Like the Russian masters whom he admired so much, realism for Premchand was a mise en scene against which he built up the props of character and plot. Stock characters like Dukhi the tanner, Halku the peasant, Gangi the untouchable woman, Buddhu the shepherd, Bhajan Singh the hot-headed thakur and countless others served a useful purpose to someone of Premchand’s literary disposition: he exploited the intrinsic worth of stock characters and stock situations to portray a very real world. There is, for instance, the orphan Hamid who buys a pair of iron tongs for his grandmother instead of sweets and toys for himself, little Ladli who sets aside her share of puris for old Kaki, the corrupt Pandit Alopideen who shows immense generosity for a fallen but upright opponent, Jhuri who loved his oxen like his own children – all these help restore our faith that human beings can occasionally be good and kind too. Self-seeking, bhang-drinking pandits, effete landlords, college-going newly-westernised sahibs and memsahibs, and corrupt petty officials are set against another set of characters. In Premchand’s world, the bad are needed to offset the good. It is this quality that has single-handedly made Premchand relevant to modern readers, even young urban readers, explaining why great stories like Do Bailon ki Katha or Idgah continue to be prescribed reading in school textbooks. Yet, for all their moralistic overtones, they appeal to all that is good and decent in us, all that is moved by exploitation, injustice and intolerance. Undaunted, Premchand kept writing stories that expressed the pain and suffering of the toiling masses that had been suppressed for centuries, using stereotypes where necessary to make general observations, painting on a large canvas with broad, sweeping brushstrokes, writing stories that occasionally seem preachy or moralistic when not outright sentimental to modern readers. His first collection of short stories, Soz-e Watan ( The Dirge of the Nation), that followed a year later in 1908 was found to be so incendiary and seditious that not only was it banned by the imperial government, but all copies of the book were burnt.

Premchand’s first story, Duniya ka Sabse Anmol Ratan (The Most Precious Jewel in the World) was published in 1907 in Zamana somewhat melodramatically it announced that the last drop of blood that would bring the country its freedom would be the most precious ‘jewel’. Reading and writing, always the stock in trade of a good kayastha boy, coupled with acute social consciousness and an unerring eye for detail turned him – with a literary career spanning three decades which included 14 novels, 300 short stories, several translations from English classics, innumerable essays and editorial pieces -into a qalam ka sipahi, a ‘soldier with the pen’. Son of a post office clerk, he was named Dhanpat Rai (literally meaning the ‘master of wealth’), yet he waged a lifelong battle against unremitting genteel poverty.

ěiggest collection of Munshi Premchand Stories in Hindi.ĭisclaimer: RSS has been taken from their official website.Born 137 years ago on July 31 in Lamhi, a village near Varanasi, Premchand (1880-1936) wrote about things that have always existed but had hitherto been considered beyond the pale of literature - exploitation and submission, greed and corruption, the straightjacket of poverty and an unyielding caste system.

He pioneered the new art form – fiction with a social purpose.

Premchand was the first Hindi author to introduce realism in his writings. In 1914, when Premchand switched over to Hindi, he had already established his reputation as a fiction writer in Urdu. Soz-e-Watan, a collection of such stories published by Premchand in 1907, attracted the attention of the British government. In his early short stories he depicted the patriotic upsurge that was sweeping the land in the first decade of the present century. Premchand's literary career started as a freelancer in Urdu. His early education was in a madarasa under a Maulavi, where he learnt Urdu. Premchand was the pen name adopted by the Hindi writer Dhanpatrai who was born on 31 July 1880 at Lamahi near Varanasi. This app contains more than fifty stories of Munshi Premchand in Hindi Premchand ki kahaniyan in Hindi, This app has largest and Best Collection of Munshi Premchand Stories in Hindi.

Premchand urdu stories