An Evening in Calcutta

By K. A. Abbas and Suresh Kohli

The strength of [his] short stories ... lies in the fact that [he] grasped the weaknesses of his characters and their strengths' - Mulk Raj Anand 'A man of literature, a journalist of distinction, a film-maker who created a genre of his own' - Gulzar---- An Evening in Calcutta is a collection of celebrated writer and award-winning film-maker K.A. Abbas's most memorable stories. His characteristically crisp narratives and bold plotlines, informed as deeply by historical detail as they are by contemporary politics, reach into the familiar to draw out startling truths.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Dec 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9789351772514

K. A. Abbas

Khwaja Ahmad Abbas (1914-87) was a prolific political commentator, short-story writer, novelist, scriptwriter and a film-maker who preferred to call himself a communicator. He published seventy-three books in English, Urdu and Hindi, including an engaging autobiography, I Am Not an Island, and two semiautobiographical novels, Inquilab and The World Is My Village, detailing contemporary Indian history. His works have been translated into several Indian and foreign languages including Russian, German, Arabic, Italian and French. Abbas received several state and national honours, including the Padma Shri in 1969, and was involved in the making of sixty Hindi films. Suresh Kohli (born in 1947) is a poet, writer, translator, editor, literary critic and fi lm historian with more than thirty-five published works including five volumes of poetry and a novel. He is also a short and documentary film-maker, with over a hundred films to his credit that have been screened, apart from India, in Australia, France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and Nepal. He lives in Delhi and is currently working on a long abandoned novel and a collection of short stories.

Book preview

Introduction

‘Critics have sometimes sneeringly labelled my novels and short stories mere journalese. The fact that most of them are inspired by aspects of contemporary historical reality, as sometimes chronicled in the press, is sufficient to put them beyond the pale of literary creation.

‘I have no quarrel with critics. Maybe I am an unredeemed journalist and reporter, masquerading as a writer of fiction. But I have always believed that while the inner life of man undoubtedly is, and should be, the primary concern of literature, this inner personal life impinges upon the life of the community – and of humanity – at every critical turning point of human experience.

‘No man is an island … said John Donne, and one may add that even if he was, no island is free from the inroads of the sea, as no man is free from the impact of social forces and the life around him.’

That was K.A. Abbas’s reaction to the accusation by academics who have treaded a beaten track and dismissed anything that did not fall into pre-established and acceptable norms. That is perhaps why there has been so little serious critical response to his fictional work that, underneath the simplicity of expression, hides insights that are often pushed into the realm of journalism.

Abbas was a mysterious, yet transparent man. Some of his close well-wishers made sure his legacy went with him by destroying everything that had been stacked, in a haphazard manner, in his garage, within days of his burial. The exact number of short stories he authored remains unknown. Sometimes, he had the texts readied in Urdu, Hindi and English and sent out for publication. Clear lines of demarcation prevented the editors from knowing if they were the first to publish it. At other times he would limit a story’s publication in one specific language and return to it after months or years. So, unlike many others who place the number at two hundred or more, I doubt they would add up to even a hundred.

There is also a set of scholars and admirers who feel his work got diminished because there had been writers, even amongst the Progressives, whose profundity of thought and intensity of expression – like Saadat Hasan Manto, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Ismat Chughtai, Krishan Chander and Qurratulain Hyder – were in stark contrast with his. There is no denying that, unlike his contemporaries, Abbas’s fiction seemed casual and straightforward, a kind of reportage: easy to read and put aside because of simplicity and directness of approach to the situation, or subjects mostly culled out of post-1960s’ newspaper headlines. In his earlier works, the emphasis had been on nation-building: about dams, caste and gender discrimination and the coruscating wounds of partition, followed by Nehruvian idealism. Having chosen the distinct label of ‘communicator’, he seldom deviated from the path.

Unlike some of his illustrious contemporaries, who would narrate their stories in a telling, emphatic manner, Abbas, regardless of subject or theme, almost never deviated from his chosen style. These stories lacked the literary dimension that some of the others brought in so effortlessly. However, even his worst critics admit that he communicated no less than when he wanted to.

As an unabashed admirer, I have searched far and wide, at home and abroad, to locate short stories that he either authored or rendered into English, and these are now contained in four volumes: An Evening in Lucknow, Sardarji and Other Stories, An Evening in Paris, and the present one, An Evening in Calcutta. The total number of stories adds up to a dismal fifty. An attempt has also been made to make the range of thought and emotions as varied as possible.

Some obvious landmark stories one may have heard and read about are missing. Sadly, they have remained out of reach despite attempts to locate them beyond the country’s boundaries. It is quite likely that someone reading this may find them accessible either through personal possession (in any language), or in some public or charitable library.

