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Premchand Plays Chess
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 October 2014
Abstract
This article contextualises and compares the Urdu and Hindi versions of Premchand's 1924 short story The Chess Players. Close examination of the two texts offers fascinating insight into the challenges of adjustment for Premchand as he moved from his Persian/Urdu literary home-base to the world of modern Hindi that he did so much to help create in the early decades of twentieth-century India.
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- Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2014
References
1 Sleeman, W. H., A journey through the kingdom of Oude in 1849–50 (London, 1858), pp. xxi–xxii Google Scholar.
2 The Deputies were Munshi Mohammed Ala-ul-Hasan BA and Mohammed Mutiullah Khan. Abdullah Yusuf Ali ICS, long-connected with Hamirpur, might have taken a kinder view. Best remembered for his enduringly popular English version of the Quran, he discusses 1857–58 and Bengal Partition perceptively in Cultural History of India during the British Period (Bombay, 1936) and notes Premchand's Chaugān-e hastī [Rangbhūmī] as an outstanding Urdu novel.
3 Jīvan-sār (Stuff of Life) 2; Oxford India Premchand (New Delhi, 2007) p. 256. Premchand pays tribute to a kindred spirit in Muft kā yash (Undue Credit, Hindi, 1934), more fulsomely in Muft karam dāshtan (Urdu, 1938, translated by Madan Gupta as The Undeserved Reward). The Urdu runs: “In those days the district officer [ḥākim-e ẓila’] happened to be a man of cultivated interests [ṣāḥib-e ẕauq buzurg] who had carried out signal research in history and old coins. God knows how he found time outside office work for the activity. I had read his output and secretly admired him [ ghāibāna maddāḥ thā]”. Stevinson's predecessor-but-one, before Premchand's time, had been the numismatist W.E.M. Campbell.
4 Atkinson, E.T., ed., Statistical, Descriptive and Historical Account of the North-Western Provinces of India (Allahabad, 1874), Vol. I, Bundelkhand, p. 21 Google Scholar. His great-grandson Raja Champat Rai of Orchha was the hero of Bundela resistance to the Mughals in Shah Jahan's reign and of Premchand's story Rānī Sārandhā (Zamāna, September 1910).
5 “Piece of liver”: part of oneself (liver ≈ heart or soul).
6 Rai, Amrit, in Premchand, A Life (Delhi, 1982) p. 209 Google Scholar, draws attention to his father's fondness for the Lucknow picaresque of R.N. Dhar (1846–1903, Sarshār = “Exuberant/Merry”) whose “Tale of Azad” (Fasāna-e Azād, 1881) he abridged into Hindi (Azād Kāthā, 1924). Sarshar's vibrancy contrasts with the faded glories of A.H. Sharar's (1869–1926) “Bygone Lucknow” (Guẕashta Lakhnau, 1920, aka The Last Phase of an Oriental Culture). Sharar, brought up at Wajid Ali's Kolkata court, also wrote novels featuring Islamic heroes and (Ḥusn kā ḍākū, Asrār-e darbār-e Harāmpur) debauched nawabs.
7 Where gentlemen of leisure, the counterparts of Lucknow's ra’īs zāde (“grandees’ sons”), played chess at the Grand Cigar Divan (1828), formerly the Kit-Kat Club, now Simpson's-in-the-Strand.
8 See note 24.
9 Ray caught this intuitively, rejecting the death-scene and substituting his own message of continuity (unconsciously echoing Premchand: see note 118). The film ends with Mirza lightly wounded and the players switching to European chess. Their new chaṭpaṭ bāzī, rel-gāṛī kī ṱaraḥ (“high-speed/sudden-death play-off, like a train”) neatly reconfigures the conclusion: Nawabi Lucknow adapted and survived.
10 Marking Wajid Ali out as leader of a school of Lucknow ṭhumrī composers, all using the collective takhalluṣ (alias) of piyā. Others included Qadar Piya, Sanad Piya, Lallan Piya and Rang Piya. See Manuel, P., Ṭhumrī in historical and stylistic perspective (Delhi, 1989), p. 35 Google Scholar.
11 Noted as “bitterly effective” by Frances Pritchett, who benchmarks the Urdu against the Hindi, hence missing some of the playfulness. See Pritchett, F., “The Chess Players, from Premchand to Satyajit Ray”, Journal of South Asian Literature, Vol. 21, No. 2 (1986), p 72 Google Scholar.
12 Or “turban” (Outram, 4 February, to Edmonstone, Foreign Secretary, Fort William, HoC Accounts and Papers 1856, vol. XLV, p. 288). Dalhousie's quip quoted in Ray's film (“The wretch at Lucknow who has sent his crown to the Exhibition would have done his people and us a great service if he had sent his head in it”) was propaganda like Knighton's Private Life. A “crown, or tuj, as worn by the King of Oude; without jewels” and a “Mundil, or turban, as worn by the minister, prince and members of the royal family; from the King of Oude” were shown together at the Great Exhibition, in the Bengal Presidency's collection of articles of clothing. See Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue (London, 1851) vol. II, p. 918. The “tuj” (tāj) was probably a crown-shaped cap: see Victoria and Albert Museum 0348IS, http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O76964/hat/ (accessed 22 April 2014) or 0339IS, illustration in India's Fabled City: the Art of Courtly Lucknow (Los Angeles, 2010), pp. 239, 103).
