Rajan stories a service to literature
Shriniwas Joshi
Rajendra Rajan lives at Hamirpur from where he edits a quarterly journal ‘Pragatisheel Iravati’ and I doff my hat for him and others who bring out journals as this venture is hardly economic proposition and is only a service to the literature. ‘Iravati’ is a Hindi journal of elevated standard. The editorial of the present issue speaks on Mahashweta Devi, famous for ‘1084 Ki Maa’ and many other super writings. The editor laments that she was not awarded the Nobel Prize and brackets her with Tagore and Teresa.
The editorial also rightly praises a gem of Punjabi literature, Jnan Peeth awardee Gurdayal Singh, whose novels ‘Mandhi da Diva’ and ‘Anne Ghode da Daan’ plus other stories haunt the editor often. Rajan, in the editorial, has raised a controversial point, saying that the ‘bulk purchase’ of books, written by Himachal writers, by the State Academy should be stopped henceforth.
He adds that these books are dumped in government libraries where nobody reads these. Although it is a general statement without collecting any data on it, yet I also feel that ‘bulk purchase’ of books needs to be done with utmost care and only those books which have outstanding content, context and pleasing get-up should find room under the scheme. The purchase of the books should be avoided simply because there were funds available under the head.
Rajendra Rajan was born in 1953 at Hamirpur on the day India was celebrating the sixth anniversary of its independence. He adores pen but also handles the camera aptly to make documentaries. He has established a trust called Muskaan whose main function is to bring smile on the faces of the saddened. And he who heads such trust should, first, have smile on his face and he has (see photo). Recently, I received his fourth anthology of short and long stories ‘Phoolon ko Pataa Hai’ (see photo) through post.
Published by Vijaya Books, Delhi, it has five stories and costs Rs 350 only. Most of our writers in Himachal Pradesh though live in cities or small towns, yet subjects of their stories are about the rural areas - the problems, the environment and pollution, the happy or unhappy lives - Rajan has set himself aside from that rut; his stories are modern and use the current words like Facebook, app and smartphone. These stories reflect the changing social relationships in the present day society.
The first story ‘Glacier’ and the last one ‘Utsava’ in the book are more of dialogues and the two stories ride on the words. When the words fall heavy on the reader, the stories lack pace. This is what I felt when I read the stories. The former story depicts infatuation of a 30-year deserted woman towards a 60-year-old man and the latter shows a 40-year woman making footstool of a 30-year youth to satiate her ambition, rather over-ambition, of becoming a celebrity.
‘’Utsava’, deserving little pruning, is a combine of fact and fiction as it has the brief of the reality of Ratnamajari and Kinkri Devi of Himachal. Rajan’s characters in the stories use lines of film songs or beaten couplets of Urdu poets. This drops a reader from the heights when the story is churning his intellectual pot.
My vote is for the story ‘Patjhar idhar-udhar’. It is a compact story, a dynamic story, a story that unfolds the generational gap and reflects how the call centres work. A father reaches ISBT, Chandigarh, at night and waits for his son who works in a call centre and supposed to receive his father. But the son snoozes, the effect of working odd hours in the call centre.
The father manages to reach the residence of his son who shares it with others. He, unaware of the rationing of water, takes bath from the bucket-full in the morning. This irritates his son’s roommates and the son directs his annoyance on the father: “You old people are unwanted intruders.” The story ends. The other two stories also create precise impact. The flash flood of bold scenes between man and woman in this anthology may, however, disturb prudes.
