Indo-Anglian Short Story - An Overview

The Indian short story in English can be broadly classified into two forms. The first form is that of fables which carries either a moral injunction or a truth of life. The characters are not human beings. But the moral dimensions conveyed at the end definitely have a human orientation. The second one is the folk tale whose only purpose is to entertain with romance and adventure but not refined in a technical sense to give rise to lasting effect. They stimulate the imagination and allow temporary escape from the realities of existence. The short story in India has also gained importance as an effective medium for the expression of the cultural and social situations. The Indian short story writer found that this short story in the ancient classics conveyed ideas very clearly and simply. So the Indian writer substituted Indians and India in the place of the gods and heavens.

Though the modern Indian short story in English has borrowed its technique from the west, it is essentially Indian in content and presentation. These stories are almost photographic description of life in India. They give an insight into the dynamics of modern life and sustain the inner sensitiveness of man that today is in danger of being obliterated due to the strain of modern life.

The Indian short story in English is virtually a product of the 20th century. It was only in the 19th century, that the Indian short story of some literary value came into being. The Indian writer took to the short story writing in English because it was the simplest way of communicating a way of life. Like England, India was also slow in picking up the short story. It was only in 1885 that the first short story collections appeared as Realities of Indian Life and it was also in 1898 that a collection of short stories by an Indian Christian Life, by Kamala Sathiananadan appeared. He wants to convey the essential India as he had understood and of which he wanted others to get a perspective. Techniques and traditions of Indo-Anglian short story over the time came to acquire an Indian sensibility. The major contributors to its development are Manjeri Iswaran, Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R. K. Narayan. It has acquired a distinct personality of its own with an Indian stamp.

Judging from the short life span of the Indo-Anglian short story, its achievement is commendable. The social and cultural diversity of India is reflected in a variety of short stories. It is marching towards diversification. Its limitations are obvious. But its future is bright and full of promise. It has a popular readership in the modern times and caters to the psychological, sociological, humanitarian, regional, religious, philosophical and exotic interests of people. By the beginning of this century short story and short novels constituted a major output of the writers. Even the novelists turned to short story writing because they felt it was better suited for some of their themes. It is specially suited for modern times when people have little time to spare and even the miniature form of short story serves the purpose. But the Indo-Anglian short story writers have not lost sight of the basic aim of the ancient stories, namely entertain and please the readers. The story writers have used humour, satire and suspense among other things to make their stories lively and entertaining. Satire has been a great weapon in the hands of writers like Naryan to attack social evils inherent in society.

Some of the opinions of the leading writers in Indo-English short fiction provide a clear view of its ground. R. K. Narayan has the following to say on the Indian tradition of short stories:

After all, for any short story writer, the Prototype still, inevitably remains to be our own epics and mythological stories

Mulk Raj Anand, a writer with a social commitment, presents the rural life of Punjab and gives us a brief but transparent vision of the nature of Punjabi culture. Though Anand was educated in the West and assimilated much that is best in Western intellectual tradition, he pays homage to the rich tradition of Indian story telling.

In a country where the majority of people are illiterate the literary tradition of the country is carried on through the oral means. The writers of short stories are not so much anxious about technique as the basic need of satisfying the curiosity of listeners. Even from the time of the remote ancestors whose critical skills were almost absent, it was primitive curiosity, which sustained interest in stories. As remarked by E.M. Forster:

The primitive audience was an audience of Shock-heads,
Gaping round the campfire, Fatigued with contending
Against the mammoth or the wholly-rhinoceros and only kept
Awake by suspense. What would happen next

Against such a ground it is surprising that India has a rich tradition of story telling. It may also be said that India was the pioneer of the short story. Many of the stories available all over the world had for their basis the stories from the Indian Panchatantra and the River of Stories. As observed by Manjeri S. Iswaran:

India was the nursery of story and fable and The Indian Storyteller was as fertile in Tales inculcating practical Wisdom as in Illuminating epic and religious myth.

The Indian short stories of the earlier centuries centered around some religious or moral theme, as in the Panchatantra. This theme slowly shifted to heroic and enormous adventures of kings, princes and romantic stories of merchants and courtesans.