One was happy to resurrect, in book form, his three infamous screenplays – Mera Naam Joker, Bobby and The Naxalites – in English. They are available at bookstores around the country. While the former two works were made into cinematic extravaganzas by Raj Kapoor, the latter, made with scarce resources, sank. Also awaiting redemption is a beautiful short novel, probably the first about behind-the-scenes life in Bollywood, authored, unlike many other such works, by someone who had been an avid watcher of the grime behind the glamour. A novella called Boy Meets Girl.

Abbas was a simple, unassuming individual, taking success and failure in his stride, going about the task with a measureless conviction. He literally lived with an open-door attitude, the doors and windows of his modest house open to all – whether a celebrity like Raj Kapoor or a newcomer like Dharmendra or Amitabh Bachchan – at all times of the day and night. My purpose in pursuing his writings and bringing them to light has been an attempt to reintroduce the work of a committed writer whose various approaches to ‘communication’ are being diminished. He had something important to say about the life and experiences, but he managed to hold some of them back through a chasm unseen by many. In his own words: ‘I will be gone, but I will remain with you in spirit; if you wish to meet me after I am gone, just pick up one of the seventy-odd books I wrote or view the films I have produced or written the script for. If you are not allergic to yellowing newsprint, go to a library and read any of the hundreds of thousands of columns I have written. I will be there with you.’

New Delhi Suresh Kohli

June 2015

Saffron Blossoms

Come, stranger, rest awhile under the shade of this chinar tree. I’ll fetch you some water … that long blue motor-car is yours, isn’t it? The tyre is punctured? Don’t worry, you will still be able to reach Srinagar before dark. It’s only a matter of twenty miles now … No, son, I can’t take money for the cup of water. Thanks to Allah, we have not started selling water and air yet … What shall I do with the money anyway – a pice, an anna, even a rupee? There is no one I can call my own in this world … Alone? Yes. I am alone. Neither son, nor daughter, nor husband … I work in the Zaildar’s field; I fetch water from the spring; I pond the paddy. Allah gives me a handful of rice to eat! Five above sixty I am, what would an old woman want to do with money – an old woman who has already one foot in the grave. If I die today, who will remember me tomorrow … But why am I worrying you with all this? You think I am a garrulous old hag, don’t you? What did you say, son? No, no, these are not poppies that you see growing in the field; they are saffron blossoms … You are right. Saffron flowers are mauve in colour with yellow pollen inside them. Even now, as you go along the road you will see that the saffron crop in all the other fields has mauve flowers. But in this field, this year the saffron blossoms have turned red. Blood-red! … Why? Because this is a miracle wrought by God, my son. But you dwellers of the plains, young men of today, you don’t believe in miracles, or in God. You think we poor Kashmiris are stupid and superstitious because we believe in such things …

What will it avail you to hear the story of these flowers? In a little while your motor will be repaired and you will be gone and the story will remain unfinished … Motors are always passing by on this road. One motor, two motors, ten motors, twenty motors, a hundred motors. Even if they stop for a moment or two they are gone again, trailing clouds of dust. But this saffron crop will remain standing in this field till it is time to pick the flowers, and these blossoms, red as blood, will be dried in the sun and sent off to the four corners of the world. And no one knows in what strange cities, and on whose dinner tables, food will be served, flavoured with their fragrances. And, like you, there will be many who will ask: Why is this saffron red – like blood? … But no one will be able to tell them. For no one knows. No one but me …

You think I am mad – a crazy old woman who talks nonsense, don’t you? Do you really want to know the secret of these red saffron blossoms? Or do you just want to kill time listening to my ravings while your motor is being repaired? Anyway, I don’t care. Here is my story. Listen if you want to…

It is only this year that red saffron blossoms have sprung up in this field. Before this, we too used to have mauve flowers with yellow hearts as in all the other fields. The whole valley would be covered with them. It looked as if a shy young bride lay covered with a saffron-coloured shawl. The countryside, for miles around, was charged with the fragrance. When cars passed by on the road, even the dust they blew became perfumed, and it seemed that everything from the earth to the sky was soaked in saffron …

A long, long time ago, another traveller once stopped here to gaze at the saffron crop that had just begun to blossom in this field. He looked a very simple-minded young man. He walked straight into the middle of the field and started breathing in the air in a strange manner – as if he was not smelling the flowers but drinking their smell. Then he started talking to himself. ‘Strange. Why don’t I?’ And when I said, ‘What are you talking about? Why don’t you what?’ He replied, ‘Why don’t I laugh? Strange, very strange. It is clearly written in the books that if you go into a field of saffron you immediately begin to laugh.’ That’s what was worrying him and he looked so serious that I couldn’t help smiling. Just then, as Allah would will it, Za’frani happened to pass this way, carrying a bundle of