Here’s a top secret behind a story of the master storyteller and doyen of Hindi literature Munshi Premchand. Those who have been avid followers of his works would be forced to debate over his works, with this startling fact.
It might surprise critics of Hindi Literature and those who are diehard fans of Premchand’s works that his creation Panch Parmeshwar was originally Panch Bhagwan. Now If one asks who changed the name, the answer would be a known name among those who promoted Hindi literature, Acharya Hazari Prasad Dwivedi.
Like any other budding writer Premchand too was a person who was fighting it out to make it big in the Literature world.
He gave the story for being published in a magazine called the Saraswati Patrika. Dwivedi who was then the editor of the magazine, changed the title to Panch Parmeshwar from Panch Bhagwan.
Acharya Hazari Prasad Dwivediji, the editor of the magazine corrected his story which was of 5-6 pages and changed its title to ‘Panch Parmeshwar’. The story was then published which is often used by the students for their research work.
Reportedly Acharya Hazari Prasad Dwivedi made several changes in the story. Each page of the story had atleast 20 edits if not less. The question that is now looming large on the mind of those who follow Hindi Literature is , what could have been the original story that Premchand wanted the readers to get a taste of.
This happened to come to light when some documents were recovered from the Nagri Pracharni Sabha. Though the documents were in poor condition, the matter inside spoke volumes. The original script of the story lies with them. A CD has also been made out of it.
Experts say the ace writer had used several heavyduty words which for the average reader would have been difficult to comprehend, so the changes were made.
Panch Parmeshwar is the famous story of Munshi Premchand, who is also known as the Shakespeare of Hindi literature. This is a short story of two friends Jumman Sheikh and Algu Chaudhary in schools. When Algu Chaudhary is elected as the ‘Sarpanch’ of the village and passes a verdict against his best friend Jumman, friends become foes. But in due course, when Jumman becomes the ‘Sarpanch’ and sits on the Judgement seat, he realizes that Algu was right. The moral, sitting on the Judgement seat one cannot be subjective and biased.
An article that analyses the much talked about story of the Hindi literary doyen says Panch Parmeshwar is a work that goes beyond simplistic reading…it explores…the indigenous, village centric system of justice that caters to the needs of the illiterate and the poor in India
Panch Parmeshwar is also about the exploitation of the underdog, and women and the elderly become the most obvious representatives of it. It is about property relations.
Premchand was well recorded for his modern Hindi-Urdu literature. He is one of the most celebrated writers of the Indian subcontinent. Born Dhanpat Rai, he began writing under the pen name “Nawab Rai”, but subsequently switched to “Premchand”. A novel writer, story writer and dramatistall in one he is referred to as the “Upanyas Samrat”. His works include more than a dozen novels, around 250 short stories, several essays and translations of a number of foreign literary works into Hindi.
Well if the original remains, then the next obvious question remains that whether it will hit the stands someday.
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