The advent of modern short story on the literary scene of India coincided with the struggle of independence and various social movements aimed at rejuvenating the spirit of India from its stage of submission and sensibility. It was a period of both political and cultural ferment and the writers played their own role in sustaining such an atmosphere and also immortalising them in their writings for the later generations. They not only recorded the Indian struggle for Independence but also the emotional details of life: the role of sentiments in family relationships, the problems faced by the Indian women, the village life, the downtrodden, the untouchables, humour and satire. In addition they have many entertaining vignettes and the impact of the west is seen in a realistic portrayal of life in its richness and variability.

The popularization of short story is also due to the relative growth of literary culture and the development of newspapers and other forms of mass­communication. To quote Iswaran: “The rapid multiplication of periodicals and the literary interest evinced by the daily press have gained the widest possible public for the current story teller.”

The achievement of Independence also liberated various social forces and life became multi-dimensional and variegated. The development that followed Independence did not reach the common man. The writers think it led to a period of disillusionment of the common man. Humour became a powerful tool to depict the injustice done to the common man. The callousness of bureaucracy and the deceptions of the rulers are constantly unveiled. Thus it has become a popular medium of creating awareness among the people. The increase in the pace of life activities is improving the prospects of short story, as people don’t have leisure for longer novels. Innumerable things are employed and depicted in these stories right form the inner working of the mind of a beggar to the hypocrisy and false promises of the rulers. Irony has become an acute form of depicting reality as it exposes the absurdities of life and the attitudes of people who count in society. At present it doesn’t have any established format except the basic story interest and manifestation of the complexity of life in modern India. A brief overview of the major writers is presented.

Manjeri S. Iswaran one of the pioneers among Indo-Anglian writers apart from being a good short story writer, is also one of the foremost short story theorists in India. He expressed his opinion in his preface of what a short story should be: A short story can be a fable or a parable, real or fantasy, a true presentation or a parody, sentimental or satirical; serious in content, or a light-hearted diversion; it can be any of these but to be memorable, it must catch the eternal in the casual, and invest a moment with the immensity or time.

He is a realist. He has a capacity for observing the details of life and even an ordinary event carries some deep inner significance for him. He writes about incidents that we witness in day-to-day life. His characters are taken from the middle and lower classes of urban society:  doctors, police men, fishermen, beggars, drivers and conductors and his themes are Indian and deal with human psychology. He has produced nine short story collections on a variety of themes. However he did not achieve the popularity that he truly deserves. Unlike Mulk Raj Anand and R. K. Narayan, his stories have sensibility and universality.

Raja Rao made his debut in literature as a writer of short stories. Though he too has the same ground of Independence Movement, he differs from Anand and Narayan in his technique and vision. The Serpent and the Rope has placed him among the eminent Indo-Anglian writers in India.

He has three short story collections to his credit, The Cow of the Barricades, The Policeman and the Rose and On the Ganga Ghat. Though the themes are varied, Raja Rao is the only Indian writer in English who writes about village life with many evocative details. He writes about the age-old customs, beliefs and how people accept them without questioning their validity.

The men and women of his stories are from rural India. He also experimented with the form of the Western short story and the English language and this marks him out as an outstanding writer. He is the only Indo-Anglian writer to experiment with form.

Mulk Raj Anand is also a leading exponent of the short story. He writes about the contemporary situation through the problems faced by his characters. Though most of  his stories deal with the underdogs and their sorrows, he is not without a sense of humour. The Barber’s Trade Union, The Liar and A Pair of Mustachios are examples. Like Narayan, Anand is a prolific short story writer. The body of his short fiction consists of the five collections of his short stories. The themes and the technique of Anand’s short stories are varied. He writes about the traditional way of life, the modern way of life, women in traditional Hindu society, exploitation of the poor, downtrodden, untouchables and the suppressed. His contribution to the Indo­ Anglian short story is impressive and everlasting. He has given a distinct Indian stamp to the short story by giving a blend of Indian folk tales and Western technique. He is also a painter of rural reality.

