Jabalpur: In his fight against corrupt bureaucrats and politicians, communalism and communism and forces of all stripes, master satirist Harishankar Parsai, a Hindi literary figure whose pen spared nothing and no one, would have felt 100 years old on Thursday.
Parsai was born in the village of Jamani near Itarsi in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and died on August 10, 1995 in Jabalpur, the city where he had lived and worked his entire life. Three decades later, little remains of the name of one of the greatest satirists in Indian literature other than his poetry and prose.
His writings are full of wit, sarcasm and a sharp criticism of politics, religious fanaticism, corruption and other moral evils that plague humanity, especially Indians, say his admirers. And although the literary community celebrates Parsai’s legacy, the apathy of governments and institutions to pay a fitting tribute to the Hindi giant in the form of a monument, museum or library continues to hurt readers and writers.
“Parsai is someone who wrote, ‘Lekhak ko adarniya hone se bachna chahiye, adarniya hua ki wo gaya’. But should there be a place to honour his legacy? Absolutely. It should have been done long ago,” Suraj Dixit, IT professional and voracious Parsai reader, told PTI.
Parsai had an MA in Hindi from Nagpur University and a teaching diploma and barely had a steady job until he began a full-time career as a writer and launched a magazine called Vasudha. The short-lived magazine was discontinued after two years due to lack of funding.
Parsai revolutionized satire in Hindi by writing in simple but biting language and adding nuances to his works based on his understanding of pressing global issues such as racism, consumerism, war and pervasive corruption.
While in “Bholaram ka Jeev” he specifically attacks the corrupt bureaucracy, red tape and the state apparatus in general, in “Inspector Matadeen Chand Par” he doesn’t say a word about an Indian police officer with questionable work ethic who flies to the moon to improve police efficiency by introducing corruption into the system.
Parsai had a large body of work to draw on and was awarded the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Prize in 1982 for his satire Viklang Shraddha Ka Daur. The book is remarkable for its narrative spontaneity and relevance to both ordinary and extraordinary events in the population.
“He was not only a satirist but also a man of letters. He wrote stories and was also interested in poetry. He had a great understanding of sociology and politics. He was a man who was solely dependent on his writing. The scope of his studies was extremely extensive,” said writer Vishnu Nagar.
Nagar has published in “Parsai Ka Man” a compilation of 17 interviews that Parsai gave to his contemporaries and journalists.
Parsai was a sharp critic of those in power and a left-wing author, but he also did not spare the politics of the left.
According to Hindi writer Prem Janmejay, Parsai wrote “against everything that was inconsistent with his ideology, but with a creative approach”.
“Parsai’s mindset was clear about who he was and what he wanted. He wrote against the power but he was not one-sided. He also wrote against the communists once and during the Emergency he wrote about them too. Marxists were not spared either,” Janmejay told PTI.
Religious fanaticism and communism were a social evil that Parsai constantly denounced in his writings.
He once wrote: “Samasyao ko is desh me jhaad-phoonk, tona-totka se hal kiya jata hai.” Sampradayikta ki samasya ko is naare se hal kar liya gaya – Hindu-Muslim, Bhai-Bhai! .”
Hindi poet Ashok Vajpeyi called Parsai a “stern critic of communal forces” and said it was unfortunate that even 30 years after his death there was no comparable satirist in the country.
“I would still say that satire has partly shifted to other areas that find politics a little difficult and dangerous. So there has perhaps been a shift. I would say without a doubt that 30 years after Parsai’s death, there is no comparable satirist, there is no comparable spread of satire against power as he practiced and achieved,” Vajpeyi told PTI.
Parsai’s best known works include Nithalle ki Diary, Awara Bheed ke Khatre, Thithurta Hua Gantantra and Premchand ke Phatey Jute. He also wrote a column in a Hindi newspaper, Poochiye Parsai Se, in which readers sent questions to Parsai and he replied in his inimitable style.
Barely a kilometre from his rented house in Napier Town lies Harishankar Parsai Bhavan in Wright Town, perhaps the only tangible evidence of the great satirist’s presence in the city where he wrote some of the sharpest criticism of Indian literature ever published in any other language.
Playwright Ashish Pathak of Samagam Rangmandal, a city-based theatre group, works with local actors at Harishankar Parsai Bhavan, a modest building that houses a union office, a library and a hall for the theatre group.
“This is the only building in his name and this too was constructed with public funds,” Pathak told PTI.
The building was constructed in 2007 by famous Hindi writers Ramdarash Mishra and Gyan Ranjan with the help of donations from the public. It was inaugurated by literary critic Namvar Singh in April 2007, 12 years after his death.
“This is not a writer’s job. A writer is not important in his own time. It is a job for his readers, his followers. See how they have built a city dedicated to Shakespeare. We don’t give such respect even to Kalidas, let alone Parsai. So it is definitely not Parsai’s job, but that of those who came after him,” Janmejay said.
He suggested that the Progressive Writers’ Association should take on the responsibility of building some kind of memorial in Parsai’s name with public donations.
“There should be a place with Parsai’s books, a kind of pilgrimage site that those who want to study Parsai can visit. His manuscripts should be on display there. People can go and experience Parsai.”
“But I think why should we approach the government? The writers’ association has always stood behind Parsai. If they raise this issue, people will even be ready to donate land. It is not impossible,” Janmejay said.
A hundred years after his birth, Parsai is still unrivalled, despite having strong contemporaries in Sharad Joshi, Ravindranath Tyagi and Shrilal Shukla.
“Just as there can be no second Premchand, there can be no second Parsai. Be it a writer or a poet, every single Hindi literary figure has read Parsai and taken inspiration from him, whether he writes satire or not,” Nagar observed.
“There is only one outstanding man in any field. In Russia there can be only one Chekhov. In India there can be only one Parsai,” he added.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications.
