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Posted by ArjunN on
There are many things in life that you appreciate and understand better over a period of time. What one made of a book or a movie in one’s school days need not be what one makes of it 10 years later. Godan was a book that the elders in my home often praised. But I never got a chance to lay my hands on it and I am not sure whether I would have had read it if I got a chance to do so. This one work alone would have found Pemchand a place in the Hall of Fame of Indian literature. But this was only a crown to cap the gems that he left behind in the form of Gaban, Seva Sadan and Nirmala. It is further intriguing to guess whether anyone ever thought as to how this one book would go on to become the benchmark of any work of fiction in Hindi and above all as a touchstone of Social commentary in a work of fiction in India. A review of Godan might seem passé in today’s times – when regional language literature is often held with contempt (though nobody will admit doing it) and is getting fewer takers by the day - and also very challenging. How can one sit down to describe the beauty of the Taj Mahal in 800 or 900, when it is something to be experienced? Moreover, a book that attacks the forked tongues will hurt us somewhere. Because while reading Godan, we will see Premchand's unforgiving pen attacking each of us as there is a hypocrite consciously or subconsciously in us.
A story of epic proportions cannot be summarised easily. Perhaps this might explain as to why Godan, the movie (starring Rajkumar and Shashikala), flopped at the box office and was declared a screenplay disaster. Gobar with his family consisting of his stoic yet shockingly assertive wife Dhania, his rebellious son Gobardhan and his daughters Sona and Rupa go through the ups and downs any peasant would go through. They are starved yet optimistic, unlettered, yet experienced, unsophisticated, yet know the ways of the world. The story begins with their desire to own a cow. As the book unfolds, Premchand takes us through the domestic clashes between Hori and his brothers, the ambivalence of the Zamindars (who suck the blood of the peasants, yet are at the receiving end of the British Raj), the tragic-comic lives of the journalists, stock-brokers , industrialists and the urban labourers, which are all very much relevant even today. A chat with any worker in Dharavi will give us the same experience that Premchand gives through Gobar. The experience of Hori will find take a million takers in the farmers of India. When you hear debates today on live-in relationships, here you have Malti and Mehta deciding to go ahead with it without any hullaballoo. In an age when feminism is trying to find a new definition for itself, you find the same strife going on in the Women’s Societies of Godan. The lives of Dhania, Selia, Jhunia, Malti and Govindi resonate with those of the true unsung hero(ine)s of India- its women.
Many consider Godan to be the tale of the farmer Hori and his family, who traverse a path of pathos, momentary joys, ups and downs, always hoping that things will fall in place one day. To call Godan purely a rural epic would be a misnomer. It is as much about the lives of the socialites, intellectuals and urbanites as it is about the zamindars, Pandits and rustic villagers. The lecherous moneylenders, the dogmatic priests and debt-ridden farmers are all hallmarks of any novel on rural India. But what sets Godan apart is the striking realism, the dexterity with which Premchand plays with the situations of human life and how it is ruthless before double standards. The characters, like real-life, are a bundle of contradictions. On one hand you see Dhania being beaten up by her husband Hori and on the other you see him standing helpless, when she, with her acerbic tongue, rubs her neighbours and her own husband the wrong way. The characters, be they rich or poor, are a mixture of the good and the evil, a relief from the cardboard technique of ‘bad-rich and good-poor’ seen in fiction-writing on rural India. In Godan, life itself fights for its place against pretence. Characters like Mehta and Malti are symbolic of the transition of the human mind – from rigidity to acceptance, from pretension to simplicity and from elitism to realism. In fact, Godan can be seen as a tale of transformation. The dogmatic Matadin, goes on to accept his low-caste wife; the unsophisticated Gobar, learns the ways of the world after his brush with urban life and earns respect; Malti, who is cut-off from realities becomes conscious of the country she lives in; Mehta a doctrinaire understands the meaning of life from Malti; Hori accepts the illegitimate child of Jhunia, born of his son; and even the playful Sona and Rupa transform from being little girls into ‘women’ as they understand that life’s not a game played on their father’s lap.
Describing Godan, Mulk Raj Anand said:
"Nervous like a knife, Premchand cuts clear through hypocrisy and false hood in his last novel Godan, so that this work throws up strongly contrasted characters seldom seen in any previous book of his, surpassing the chaos of the still feudal village with its courageous belief in future renewal."
The small and big tales of Godan have lived the test of time. One realises that life isn’t as straight as it seems.Godan was the swansong of Premchand. Perhaps, providence wanted it to be so to save Premchand from the herculean task of bettering his own masterpiece. Humanity survives even in the most inhuman circumstances. Premchand’s Godan is a testimony to that.
"Nervous like a knife, Premchand cuts clear through hypocrisy and false hood in his last novel Godan, so that this work throws up strongly contrasted characters seldom seen in any previous book of his, surpassing the chaos of the still feudal village with its courageous belief in future renewal."
The small and big tales of Godan have lived the test of time. One realises that life isn’t as straight as it seems.Godan was the swansong of Premchand. Perhaps, providence wanted it to be so to save Premchand from the herculean task of bettering his own masterpiece. Humanity survives even in the most inhuman circumstances. Premchand’s Godan is a testimony to that.
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