13 Outram describes the King's stance as “negative opposition and passive resistance” (7 February to Edmonstone, HoC Accounts and Papers 1856, vol. XLV, p 291). Wajid Ali turned to Capt J.R. Brandon (1809–93), a Kanpur merchant and newspaper proprietor, to organise his travel. In the 1830s he had been King Nasir ud-Din Haidar's (Knighton's Eastern King) head-gardener, much like Paxton at the Cavendish family's Chatsworth estate in Derbyshire. Brandon supplied carriages and escorted the King to Kolkata, going on with the Avadh delegation to London, where he leased Harley House and acted as interpreter for them.
14 La propagande par le fait (“spreading the faith by example”) was meant to ignite revolution. It commanded the agenda for a generation after assassination, at fifth attempt, of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 by Narodnaya Volya (“People” asserting “Freedom” of action, āzādī/svādhīntā like Mir's Begam).
15 Probably preceded by an English outline. On Premchand's working methods, see Rai, Premchand, pp. 217–219 and for a full-scale example see K.K. Goyanka, “Godan: The Back Story”, Hindi: Language, Discourse, Writing, Vol. 4, No. 3 (July-September 2009), pp. 155–161.
16 Counter-intuitive once the Hindi became classic. Goyanka (note 119, p. 110) rightly characterises the Urdu as “secret song” (rahasya-gāthā), suggesting it was written in October-November 1924. Textual comparison (see note 119), design compromise (see notes 168, 197) and handling of features like Mir's 40 paces (see note 36), the Persian joke at his Begam's expense (see notes 43, 148), royal banquets (see notes108, 199) or praying minarets (see notes 117, 205) all point to a first draft in Urdu.
17 Premchand paid final homage to Wajid Ali on his deathbed, recurrently humming (Rai, Premchand, p. 375) the farewell refrain (see note 76) Dar o dīvār pe ḥasrat se naɀar karte hain/Rukhṣat a’e ahl-e vaṱan! ham to safar karte hain: “We look lingeringly at these doors and walls/Farewell, fellow-countrymen! We’re on our way”. The King's words resonated, not least with nationalists who made the ultimate sacrifice (Ram Prasad Bismil (1897–1927), Bhagat Singh (1907–31): Khush raho [“Be happy”] ahl-e vaṱan, ham to safar karte hain).
18 ham navāla va ham piyāla the (see note 108).
1 Shatranj kī bāzī: play rather than players, on the board and for higher stakes.
2 Nawab (bādshāh or King since 1819) flags Lucknow style (“Nawabi”) and a chronicler “Nawab Rai”, Nawab a childhood variant on Dhanpat (“Lord of Wealth”, epithet of the god Kubera) and Rai meaning “Prince”. Dhanpat Rai Shrivastava (1880–1936) had re-launched himself as Premchand in 1910 (see Introduction).
3 Zamāna: Wajid Ali's reign (1847–56), moment in history (1856) and celebratory feature in D.N. Nigam's Kanpur monthly Zamāna (December 1924, pp. 298–310). The magazine published special editions and articles on notable historical figures, such as its “Akbar number” (1905) containing an early Nawab Rai contribution on Raja Todar Mal.
4 Compare “sunk in the uttermost abysses of enfeebling debauchery”, Kaye, A History of the Sepoy War. . . Vol. 1, p. 132. ‘Aish o ‘ishrat (luxury, voluptuousness) and other terms simultaneously declare Lucknow heir to a Persian idyll, eg Hafiz moqattat 26.2: “The garden is ready. The time is ripe for frolic (‘aish o ‘ishrat)”. Rang (“riot”) means colour, ethos, theatrical backdrop.
5 Nashāṱ kī maḥfilīn (lively gatherings) = nāch (“nautch”), entertainment with dancing-girls. Bhargava (see note 119) added “song” in the Hindi (nritya <aur gān> kī majlīs).
6 Notably at Wajid Ali's Qaisarbagh Palace, often starring the monarch in person.
7 Rindī o mastī (roguery and drunkenness) (see Introduction above).
8 Mai-khvārī: alcohol and indulgence generally.
9 Bosa o kinār (kissing and cuddling), an authentic Lucknow genre dismissed by the great Delhi poet Mir Taqi Mir (1723–1810), who moved to the new cultural metropolis in 1782, as chūmāchāṭī (kissing and licking).
10 Thread twined with gold or silver (kalābattū) and characteristic Lucknow white cotton embroidery (chikan) on white muslin.
11 Defining name-puns (ijād = innovation). No science or current affairs expert, Wajid Ali (Al-Vajid, Finder/Inventor, 64th of the 99 divine attributes) is a power-house in the performance arts and may have his own insight. See here and also 4 lines later (‘innovation at court’).
