Relation, Money and literature
Dr.
ManishKumar C. Mishra
Associate – IIAS,Shimla &
Assistant professor in Dept. of Hindi
K.M.Agrawal college,Kalyan(w)
An
Economic condition of a person plays very important role in his personality and
in his overall behavior and attitude. Same has great effect on personal
relations also. I personally feel that Finance/Money is an important part of
the “process of thought making.” I
should note that when I talk about finance somewhat loosely, i include closely
related aspects of economics and life in general. As a person of literature I can say with
great responsibility that Financial Fraud is an important and serious topic of
study in modern literature, and if still not then it should be.
Every aspect of modern
literature has had a relation with fight for rights and to show how a particular
class is still far away from the main stream of the society. And in such type
of writing economical aspect / condition/rights is an important issue. Literature
is not only a mirror of society but also a common laboratory of historiography
and sociology. In today’s globalized word when marketing has become the heart
of the relations then in such a terrific condition pattern of literary
criticism must be changed. One can say that literature is something which is
concerned with physical as well as metaphysical world, reality as well as with
imagination of writer but a literature which is not concerned with social
problem or with emotion; such writing is useless for me.
Cherry picking must be a
habit of a great writer. Hindi writer Premchand is the biggest example for
this. His story like “kafan” or novel such as ‘Godan”,“Gaban”and ‘Sevasadan”
can be reviewed as an example for the said above points. Premchand is considered the first Hindi
author whose writings prominently featured realism. First his writing approach
was idealistic but latter on he turned towards realism. His writing describes the problems of the
poor and the urban middle-class in a very simple and interesting way. His works
depict a rationalistic outlook, which views religious values as something that
allows the powerful hypocrites to exploit the weak. He used literature for the
purpose of arousing public awareness about national and social issues and often
wrote about topics related to corruption, child widowhood, prostitution, feudal
system, poverty, colonialism and on the India's freedom movement. Matter of
corruption, prostitution, poverty etc. all is well connected with the matter of
economic condition of a person.
Gaban, one of the most celebrated and popular
novels of Premchand, was first published in 1931. It tells the story of
Ramanath, a charming but morally weak young man, who in order to fulfill his
beautiful wife's – Jalpa – excessive craving for jewelry involves him in
complex economic and personal relationships, which eventually leads to his
apparent ignominy, and his escape from home. He doesn't even bother to realize
that by doing so he brings disgrace to his family honor and leaves his dear
wife alone. However, Jalapa’s brave attitude brings a sense of redemption in
Ramanath and they unite again. One of the classics of Indian literature, Gaban
gives an engrossing picture of Indian society. It also captures the social and
economic conditions and conflicts of a North Indian society in pre-independence
India.
In the words of Christopher
R. King,“Premchand also showed the polluted conditions of police system in
Indian society. The peoples who are supposed to protect innocent persons are
making them suffer. In the novel when Ramanath run away from home and started
to live in Calcutta he was always afraid of policeman because he illegally used
government money for his personal use. Jalpa had a change of heart and she
started to love his husband more than jewels. She returned the money taken from
municipal office but Ramanath did not know about this. When police arrested him
he gave fake name and address to hide his identity. Police used this
opportunity to take advantage of him so they keep him in dark forced him to
give false testimony. They made him their agent to give fake testimonies. Jalpa
used chess prize trick to find Ramanath. She tried to contact Ramanath but he
was prisoned in big house so she wrote him letter to tell the whole truth. When
Ramanath read the letter he was so ashamed of himself. He decided to change his
testimony and told the police that he did not committed any crime so he is no
longer police service man. Police decided for comfort him but Ramanath did not
listen to them. In the end police threaten him that they will put him and his
family in jail. Ramanath got scared to death after hearing such threat from
police. He knows that police will take his family into custody by any mean so
he remains silence.” Novels like this
directly show the effect of poor economic condition on once life.
In the same way we can
take the example of premchands most popular novel Godan. This starts with the
story of Hori who takes a loan of 80 rupees to buy a cow. Possessing and
keeping a cow is a symbol of prestige in rural India. But at last in his whole
life till death, his economic struggle continues. Premchand has always given importance to
social problems in his literature.
At last I can say that
finance/money is an important part of life as it plays very important role to
make once personality.
