Premchand’s picture is in front of me, he is getting a photo taken with his wife. He is wearing a cap made of some thick cloth on his head, a kurta and a dhoti. His temples are sunken, cheekbones are protruding, but thick moustaches make his face look full.

On his feet are canvas shoes, whose laces are tied haphazardly. Due to careless use, the metal tips at the ends of the laces come off and it becomes difficult to insert the lace into the holes. Then the laces are tightened somehow.

The shoe on the right foot is fine, but there is a big hole in the left shoe from which a toe has come out.

My gaze is stuck on this shoe. I think - if this is the attire for getting a photo taken, then what must the everyday clothes be like? No, this man must not have different sets of clothes - he doesn’t have the habit of changing clothes. He gets photographed exactly as he is.

I look at the face. Do you know, my literary ancestor, that your shoe is torn and your toe is showing? Don’t you have even the slightest awareness of this? Not a bit of shame, hesitation, or embarrassment? Don’t you even know that by pulling the dhoti down a little, the toe could be covered? But still, there is such great carelessness, such great confidence on your face! When the photographer must have said ‘Ready, please’, then according to tradition you must have tried to bring a smile, you must have been slowly pulling up the smile lying somewhere at the bottom of the deep well of pain, when in the middle the photographer must have said ‘click’ and then ’thank you’. This incomplete smile is strange. This is not a smile, it has mockery, it has sarcasm!

What kind of man is this, who himself is getting photographed wearing torn shoes, but is also laughing at someone!

If you had to get a photo taken, you could have worn proper shoes, or not gotten it taken. What would have been lost by not getting a photo taken. Perhaps the wife insisted and you, saying ‘Alright, come on’, sat down. But what a great ’tragedy’ it is that a man doesn’t even have shoes to get a photo taken. Looking at your photo, feeling your distress within myself, I feel like crying, but the sharp, pain-filled sarcasm in your eyes stops me completely.

You don’t understand the importance of a photo. If you did, you would have borrowed shoes from someone to get a photo taken. People show off in borrowed coats. And take out wedding processions in borrowed cars. For getting a photo taken, even a wife is borrowed, you couldn’t even borrow shoes! You don’t know the importance of a photo. People get photos taken after applying perfume so that the photo smells good! Even the photo of the dirtiest man gives off fragrance!

A cap could be got for eight annas and shoes, even in those days, must not have been available for less than five rupees. Shoes have always been more expensive than caps. Now the price of shoes has increased even more and dozens of caps are sacrificed for one shoe. You too were a victim of the proportional value of shoes and caps. This irony had never pricked me with such intensity before, as it is pricking me today, when I am seeing your torn shoe. You, the great storyteller, emperor of novels, epoch-maker, called God knows what, but even in the photo your shoe is torn!

My shoe is also not very good. It looks good from the outside. The toe doesn’t stick out, but the sole under the big toe is torn. The big toe rubs against the ground and sometimes gets bruised and bloodied by rubbing on gritty soil. The entire sole will come off, the entire sole will get scraped, but the toe won’t show. Your toe shows, but the foot is safe. My toe is covered, but the sole is rubbing from below. You don’t know the importance of the veil at all, we are sacrificing ourselves for the veil!

You are wearing the torn shoe with great style! I cannot wear it like that. I would never get a photo taken like this in my entire life, even if someone publishes a biography without a photo.

Your sarcastic smile deflates my courage. What does it mean? What kind of smile is this?

• Has Hori’s ‘Godaan’ been completed?
• Did the bluebuck eat Halku’s field in ‘Poos Ki Raat’?
• Did Sujjan Bhagat’s son die; because the doctor couldn’t leave the club?

No, I feel Madho drank the liquor bought with the donation for the woman’s shroud. That seems to be the same smile.

I look at your shoe again. How did it get torn, writer of my people?

Did you keep walking in circles a lot? Did you return home by taking a detour of a mile or two to avoid the moneylender’s demands?

