Sunday Reading: Interpretation of the Stories by Mahendrasinh Parmar

Hello readers,

                       This Blog is a part of Sunday reading task in which professor keep on giving the task on Sunday to cultivate the thinking ability in students. So, on this Sunday, students' work is to interpret these two Gujarati short stories "Intellectual Indubhai" and "ISI No Haath" are from "Polytechnic"- a collection of short stories published in 2016 by Mahendrasinh Parmar.

 It is very true that History always being recorded by the literature, but literature do not record thoroughly and to the point but somehow it used to make satire on any historical events like Jonathan Swift wrote many allegorical novels like on religious, science, politics, judicial system, etc. And many writes are keep on writing such a works. Further, writers very interestingly used the imaginative power like Gulliver's Travel, we can say it is an imaginative truth. Similarly, The present stories also presented with imaginative truth. So, here we will see the imaginative power of the short story writer how he wrote real events with the power of imagination.

• 'ISI No Haath": 

                                 "ISI No Haath" is very beautifully written in satirical way, here writer chosen the title of the story very interestingly. To read the title first thought may come in our mind is that a terrorist group of Iraq but actually the meaning of the title is the short name of the characters like 'I' for Ishvar Dabhi, 'S' for Sharad Joshi and 'I' for Indrajeet Dholakiya who were the delinquent of temple attack. The story about the one temple which is the cause of unemployment of the characters that the temple buy out the walk of life of the characters, and then this reason led into the crime.

Moreover, there are three Ishvar and Sharad who lost their business because of the temple and one professor, his university's land turned into temple, so he could't tolerated this kind of land mafia works. Furthermore, policeman's son also lost his job because of the temple. So, every characters have anger towards the temple.

Imaginative story on the real event:

                                                             Here, we can see the imaginative power of the writer that indirectly, he criticized the reality of Axarvadi Temple of Bhavnagar. In the story when we read the words of the professor Indrajeet, when policeman was inquiring that this land donated to the University for educational purpose by his highness Maharaja Krishnakumarsihnji, the last Maharaja of Gohil Dynasty. Hence, professor and many other against this temple and also the professor from Chemistry department, and also Sir P.P Institute is connected with the Axarvadi temple and also this event was actually happened in the past. So we can say that this is an imaginative truth very aptly conveyed by writes through this story and also a satire on politics and on religious institute also that they shut the mouth of people who spoke against temple through the power and we also see in the story that all three characters turned in the favour of the temple.

• 'Intellectual Indubhai': 

                                                  The second story is also a wonderful work of imaginative truth. The story about one professor Indubhai, was very intellectual and kind hearted person. He was teaching lesson of humanism and teach the thoughts of gandhiji, Narsinhi Mehta, Meera, Eliot and Rilke. But one day he faced the cruel situation in which majority and minority communal riots happened and people killed and burned each other. After, seen that kind of situation Indubhai remembering the western thinkers. Here, writer of this story seems very knowledgeable because he reminds the western thinkers to the people. 

• Connection of Contemporary event:

                                                                       When we read the words 'February a cruelest month', 'Majority and Minority' and 'Burning train' the Post-Godhra riots come in our mind. This story is about the Post- Godhra riots in which many people lost their lives, mass raped of the women, looting shops, burning children and women. Here, writer very wonderfully wrote that the books of Ramayana, Mahabharat, Krishna nu Jivan sangeet all are burned so it means all the moral thoughts are also burned in the mind of people. So, the story is presented with great imaginative truth.

• Mentioning of Western Thinkers: 

                                                               In the story, writer mentioned many Western thinker like Nietzsche, Darwin, Milton, Karl Marx, Rilke and Louis Pasteur. This all are connected with idea of Existentialism. This riots happened because of Religions and writer said that Nietzsche come and persuade them and also remember the modernist R.M. Rilke who was existentialist. Furthermore, he talked about Darwin who destroyed the idea of God and Louis Pasteur who have saved many lives ever since through his discoveries in prevention of diseases. So, here we can say that people blindly follow the religion without understanding the ultimate goal of life. In this materialistic life everything is absurd so why people killed each other in the name of religion. Writes remember all the thinker who worked on humanism and betterment of people. At last, I can say that the writer's words spoken through the character are eye opening which is conveying the reality of life that life is absurd and meaningless in the world of sheeples.

To conclude, we can say that the writer's way of telling imaginative truth is great, very wonderfully he talked about the real incidents through the imagination power each and every words and characters are appropriate to convey the reality.