12 Gambling game akin to pachīsī and ludo. The Emperor Akbar's version (chandal-mandal) and chess were both played at Fatehpur Sikri with human pieces on giant boards set into the courtyards.
13 “Ace and twelve”: one and two sixes rolled on three dice, lucky throw.
14 Madak, mixed with betel or other leaf for smoking, or chānḍū, refined opium lit and inhaled. Opium was an important East India Company revenue-earner, successfully marketed in Britain as “laudanum” (tincture).
15 Tax-free plots (jāgīr), lifetime awards for service to the state, often extended to the holder's heirs. Mirza and Mir, apparently long established, take their final bow as first-generation grandees.
16 Staple highlights (braised mutton and flavoured rice) of Avadh cuisine (dastarkhwān = tablecloth: formal meal setting or “spread”). Lucknow excelled at pulāo, as Hyderabad at biryānī. Poignantly, we later realise, Mirza's cook had prepared a meal fit for an ex-colleague of legend.
17 Materialising (ṧubūt denā) their skill. The substantiality (ṧabāt) or lastingness of the transient (see note 118) is the story's open ending.
18 Intensifying oxymoron: ārāmī (“comfortable”) also means “peaceful”.
19 Idiom (ghar kā na ghāṭ kā: misfit at home and on the laundry-embankment) highlighting the story's running pun (ghar = home and chess-square). Our players have no safe square or place they can call home. See also note 134.
20 Literally “vented a Muslim weaver's [jūlāha: proverbial dolt] anger at [his] beard.” The opening (hān jūlāhe kā ghuṣṣā: “Certainly, a weaver's anger. . .”) echoes earlier “As to ignoramuses. . .” (hān juhalā) mocking grand manner and, like Mir's Begam (see note 43), making short work of Arabic erudition.
21 “Feet decorated with henna [unavailable for walking]?”
22 Ḥakīm ṣāḥib: practitioner of Greek (yūnānī) medicine, Hippocratic tradition progressed by Avicenna and others.
23 And unprecedented (kuchh unke ānkhon rāsta nahīn dekhā hai).
24 Literally “Is it that ‘breath on the lips’ [kyā esā dam labon par hai]?” Mirza is sending up effects like the Lucknow poet Mir Haidar Ali Atish's (1778–1846) strangulated lover's sigh ( ghazal 58.7): “The breath rising from my breast sticks powerless on my lips [āke sīne se labon par dam aṭaktā hai abas]”. Premchand thought Atish technically brilliant but insufficiently serious and protested when Nigam devoted most of a Zamāna issue (November 1929) to him.
25 Teasing touch (nāzuk mizāj: delicate temperament). Women have their own lakhnāvat (Lucknow style) with its ideal of nazākat (delicate refinement).
26 Mirza rounds neatly and forcefully on Mir (jī chāhtā hai: “my spirit craves. . .”), both speakers having just used the honorific jī (“Sir”).
27 Nirmohiyā (unfeeling ascetic) and subliminal narmohī (attractive to men). The Begam plays routinely (see note 40) on her husband's name (Sajjad = adorer, prostrator at prayer).
28 Sir par suvār ho jātā hai: “ride the head”. Mir's alleged conduct will meet its match in a suvār (cavalryman).
29 Rānī rūṭhengī, apnā suhāg lengī: if the queen is offended, she withdraws her suhāg (marital radiance or favour). The Begam Sahiba means Uma Devi of Jaisalmer (d. 1562) who snubbed Rao Maldev of Jodhpur (1511–62) on their wedding night for dallying with her maid and became a Rajput legend, retold in Premchand's Rūṭhī Rānī (Zamāna 1907). The Angry Queens salute Shivrani Devi (“Rani”) whom Premchand married in 1906 and encouraged as a writer and political activist. Her searching memoir (Premchand: ghar mẽ [Delhi, 1956]) recounts some of their Mirza-Begam-like banter and is dedicated tumhārī dāsī yā rānī (“your maid or queen”).
31 So Zamāna (chillātī huī). Reprints substitute jhallāyī huī (“in a fury”) from the Hindi.
32 Literally “rockets took off [havāyān uṛne lagen]”: the colour came and went.
33 Imam Husayn.
34 The drawing-room has become Mirza's maqbara (monumental tomb) and mystical translation in preview. By entering, the Begam will ensure his social death, reveal checkmate (death on the board) rigged by Mir (Arabic maiyāt, corpse, playing on māt, “dead” or “mate”) and set fatal denouement in train. Qadam (“foot”), assonating with qasam (oath: “revere”), hints at the Lucknow Shah Najaf Imambara complex with its adjoining Qadam Rasūl (“Footprint of the Prophet”). The Imambara, conceived as a replica of Ali's tomb at Najaf, houses King Ghazi ud-din Haidar (Mir's patron: see note 106) and his wives.
35 Na-maḥram, “not permitted” to enter the ḥaram (women's quarters). Ancient sacred taboo (ḥrm) similarly underlies the term Muḥarram, the month of mourning for the death of Husayn.
