Munshi Premchand

Dhanpat Rai Srivastava (31 July 1880 – 8 October 1936), better known as Munshi Premchand based on his pen name Premchand, was an Indian writer famous for his modern Hindustani literature.

Premchand was a pioneer of Hindi and Urdu social fiction.

He was one of the first authors to write about caste hierarchies and the plights of women and laborers prevalent in the society of the late 1880s.

He is one of the most celebrated writers of the Indian subcontinent, and is regarded as one of the foremost Hindi writers of the early twentieth century.

His works include Godaan, Karmabhoomi, Gaban, Mansarovar, Idgah.

Premchand was born on 31 July 1880 in Lamhi, a village located near Banaras, and was named Dhanpat Rai ("master of wealth").

His ancestors came from a large Chitraguptavanshi Kayastha family, which owned eight to nine bighas of land.

His grandfather, Guru Sahai Rai, was a patwari (village land record-keeper), and his father, Ajaib Lal, was a post office clerk.

His mother was Anandi Devi of Karauni village, who probably was also his inspiration for the character Anandi in his "Bade Ghar Ki Beti".

Dhanpat Rai was the fourth child of Ajaib Lal and Anandi; the first two were girls who died as infants, and the third one was a girl named Suggi.

His uncle, Mahabir, a rich landowner, nicknamed him "Nawab", meaning baron.

"Nawab Rai" was the first pen name chosen by Dhanpat Rai.

When he was seven years old, Dhanpat Rai began his education at a madrasa in Lalpur, Varanasi, located near Lamhi.

He learned Urdu and Persian from a maulvi in the madrasa.

When he was 8, his mother died after a long illness.

His grandmother, who was responsible for raising him, died soon after.

Premchand felt isolated, as his elder sister Suggi had already been married, and his father was always busy with work.

His father, who was now posted at Gorakhpur, remarried, but Premchand received little affection from his stepmother.

The stepmother later became a recurring theme in Premchand's works.

As a child, Dhanpat Rai sought solace in fiction and developed a fascination for books.

He heard the stories of the Persian-language fantasy epic Tilism-e-Hoshruba at a tobacconist's shop.

He took the job of selling books for a book wholesaler, thus getting the opportunity to read a lot of books.

He learnt English at a missionary school and studied several works of fiction, including George W. M. Reynolds's eight-volume The Mysteries of the Court of London.

He composed his first literary work at Gorakhpur, which was never published and is now lost.

It was a farce on a bachelor who falls in love with a low-caste woman.

The character was based on Premchand's uncle, who used to scold him for being obsessed with reading fiction; the farce was probably written as revenge for this.

After his father was posted to Zamania in the mid-1890s, Dhanpat Rai enrolled at the Queen's College at Banaras as a day scholar.

In 1895, he was married at the age of 15, while still studying in the ninth grade.

The match was arranged by his maternal step-grandfather.

The girl was from a rich landlord family and was older than Premchand, who found her quarrelsome and not good-looking.

His father died in 1897 after a long illness.

He managed to pass the matriculation exam with second division (below 60% marks).

However, only the students with the first division were given fee concessions at the Queen's College.

He then sought admission at the Central Hindu School but was unsuccessful because of his poor arithmetic skills.

Thus, he had to discontinue his studies.

He then obtained an assignment to coach an advocate's son in Banaras at a monthly salary of five rupees.

He used to reside in a mud cell over the advocate's stables and used to send 60% of his salary back home.

Premchand read a lot during these days.

He published his first collection of five short stories in 1907 in a book called Soz-e-Watan (Sorrow of the Nation).

His works include more than a dozen novels, around 300 short stories, several essays and translations of a number of foreign literary works into Hindi.