A painting depicting the Jallianwala Bagh massacre

"When the idea of presenting a selection of short stories for Mehfil@Prithvi organised by Danish Husain surfaced, we wanted to go beyond the obvious choice of doing something on independent India, and instead share stories written on the pain of the division of India," says Gulrays.

Chander, an eminent Hindi and Urdu writer, was a contemporary of Manto and Ismat Chughtai. Having moved to Bombay to chart a career in writing, the city was as much a part of his oeuvre as Manto and Chughtai's, but it isn't as often that we come across his humanist writings celebrated on storytelling platforms in the city — something that Gulrays hopes to change.

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Jameel Gulrays

Elaborating on the stories set in Amritsar, he says that while the pre-Independence piece revolves around six characters who were killed in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919, they are all evoked in the second part when Amritsar is ravaged with violence by its own residents. "There comes a part where an elderly lady, who has been raped and left to die by rioters, reveals her identity as the grandmother of Zainab, one of the martyrs of Jallianwala Bagh. She says, 'Main siyasaton se poochhungi kya Zainab ne isiliye jaan di thi?' ['I will ask the powers that be, did Zainab sacrifice her life for this?']" explains Gulrays.

Saadat Hasan Manto and Krishan Chander

A voracious reader, his first tryst with Chander's stories, however, wasn't in the form of a book he picked up from a library shelf. "Chander was my father's friend. He had terrible handwriting. So, he would call me to write down his stories to send them across to publishers," he reminisces. "He was a very dignified person. He believed in giving detailed descriptions in his stories, which would sometimes have hardly any dialogues. But the way he describes the human condition can leave you speechless."

On: August 13, 7 pm
At: Prithvi House, first floor, Janki Kutir, Juhu.
Email: the.hoshruba.repertory@gmail.com; kathakathans@gmail.com

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