36 Mir's innocent “saunter” (Hindi ṭahalnā) doubles as chess-obsequy for Mirza. Chihal-qadmī (retiring “40 paces” and returning) forms part of the burial service.
37 Bigaṛnā: rot, inflame, also rebel or mutiny.
38 Mu’ā: corpse, wretch.
39 Chakla (red-light district): the unregulated world of Hafiz's rindī (see Introduction above), Lucknow courtesan entertainment or Wajid Ali's theatrical training school, the parī khāna (Fairy House).
40 See note 27.
41 Mir maps their next move (ghar = home/square). Mirza (‘when I was at home. . .’) contemplates the Begam's counter.
42 Absence and mystical occlusion (ghā’ib rahnā).
43 The joke is the Begam Sahiba's no-nonsense version of a Sufi formula, sarvar ba-mastān, yād dahānīdan (Persian): “When the master soars, intone the name of God” (ba-mastān = “drunk” or “in a mystical transport”). She understands yād in its regular sense (“reminder”) rather than as Arabic dhikr/ẕikr (repetition of the divine name). The Hindi truncates (see note 148).
44 ‘Āshiq, also the lover-minstrel or troubadour of Turkic tradition.
46 Khairīyat: collective well-being (Latin salus).
47 And goodbye to it ( khudā ḥāfiɀ as Persian valedictory).
48 ‘Aish (see note 4).
49 Classic Indian dance whose modern form owes much to Wajid Ali.
50 Ashrafī (mohur) worth about 15 rupees or a sovereign-and-a-half in money of the day.
51 Sāqan, the female equivalent of Hafiz's sāqī or cup-bearer. The venue is a smoking-parlour with girl hookah-attendants.
52 “Rode” it (suvār: see note 28).
53 Na’e na’e naqshe echoing the “new tricks” at the Nawab's Court.
54 Jhaṛap, like two cocks.
55 Tū-tū main-main: familiarities, insults, sharper than French tutoyer. Mirza and Mir move directly from āp (formal “you”) to tū (intimate family and domestics) passing over tum (informal “you”).
56 Shakar ranjiyān: misunderstandings and the least of their trials. “100 griefs” (sad ranj) is a standing Persian name-pun on chess (shatranj).
57 Rūṭhkar (see note 29).
58 Qasam (see note 34).
59 Khidmatgār (Persian) meaning general servant (naukar in the Hindi), distinct from the British usage (table-attendant, senior servant).
60 Ki maẕāq hai doubling as Freudian slip (“just joking!”).
61 Fanā hoga’ī: and “annihilated” itself, prior to enlightenment.
64 Go into occlusion ( ghā’ib ho jā’en: see note 42).
65 Naqsha jame (“let the pattern come together”), language (like naqsha tez honā) connoting power and influence. Mirza is talking chess (“let the problem solve”) but presaging more. Naqsha (see note 53) hints at the Sunni order of Naqshbandi Sufis with which Wajid Ali had connections. Fateh Ali Waisi (1825–86), a leading Naqshbandi, served as his private secretary in Kolkata: see below “two great men, keeping to the lanes, would eat at a baker's stall”.
66 Ḥaẓrat (“presence”) used of saints and important persons. Similarly ‘two great men’ fifteen lines on. Mir had been summoned to ḥuẓūr, a conventional equivalent for “Majesty” and the servants’ term of address for himself and his Begam.
68 Chilla-kash: attempting the feat of 40 days without food or water. Forty is a purification motif (desert retreats, Noah's flood). Connections with death (see note 36) also include arba’īn (Persian chehlum) the conclusion of mourning. The Imam Husayn's Arba’īn (20 Safar, 40 days after 10 Muharram) draws annual pilgrimage to Karbala.
69 Nān-bā’ī offering “bread” (Persian nān) straight from the oven, probably including the speciality bread nān.
70 Bāzī sc. khā lete: “lost”. They “ate [khā lete]” their food, “drank” (smoked) their hookah and then “<ate> the game” (came to grief). In the Hindi version they “meet their check on the field of conflict [sãgrām-kśetr mẽ ḍaṭ jāte].”
71 Gham-e vizr aur gham-e kālā: grief of responsibility and grief of possessions. Zamāna's vizr appears as vuzarā (grief of Ministers) in reprints.
72 Mahājān: village moneylender, banker, “capitalist”. Premchand was given to denouncing money in the style of the story's traditionalists (baṛe būṛhe). Like many contemporaries, throughout the world, he looked to the command economy to deliver better khairīyat (quality of life) than markets, summing up his views and hopes in a final essay “The Capitalist Society” (Mahājānī Sabhyatā), Hãs, September 1936.
73 Dekh lījiyegā (“You may look”), courteous old-fashioned “imperative”, comically indeterminate between “Take your time” and “Look later”.