R. K. Narayan is one of India’s leading short story writers and one of the best-known writers of India in the West. He has six collections of short stories to his name. They are all delightfully readable, written on a wide variety of subjects. His themes resemble those of Iswaran but unlike Iswaran, he does not probe deeply into the meaning of life. The striking feature of his short stories is gentle irony, satire and humour.

The other notable writers are K. S. Venkta Ramani and K. Nagarajan. They have only one collection each to their credit. Venkataramani’s Jatadharan And Other Stories shows him to be a sensitive writer studying the different aspects of the individual mind and its reaction to various situations.

K. A. Abbas like Mulk Raj Anand, is an angry man of literature. He is progressive, committed championing underdog of society. He has produced literature of social reform with a Marxist ideology. He is deeply concerned at the turn of things after Independence and the revolutionist in him can be seen in his novels and short stories. He depicts poverty, exploitation of the poor, red-tape, inefficiency, hypocrisy, unemployment, communal frenzy, social ugliness and pavement dwelling. This portrayal of the contemporary scene is done artistically. In some aspects Abbas like Narayan elucidates the sensibilities and realities of life though there is a thrust in him while Abbas clearly reveals his attitude.

Khushwant Singh is better known for his short stories than for his novels. The dominant strain of Khushwant Singh’s short fiction is humour, satire and comic characterization of people. The comic element runs through nearly all his stories. His humour is not only ironical but also heart-rending. He is always on the side of sanity and moderation in human affairs. In this respect, Dr. K. R. S. Iyengar says, “An Anti-Romantic, Khushwant is intolerant of cant and humbug, especially when they masquerade as wisdom and probity. This is seen in Mark of Vishnu”. The Mark of Vishnu brought him instant international recognition. His other collections of short sorties include The Voice of God, A Bride for the Sahib and The Black Jasmine.

Khushwant Singh, in spite of his rich literary sensibility, has often been charged with vulgarity and obscenity. Even though his stories deal with sex, he does not treat sex in the way Somerset Maugham or D. H. Lawrence does.

Bhabani Bhattacharya is the noted writer of that classic novel So Many Hungers. He has only a single collection of short stories titled Steal hawk and other stories. The selection of his themes is very suitable to his short stories.

Jai Nimbakar who is well known for her short story collection The Lotus Leaves (1871) is a gifted writer who writes well. She covers a wide variety of themes and people in her work. Her concerns are mostly about the poor and the downtrodden people in society. In this respect she is as committed as Mulk Raj Anand.

Among other noted practitioners of the short story are Manohar Malgonkar, Prawar Jhabwala and Anita Desai merit mention. Malgonkar has to his credit two collections of short stories, A Toast in Warm Wine (1974) and Bombay, Beware (1975). These show him as a writer of delightful and pleasantly readable short stories. His stories contain depiction of active life in areas like army life, mining, espionage, hunting, social life and film making. He shares with Narayan, lack of high seriousness. Like Narayan, his stories are highly topical with descriptions of Indian life written in simple style with sometimes a sudden touch of anger. His stories are filled with ironic twists which give surprise ending.

R. P. Jhabwala has in her a co-mingling of various cultures because she is Polish by birth, brought up in Germany and educated in England, and Indian by matrimonial relationship. The theme of alien consciousness is the basic concern in much of her work and traces of it are also evident in her short stories. Most of her themes might appear queer to an Indian whose mind is trained in moralistic and religious thinking. She faithfully describes what she feels and thinks. Her stories are the product of her divergent experiences.

Anita Desai had only a few collections of short stories such as Games at Twilight and The Peacock Garden. The characters that people her short fiction are students, children, women, artists and employees. In addition to several stories contributed to various magazines from time to time she wrote articles detailing the issues related to women writers and their craft of story telling. She has published two books for children. The writings of Anita Desai abound in sensuous luxuriance, which marks her out from other Indo-Anglian writers. As a woman writer her concern mainly is with existential problems of women who are educated and middle-class and wish for a change in society. Her frequent use of stream of consciousness technique for probing into the minds of her characters and to explicate the intricacies of human psychology, distinguishes her from other writers.