Land of Five Rivers (Library of South Asian Literature)

This book was published in India in 1991 and contained 21 short stories by as many writers. Most of them were translated by the editor, Khushwant Singh. Information was lacking on years of publication for the works, but they appeared to range from the 1940s to the 1970s or 80s. A reissue of the anthology in 2006 omitted two of them, by Mulk Raj Anand and G. D. Khosla.The authors anthologized here, like Singh himself, were all originally from the Punjab, the land of five rivers. This culturally rich, fertile region, home to Hindus, Muslims and the majority of the world's Sikhs, lies in what's now eastern Pakistan and northwestern India. In 1947 the greater part of it went to Pakistan as a result of partition, an event that saw mass bloodshed and displacement of the three populations. Consequently, many of the writers in this anthology had left the region more than four decades before this book was published.A link to the region by birth appeared to be the only thing all the authors shared. They weren't united by a common language. Singh didn't specify which language each author was translated from, but the majority wrote in Punjabi, Urdu or Hindi, while in the 1991 edition Singh and two others wrote originally in English. Of all the authors in the collection, three were women. It appeared that at least 12 of the writers were of Sikh background, including Ajeet Cour and Amrita Pritam. Naturally, moreso than other compilations read for India, this one contained stories referring to Sikhs, their customs, and places connected with them. As usual in anthologies by Singh encountered thus far, the style of all but one or two tales was straight realism.The oldest writers in the collection were G. D. Khosla (1901-?), Yashpal (1903-76), Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004), Upendra Nath Ashk (1910-96) and Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-55). The youngest were Balwant Singh (1926-86), Ajeet Cour (1934-), Gulzar Singh Sandhu (1935-) and Usha Mahajan (1948-). Others included K. A. Abbas (1914-89), Krishan Chander (1914-77), Khushwant Singh himself (1915-), Rajinder Singh Bedi (1915-84), Balwant Gargi (1916-2003), Kartar Singh Duggal (1917-) and Amrita Pritam (1919-2005).Among the writers born in Punjab who weren't included: Ram Lall (1923-), Krishna Sobti (1925-), Surendra Prakash (1930-2002), Jeelani Bano (1938-), Sunita Jain (1941-) and the Pakistani writer Ashfaq Ahmad (1925-2004).A number of the best stories in the collection concerned the tragedy of partition, which set Punjabi Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs against each other. The famous work by Manto, "Exchange of Lunatics," contrasted the events surrounding partition with an asylum's separation and transfer of lunatics across the new border. One by Abbas, "The Death of Shaikh Burhanuddin," was set in Delhi during the violence accompanying the catastrophe, during which a prejudiced narrator overcame his hatred and fear of Sikhs. One by Gulzar Singh Sandhu, "Gods on Trial," was set in Punjab and focused on the violence done by Sikhs to Muslims, as witnessed by a young Sikh boy, and his grandfather's revulsion at the deeds. The killers "did not wait to check who was who. They were busy people. They had to visit and plunder other villages too." Other stories concerned the plight of one of the many women who were kidnapped and abused during the time, and the difficulties faced afterward, or the nostalgia of a man for the homeland he'd fled.Other works avoided the subject of partition and concentrated on subjects like the problems of life in towns or villages during peacetime, the dilemmas of individuals, or narrators' memories of people or places. For me, the best of these was Kartar Singh Duggal's "The Night of the Full Moon," in which a woman had a momentary lapse of judgment before her daughter's marriage and suffered the consequences. Yashpal's "Saadat" described the narrator's memory of a beautiful girl he'd liked in childhood, and what happened when he returned two decades later to look for her. In another, a poorly paid office worker was scolded by his boss and resolved to resign, but reconsidered for his family's sake and trudged off to work as usual the next day. The story by Anand was a parable about a man who made and lost several fortunes during India's development in the 1930s and 40s, and showed his gradual enslavement to money. Khosla's tale concerned a narrator's description of a genial man who seemed to never lose his temper, but revealed another side to him before the end.A few of the stories were more concerned with humor, often bittersweet. The best of these for me was Krishen Singh Dhodi's "Hunger," in which an underfed Sikh servant, encountering his Guru in a vision, asked only for a crust of bread and a pat of butter: "I do not wish to own a kingdom; but I also do not want to spend a lifetime in hunger and want. Appease my hunger in this life; I will not bother about life hereafter." Balwant Gargi's tale described a village boy who could run great distances and who sought an audience with the region's ruler so that he could compete at the Olympics. Because of bureaucratic inertia, at the story's end he was still waiting for the audience, having taken a desk job in the meantime and grown older and infirm. Khushwant Singh's own story was more lighthearted, poking fun at both the locals and a foreigner who came to the region and tried to impose his own thinking. In another, a carriage driver delayed his journey so long to look for more passengers that he lost the ones he had.Some of the other stories communicated nothing to me of Punjab or its people. One, by Cour, depicted a government worker who began receiving favors his boss had turned down. And one by Mahajan depicted the melodramatic problems of a woman in Calcutta. A few others had no clear form or said nothing I could grasp.A newer anthology for writers from the region is Time Out: Stories from Punjab (2002).

Delivered very promptly and in perfect condition. The book is fascinating and a must read for K Singh fans.

Brilliant, breezy and true to its content, KS again proves, how he can wield his pen to deliver the depth of punjabi literature to the world, complete with little nuances nick-nacks and charm. Stories range from the simple to the forlorn, from the village to the city. The compilation seems to be done after giving all of it much thought, and there seems to be an obvious regret at leaving some out. Wish we could have this as a series rather than one free-standing one.

A binding collection of stories that will leave you thinking about them even after putting down your Kindle. Some of them I had already read, owing to my over indulgent reading habits...But reading these stories again with many more new was absolutely fresh experience especially when they had been translated by one of my favorite writers. I highly recommend this book to all..

A fantastic collection!Exchange of Lunatics by Saadat Hasan MantroStench of Kerosene by Amrita PritamLajwanti by Rajinder Singh BediSaadat by YashpalThe Death of Shaikh Burhanuddin by KA Abbas

a must read thing for all worthy indians

All stories are waste of time.