74 Representing conviviality and illumination (see note 108). Wajid Ali was teetotal.
75 Jānbāz (life-wagerer). Jān-e ‘ālam (see note 45) is life itself and needs none.
76 Rukhṣat: refrain of Wajid Ali's valedictory poem (rukhṣat a’e ahl-e vaṱan: “Farewell, fellow-countrymen”) and related compositions. Nawāb. . .rukhṣat hints at shah-rukh , combined chess-threat to king and castle resulting in loss of castle, or moving the king into protective baulk (modern “castling”). Hafiz characterises a variant on this, king shielded and carried aloft by fabulous bird (“roc”), as the critical Sufi moment ( ghazal 133.7: “Shah-rukh was there, the opportunity has passed, Hafiz. What to do? Time catches [bāzī: plays] me unawares.”)
77 Palace and chess-square (ghar).
78 Pīṭatī: see note 67.
79 A musical interlude featuring Wajid Ali's best-remembered ṭhumrī (Bābul morā, naihār chhūto hī jāe. . . “My father, I’m leaving home. . .”). In form a bridal farewell (bidā'ī), the song alludes to funerals and exile. Kundan Lal Saigal performed it memorably for the 1938 Kolkata movie Street Singer, with music recreated by R.C. Boral. It became an all-India hit and remains popular today.
80 Ḥuẓūr ‘ālī (see note 66), consummate chess player (‘ālī or grandmaster of Abbasid Baghdad) and almost ḥaẓrat ‘Alī, the Imam. Mir matches ambiguity with ambiguity (āp ko’ī qāẓī hain: “You’ll be the judge/Some judge you are!”). Both features drop in the Hindi (huzūr navāb sāhab: “HM the Nawab”).
81 Ḥaẓrat (see note 66). The Most Precious Jewel in the World (see Introduction) opens with mission impossible and its protagonist shedding “tears of blood” ( khūn ke ānsū) at the prospect.
82 Qaid-e farang (Frankish fetter): fast irons, British gaol.
83 Yah shah: “That's check!” (see note 67) and “What a king!”
84 Ḥādiṧa (novelty, disaster) jānkāh (reducing the life animated by Jān-e ‘Ālam).
85 So Zamāna. Reprints insert ke ba’d (“after”) yielding “Alas! Without His Majesty Jan-e Alam now there's no one. . .”. The Hindi (where Mirza ends: “Alas poor Wajid Ali Shah!”) supports Zamāna.
86 Vīrān like the ruined mosque (vīrān masjid).
87 Jān: see notes 75, 84.
88 Mātam karnā: ritual flagellation, mourning for the Imam Husayn during Muharram.
89 Purnūr (“full of light”). Akhtarpiyā (“Beloved/drunken star”, a Wajid Ali takhalluṣ) is now in full illumination. Mir's flippancy heralds denouement (Roshan = Luminous).
90 Marṧiya (lamentation/elegy) recital was a cultural highlight of the Lucknow year. The leading poets of the day, Mīr Babar ‘Ali Anīs (1803–74) and Mirza Salāmat ‘Ali Dabīr (1805–75), competed annually at a majlīs on 25 Rajab (1 April 1856).
91 Ghā’ib (see notes 42, 64): become occluded.
92 Bigaṛnā: see note 37.
93 Romantic, devotional or occasional songs (see note 79).
94 Chuṭkiyān lenā (pinch, provoke): the “snap” of the fingers (chuṭkiyon par) with which the cavalryman made fools dance. Goyanka's (note 119, p. 112) paṭkiyān (“punches”) is a variant on Zamāna.
95 Verbal pyrotechnics like Premchand's own (ẓil’ aur jugat: sustained double meaning and word-play – puns, alliteration, cross-reference).
96 Sufi metaphor for enlightenment, originating in a non-canonical ḥadīth: “I [God] was a hidden treasure [dafīna], and wished to be known, so I created a creation, then made myself known to them”.
97 So Zamāna (mere). Omitted in the Hindi and in later Urdu reprints.
98 Ḥaẓrat (see notes 66, 81).
99 Farzi (vizier) corresponding to queen.
100 Piṭnā: neutral form of pīṭnā (see note 67).
101 Khairīyat (see note 46).
102 Āp kī ḥaqīqat hī kiyā hai: duty and Sufi union with God. The angels assist with both (firishte dihkā’ī denā: angels appear = point of death).
103 Lā maḥāla and subliminal lā muḥāl (“not absurd”).
104 The status (riyāsat) of a person of rank (ra’īs).
105 Jāgīr (see note 15).
106 See note 34. Elegantly crafted insult. Mir has said: yahān to. . .pīṛhiyān aur pushten guẕar ga’īn (In my family [ chez nous]. . .generations passed). Mirza returns his words: navāb. . .ke yahān. . .’umr guẕar ga’ī (Your career passed. . .for Nawab [ chez le Nawab]. . .)
107 Shauq chumāyā (kiss your fancy): see note 9.
108 Intimates and fellow-illuminates (ham navāla va ham piyāla the: “we were the fine food and we were the cup”). They shared the Nawab's “high life” (navāla-piyāla) and mystical transports (piyāla honā = “to die [in the language of Mohammadan mendicants]” as Platts and others quaintly allow).
