Hello readers, I'm Latta Baraiya, a student of the department of English. This task is part of my Sunday reading task, and it's assigned by our Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad sir, head of the department of English. In this blog I'm going to analyse two short stories written by Mahendrasinh Parmar, head of Gujarati department. So let's talk about the story "Intellectual Indubhai" and "ISI No Haath" from "Polytechnic"- a collection of short stories which was published in 2016.
[Mahendrasinh Parmar]
◆ઇન્ટેલેક્ચ્યુઅલ ઈન્દુભાઈ◆
This is a story about professor Indubhai, a very strict but kind hearted man. Every student has fear for them because of his harshness. He never allow to bunk lectures, and also wanted to be focused on study only. But the other important thing about him is that he is a very kind person. When he sees baggers he gives them PARCHURAN and helps him because he can't see people in trouble and in affliction. As we see in the story Indubhai have various collection of books such like,
Saraswatichandra etc.
He also has knowledge of Shakespeare, Sartra or Rilke. These are my observations about the main character of this short story.
In forward we see that writer said that
"February - cruelest month"
"Fight of majority and minority"
"Burning home and train"
"Spoliation"
"Murders and rap"
By using this all elements writer gives us a reminder of Godhra Kand. The Godhra Train Burning was an incident that occurred on the morning of 27 February 2002, in which 59 Hindu pilgrims and karsevaks returning from Ayodhya, were killed in a fire inside the Sabarmati Express train by the muslim mob near the Godhra railway station in the Indian state of Gujarat. We can say that here in the story writer also displays that harsh reality by using imaginative story and characters. It is rightly said that,
"Writing must always have intention because words have power."
It means words have the power to speak truth ! The bitter truth ! And it's used by writers, who wanted to show us a harsh reality. They don't tell us directly, but with their creative imagination they can give us lessons.
Here writers present a harsh reality of society that how we are fighting for religion. And some of them even didn't know about the real situation and joined the mob. Here i want to recite two three lines of one hindi poem "Mere Kavi Dost",
ये कैसा दौर है,
चारो तरफ है भीड़,
दिशाहीन, विचारहीन, उग्र
हाथो मे लिए चाकू, पथ्थर, मशाल
काटने, तोड़ने, जलाने घर
और दबाने आवाज
(I have prepared one blog on this poem to read it and also read full poem click here)
This lines appropriately suite here in this story. Though at last we can see that Indubhai was gone mad. The person who wanted to stop the rebellious things, gone mad ! !
◆આઈ. એસ. આઈ. નો હાથ◆
This is a satirical story by Mahendrasinh Parmar sir. As we know that there is also a purpose behind writing, it can be knowledge, information, entertainment etc. But here the intention of writing is for the sake of information that happened in the past. And how religion became the cause of fighting and making people terrorists.
There are four main characters,
S. P.
Ishwar
Sharad
Professor Indrajit
Here I. S. I. Is meant by
I - Ishvar
S - Sharad
I - Indrajit
S. P. Is the investigator of the case. Ishvar was a Junk Man, Scavenger and Scrap Collector. He collected old newspapers around the areas. When this Temple was built they told the people to give the old newspaper to them. So people think that it would be good to give newspapers to temple rather than to Ishvar. So in the name of faith and religion people don't gave old newspapers to Ishvar and his business was broken. Sharad belongs to a poor family. His mother is also a good cook. His parents feed people and earn money. But because of the temple their business was broken because the temple provides food to people for 600 Rs per month. Sharad's father couldn't face reality and he died. Indrajit was a professor of chemistry at university. He also talked about the profession of the religious people. With the using name of the temple many people became a source of earning money. He also talked about the land, which is given to the university for education purposes but the land is first given for rent and then it was confiscated by religious people for building a temple. This is how religion ruined education and became a business center.
This is a story which depicts a real incident about the past. The incident of Aksharwadi Temple of Bhavnagar. The temple land is originally a land of university. It was given by Maharaja Krishnakumarsihnji, the last Maharaja of the Gohil Dynasty. But religious people took that land for building a temple there. Processors of the university do not want the temple to be built there, because it's university land and it's only for educational purposes. But religion has a very big institution. Nobody can fight against religion.
So through this short story writer makes satire on religion and power politics. If anybody was going against them they shut their mouths with money and also they used various ways to keep them silent. Like in this story professor, Ishvar and Sharad how they changed !!! And become very religious !!! How religion changed the people !!!
Thus these were very interesting short stories by Mahendrasinh Parmar sir. We see the reality of society and people through their imaginative character and story.
Yes, I want to add here that in the first attempt of reading I don't have an idea of what these stories are about ! Because these are stories based on two events from the past. If you don't have a knowledge of history and contemporary events of the past you are not able to understand these stories. Even i also don't know about that, but after listening to Dilip Barad sir I got the idea about the story. This is how the writer tells us the bitter truth ! I enjoyed the reading of these two stories. I also recommend you to read the story.
Happy reading.😊