Walking in circles doesn’t tear a shoe, it wears it out. Kumbhandas’s shoe also wore out going to and coming from Fatehpur Sikri. He regretted it greatly. He said- ‘Coming and going, the shoes wore out, I forgot the name of God.’ And about those who call you like that, he said - ‘To those whose sight brings sorrow, I shall bow in greeting!’

Walking wears out a shoe, it doesn’t tear it. How did your shoe get torn?

I feel that you kept kicking something hard. Something that has been layered upon layer over centuries, perhaps you tore your shoe by kicking it repeatedly. Some mound that had come up on the path, you tested your shoe on it.

You could have avoided it, you could have passed by its side. Compromises are also made with mounds. Not all rivers break mountains, some change their path, go around and flow away.

You couldn’t compromise. Did you have the same weakness that drowned Hori, that same ‘principle-duty’ weakness? ‘Principle-duty’ was his chain too. But the way you are smiling, it seems that perhaps ‘principle-duty’ was not your bondage, it was your liberation!

Your this toe seems to be giving a signal, for what you consider despicable, you point not with a finger of the hand, but with a toe of the foot?

Are you pointing towards that, which you tore your shoe by kicking repeatedly?

I understand. I understand the gesture of your toe and I understand this sarcastic smile too.

You are laughing at me or at all of us, at those who are walking hiding their toes and wearing out their soles, at those who are avoiding the mound and passing by its side. You are saying - I tore my shoe by kicking repeatedly, the toe came out, but the foot remained safe and I kept walking, but you are destroying the sole in the worry of covering the toe. How will you walk?

I understand. I understand the matter of your torn shoe, I understand the gesture of the toe, I understand your sarcastic smile!

1. Which characteristics of Premchand’s personality emerge from the word-portrait that Harishankar Parsai has presented before us?

2. Mark the correct statement with ( $\checkmark$ ) - (क) The shoe on the left foot is fine but there is a big hole in the right shoe from which a toe has come out. (ख) People get photos taken after applying perfume so that the photo smells good. (ग) Your this sarcastic smile increases my courage. (घ) For what you consider despicable, you point with the thumb?

3. Explain the sarcasm inherent in the following lines - (क) Shoes have always been more expensive than caps. Now the price of shoes has increased even more and dozens of caps are sacrificed for one shoe. (ख) You don’t know the importance of the veil at all, we are sacrificing ourselves for the veil. (ग) For what you consider despicable, you point not with a finger of the hand, but with a toe of the foot?

4. In one place in the text, the author thinks that ‘if this is the attire for getting a photo taken, then what must the everyday clothes be like?’ But the very next moment his thought changes to ‘No, this man must not have different sets of clothes.’ In your opinion, what could be the reasons for the author’s change of thought regarding Premchand in this context?

5. You have read this satire. What things about the author attract you after reading it?

6. In the text, in what contexts might the word ‘mound’ have been used to indicate?

Composition and Expression

7. Based on Premchand’s torn shoe, Parsai ji has written this satire. You also write a satire based on a person’s attire.

8. In your view, what changes have occurred in people’s thinking towards dress and appearance today?

Language Study

9. Pick out the idioms from the text and use them in sentences. 10. Make a list of the adjectives the author has used to highlight Premchand’s personality.

Beyond the Text Activity

• Mahatma Gandhi also had a different thinking towards his dress and appearance, what could have been the reasons behind this, find out.
• In the memoir ‘Rajendra Babu’, Mahadevi Verma has portrayed former President Dr. Rajendra Prasad in a somewhat similar manner, read it.
• Read the biography of Premchand written by Amrit Rai ‘Premchand - Kalam Ka Sipahi’.
• Watch the film ‘Narmada Putra Harishankar Parsai’ produced by N.C.E.R.T.

Also Know

Kumbhandas- He was a poet of the Krishna devotion branch of the Bhakti period and was a disciple of Acharya Vallabhacharya and one of the poets of the Ashtachhap. Once, upon Emperor Akbar’s invitation, he went to meet him at Fatehpur Sikri. The lines mentioned in this context have been referred to by the author in the present text.