109 Word-play: bāndhnā (carried) echoed by Persian band (captive) see: below “both were captive to luxury”.
110 Kaṭār (triangular stabber), khanjar (curved dagger), peshqabẓ (thin Persian dagger) and sher-bachcha (“lion/tiger-cub” = small gun).
111 Qaumi (nation, people) contrasted with ẕatī (personal) dilerī (spirit, courage).
112 Arabic ‘anqā (rarity, phoenix, aka sīmurgh or “roc”: see note 76) highlighting civic consciousness shortfall and hope of making it good. Juvenal's “rare bird” (Satires 6.165) is a partial match, the perfect wife likened to a black swan. Standing for impossibility rather than transformation or rebirth, this bird turned out in 1697 to be real.
113 Fanā (see notes 61, 62): “annihilated” preparatory to spiritual advance.
116 ‘Ālam (world) of sannāṭā (silence, howling wilderness). Jān-e ‘Ālam is still there.
117 Ba-sujūd: in tribute to Mirza Sajjad Ali (see note 27).
118 Be-ṧabātī (“impermanence”) and ṧabāt (“substance”). But the spirit of Nawabi Lucknow lives on, its fleeting qualities (see note 17) outlasting individuals and buildings.
119 Pre-publication changes noted below follow Prof Goyanka's invaluable critical edition of the Hindi (Premchand aur śatranj ke khilāṛī [Delhi, 1980], pp. 65–79). MS = Premchand's Hindi MS, M = published Mādhurī text, Z = Zamāna Urdu text. Dularelal Bhargava (B), the Mādhurī proprietor, enhanced the Hindi tone and contributed several striking phrases. He may well have consulted among his formidably talented Gangā Pustakmālā editorial team. Bold italics ( song and etc) identify his additions to Hindi-only text. Most amendment develops the Hindi in directions distinct from the Urdu. Some of the Bhargava changes (see notes 132, 139, 141–2, 144, 146, 152, 155, 159, 165–6, 180, 184, 186–7, 195–196, 198) move the text closer to Zamāna. He probably had access to an Urdu MS, in places preferring its language or improving both texts.
120 Vilāsitā (luxury, extravagance), repeated four times at the outset, stamps excess as theme. The matching Urdu is nuanced, ‘aish o ‘ishrat (see note 4), rang-raliyān (pleasure), nafs-parastī (gratification) and sāghar o jām (drinking-cup, inebriating or illuminating: see Introduction, and note 108).
121 Ḍūbe, MS rat (“bent on”), Z manā rahe (“pursued”).
122 Āmodh-pramodh: unambiguous (see note 7) revels.
123 Āhār-vyavahār: dietary and dining restrictions.
124 Playful: “absorbed” and “sullied” (lipt).
125 Vishay-vāsnā (vishay = senses/topic): “sensual appetite” or “desire dossier”.
126 Ubtan: cleansing paste.
127 Ghor sãgrām (Sanskrit). The epic conflict of the Mahābhārata was sparked by a game of dice (dyūta, popularly depicted as chausar) at which Yudhishṭhira was cheated of his kingdom and wife Draupadi. In early coronation ritual (Ṥatapatha Brāhmaṇa 5.4.4.6) dice, like the later orb, signify territorial control.
128 Measured extravagance, short of chāndū (see note 14).
129 Popular card games, adding immediacy. Ganjīfā, originally imported from Persia, is played with round cards.
130 MS, Z maujūd haĩ (“one finds”).
131 Premchand toyed with a Hindu chess-opponent (Goyanka [note 119], p 51) writing then crossing out MS ṭhāku (Thakur). Ray's similar impulse yielded Munshi Nandlal, the players’ Hindu friend, in the film.
132 MS achchhī āmdanī thī (“had a good income”). B's jīvikā kī koī chĩtā na thī ≈ Z fikr-e ma’āsh se āzād the (“were free of concern about earning a living”).
133 Laṛāī ke dāv-pẽch hone lagte. MS buddhi par sān chaṛhne lagtī (”set about sharpening their minds”) ≈ Z ‘aql ko tez karnā shurū’ kar dete.
134 Ghāṭ (embankment): washerman's workplace and portal on the next world, loosely applicable to the non-cremated. Written off in any life (dīn-duniyā: “God or man”, repeated at the ruined mosque “this world and the next”), Mirza and Mir face dispossession (see note 19) and an uncertain fate.
135 See note 24.
136 See note 25.
137 Janāb replacing jī (MS, Z). Mirza's responding jī chāhtā hai (see note 26) drops.
138 Nigoṛī (crippled): ladylike strong language, comparable to English “darned”. Conventionally feminine śatranj (MS, Z masculine, aligned to Arabic) is probably Mādhurī house-style correction.
139 MS śatranj na chhūṭe (“leave your chess”). B, Z uṭhne kā nām nahĩ lete (“bestir yourself”).
140 Unmistakable language (pīchhā chhuṛāna: free one's back). MS, Z galā chhurānā (free one's neck) became accepted Hindi.
