Imagine that you are a historian in 3035 A.D. You have just located two novels which were written in the twentieth century. What do they tell you about society and customs of the time?
The first is a Bengali novel named Titash Ekti Nadir Naam.
It was a new type of novel. Infact from the 1920s in Bengal new type of novel emerge that depicted lives of peasant and low caste. Advaita Malla Burman’s (1914–51) Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (1956) is an epic about the Mallas, a community of fisherfolk who live off fishing in the river Titash. The novel is about three generations of the Mallas, about their recurring tragedies and the story of Ananta, a child born of parents who were tragically separated after their wedding night. Ananta leaves the community to get educated in the city. The novel describes the community life of the Mallas in great detail, their Holi and Kali Puja festivals, boat races, bhatiali songs, their relationships of friendship and animosity with the peasants and the oppression of the upper castes. Slowly the community breaks up and the Mallas start fighting amongst themselves.
The second novel is Hindi novel:
It is a work of Dhanpat Rai (Prem Chand). A new cultural influences from Godan (The Gift of Cow),published in 1936, remains Prem Chand’s best-known work. It is an epic of the Indian peasantry. The novel tells the moving story of Hori and his wife Dhania, a peasant couple. Landlords, moneylenders, priests and colonial bureaucrats-all those who hold power in society - form a network of oppression, rob their land and make them into landless labourers. Yet Hori and Dhania retain their dignity to the end.
