or as the author calls it, we are all ‘flowing along with our destiny.’

Send us a text

The story titled "Pinjara" was written by Upendranath Ashk, a famous novelist, story writer, and playwright. He was born in Jalandhar, in 1910. He worked for All India Radio for many years and invented what came to be known as naturalistic Hindi theater. Upenderanath Ashk had complete mastery over Hindi and Urdu and his books were published in both these languages. In 1940 he moved to Allahabad where he spent the rest of his life. He passed away in 1996.