141 B, Z sabkā (“all”). MS omits.
142 B, Z mujhse do (“or two. . .of me”). MS omits.
143 Abbasi (Urdu) is the Angry Queen's (see note 29) “fickle confidante” (Premchand, Rūṭhī Rānī). Mirza (see note 30) could be read as voicing this (kambakht kahān dauṛī jātī hai = “Where is the wretched minx [Rajput zanāna term ḍāvṛī = privileged slave-attendant] going?”) Hiriya, the madame from Premchand's courtesan novel Sevāsadan (1919; Urdu Bazār-e ḥusn 1924), may be a racy variant.
144 MS hakīm. B, Z hakīm sāhab. Two M amendments ( gharīb [“beggar”, MS, Z valī: “saint”] and le jāte [“off. . .to collect”, MS, Z jāte: “off”]) did not survive. Goyanka (note 119, p 114) cites Z's unchanged text, oddly, as improvement on the Hindi.
145 Bigaṛnā: echoing earlier “run riot” (see note 37).
146 B, Z ajī.
147 Dūr rahnā: distance, welcome absence (dūr ho = “begone!”) rather than invisibility ( ghā’ib: see note 42).
148 MS sachet kar diyā thĩ (“she would give him a nudge”). M yād dilā detī thĩ (“she would remind him”) preserves traces of the Persian (dilānā = dahānīdan) but not the joke (see note 43).
149 Mir's conjugal ideal is vinayshīl (modest, compliant) and gambhīr (sound, sensible); khalīq (civilised), mutaḥammil (patient) and ‘iffat-kesh (chaste) in the Urdu.
150 Sanskrit kashṭ (anguish), answering to Arabic tashvīsh.
151 MS, Z unse matlab thā na sarokār (“none of their business or concern”). M unse kuchch matlab na thā (“no business of theirs”).
152 B nitya ≈ Z har dam (“perpetually”).
153 Specifying that play is for recreation. Time allowed is halved. MS, Z khel liye, chalo, chuṭṭī huī (“a game takes. . .over and done with”). B khel lenā bāhut hai (“a game should take/is plenty for a game”).
154 The servants add assurances of loyalty to Mir. MS, Z aur phir huzūr to jāntī haĩ (“and then you know, ma’am”).
155 B may be paraphrasing and glossing Urdu “The neighbours. . .out of the house”.
156 To kyā kiyā jāye. MS, Z par karũ kyā (“But what can I do?”).
157 Highlighting village hardship and breakdown of law and order as problems, in the Urdu urban expenditure and debt-servicing.
159 B nae-nae qile banāe jāte ≈ Z na’e na’e qil’ae ta’amir hote (“ever new defences thrown up”).
160 Amended by B (rāt bhar kī nidrā ke sāth sārā manomālinyā śãt ho jātā thā) and brought forward from the end of the paragraph. MS nidrā sārā manomālinyā dho ḍāltī thī (“sleep had washed away all animosity”) ≈ Z nīnd sārī badmazagīon ko dūr kar detī thī (“sleep had banished all ill-feeling”).
161 B inserted “Now there's no prosperity (khairīyat) in sight”, glancing put-down of old timers subsequently dropped.
162 Urdu kahne sunne kī bāt (a matter of passing the message), Hindi kahne kī bāt (a matter of telling him).
163 MS, Z “to present him” (hāzir karne kā) amended by B.
164 Abbreviated, with kãpnā (“quail”) replacing fanā (“annihilation”: see note 61).
165 MS bole. B, Z mirzājī se bole.
166 B āfat hai, aur kyā! ≈ Z qahr āsmānī hai aur kyā (“It's quite simply the judgement of Heaven”). MS baṛī musībat hai (“It's a great misfortune”): Mirza repeating his previous comment.
167 See note 62. Persian be- (“without”) replaces MS, Z Hindi bin.
168 Mir's fast drops, leaving him rather than Mirza proposing the plan. Symmetry of reciprocal rescue from domestic predicament and of A:B alternation in the dialogue (varied elsewhere for effect) is lost.
169 Frustrating the cavalryman's (knight's) attack on Mir's ghar (home/square). The Urdu's “with his tail between his legs” (apnā sā munh lekar: long face, disappointed) drops.
170 dhatā batānā (drive off), with a hint of dhuttā denā (deceive) echoing Urdu bahurūp bharnā (impersonate). Goyanka (note 119, p 118) sees the Urdu as highlighting amorous intrigue left vague in the Hindi.
171 Reigned 1775–97. The ruin is Nawabi heritage. Mughal associations added resonance more for Urdu than Hindi readers.
173 Sãgrām-kśetr (Sanskrit). Mir and Mirza battle it out on the dharmakśetr kurukśetr (“field of righteousness, field of the Kurus”, Mahābhārata 6.23.1 = Gītā 1.1) where Krishna taught Arjuna the Gita.
174 Arabic khayāl (idea) possibly for colour. MS Hindi sudhi, Z sudh.
175 M, Z halchal, Z unconventionally masculine regularised in Urdu reprints. MS tahalka (Perso-Arabic: “panic”).
176 Idle rentiers and draft-dodgers branded with catchy assonance: hazārõ (“thousands”). . .hazm karnā (“digest”). The Urdu amuses, with invisibles dodging the neighbours.
177 MS, M Mirzā. . .Mīr Sāhab, corrected in Hindi reprints.
178 The Urdu adds financial commentary condemning intergovernmental loans.
179 Yahĩ āṛ mẽ khaṛe ho jāẽ. MS, Z āṛ se dekhẽ (“let's look from the ridge”).
180 MS pãch hazār (5,000). B, Z pãch hazār ādmī (men = “of them”).
181 Mir's comments on the troops are relocated and combined, probably for effect.
182 Aishgāh mẽ hõge. MS arām farmā rahe hõge ≈ Z istirāḥat farmāte honge (“have declared a rest”).
183 Fuller timings (10 am, 3 pm) draw attention to Mir's and Mirza's extended lunch/non-lunch break.
184 B śãti se ≈ Z ṣulḥ-āmez (“peacably”).
185 MS “make angels (farishte) weep”. Premchand first experimented (MS par yah ahĩsā krita yah ahĩsā kā badsūrat lajjāspad satya thā) with a harsh (“irrecoverable non-violence. . .ugly, shameful reality”) but evocative (kritayuga = satyayuga = Golden Age) formulation. He crossed it out, settling for “This was not the non-violence. . .”.
186 MS banā. B, Z banā chalā jātā thā.
187 B khuda kī qasam (God's oath: see note 34), Z va’l-lāhi (by God).
188 Hādsa (see note 84).
189 Replacing Nawab in the Urdu and emphasising checkmate.
190 Mātam (see note 88). MS, Z hālat (on his “plight”).
191 B tīn bāziyã lagātār (3 games in a row). MS lagātār tīn bāziyã (3 consecutive games) = Z mutavātir tīn bāziyān.
192 The moves have become beḍhab (“maladroit”). Kharāb (“wrong” in the Urdu) concludes the sentence, displacing Urdu bigaṛ (see notes 37, 92).
193 Gāte, MS Z paṛthe (“recited”). As Goyanka (note 119, p. 112) comments, “Ghazals are recited, not sung. . .Premchand knew this. . .Pandit Dularelal Bhargava did not.”
194 Gupt dhan. MS dafīnā, Z dafīna. See note 96.
195 B, Z iskī sanad nahĩ. MS omits.
196 B, Z śatranj. MS omits.
197 See note 106. Play on yahã survives, as does Mirza's answering guzar but not its Mir prompt. Mir's claim (Z shaṱranj khelte pīṛhiyān aur pushten guẕar ga’īn: “generation after generation passed playing chess”) started out in Hindi as MS riyāsat karte pīṛhiyã (implicitly continuing guzar gaĩ) = “generations <passed> maintaining state”. This unpacked the sense but lost the chess. Premchand resolved by abandoning guzar and combining chess with lineage (pīṛhiyõ se śatranj khelte chale āte haĩ).
198 B, Z. MS vehī ghās chhīlte hõge (“they must have cut grass”).
200 Charkaṭā: grass-cutter for animal feed.
201 B āj do-do hāth ho jāẽ. MS, Z taqdīr āzmāī [MS hī] ho jāy (“put it to the test”).
202 Vilāsī (see note 120).
203 Prāṇiyõ ne. . .prāṇ de diye [MS spiritual self-sacrifice: ātmasamarpaṇ kar diye] replacing Urdu ādmiyon ne. . .gardanen kaṭā dīn (“men. . .parted with their necks”). Mir and Mirza give up their vital force (Greek pneuma), expiring or achieving oneness with God (see note 172).
204 MS “laughing” (hãs rahe the) at the burlesque and/or savouring final victory, M “crying” (ro rahe the), both answering to Urdu mātam (see notes 88, 114). Earlier Premchand laughter (MS “not. . .laugh”, of the gods at Wajid Ali's non-violence) was also toned down (“not. . .delight”).
205 The minarets (“dust-spattered”) have already prostrated themselves (see note 117). They now major on mourning and puzzlement: sir dhunnā (bang the head) = “tear the hair” and “rack the brains”. They may also (“make strenuous efforts”) be emulating Mir and Mirza and (“card/comb”) checking topknots. The śikhā (see note 172) exercised satyāgrahīs. Gandhi regretted abandoning his for the wrong, conformist reasons (My Experiments with Truth [London, 1949] pp. 327–328). For Vinoba Bhave, his “first satyāgrahī”, the issue was inclusivity: “I was born a Brahmin, but I cut myself off from my caste when I cut off my shikha. Some people call me a Hindu, but I have made such a repeated study of the Koran and the Bible that my Hinduism has been washed off” (Moved by Love: the Memoirs of Vinoba Bhave, ed. Kalindi, trans. Marjorie Sykes [Totnes, 1994] p. 17).