Hindi Literature

Hindi Literature - now, what's that ?? Almost all the bookstores I have been to in last few years, seem to be asking. It is almost depressing to see the shelf space given to books in our national language by these stores - in most cases, you will find hindi books in a single narrow shelf or two, in a corner. What is the reason of such apathy to our own mother-tongue, the language of the masses?
- Is it that people do not want to read hindi any more? I have come across people, who take pride rather than shame, in confessing that they cannot read hindi fluently - and these are people who have been taught hindi in school, and who usually converse in hindi. They have forgotten how to read their mother tongue, let alone write it. Incredulous, is it not?!
- Or, is it a dearth of good literature? This is a reason I find justifiable to some extent. I am yet to come across contemporary literature that suits my taste. This problem has two facets - the contemporary writing is not found to be up to the mark, whereas the classics seem to be totally out of context (I have devoured many novels of Premchand in my childhood, but I cannot read them now). Secondly, it does not seem to be as versatile - the genres and themes seem to be rather limited. For example, I am fond of thrillers, but all the ones in hindi seem to be cheap ones, and are definitely not researched for technincal soundness. Though I must admit that my views could be biased due to limited availability of good reading material.

Another observation I have made is the price - hindi books are available at throw-away prices. One may purchase short novels for less than 100 bucks. I saw 'Chandrakanta' available at 60 bucks, and each of 6 volumes of 'Chandrakanta Santati' at 55 - that is 390/- for 7 volumes! A point in case may be the recently published autobiography of Pervez Musharraf - the english edition costs almost thrice the hindi one (and its the same book!). Is it because the publishers are forced (by whatever forces of nature or politics or economy) to publish hindi books, so they keep the price as low as possible to enhance sales? Or are they subsidized to enhance readership? This I am not sure of.

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Yesterday I read 'Chaudah Phere' by 'Shivani'. Although it was written almost 50 years ago, many things are still true in the context of Indian society - the unprogressive thought process of the people in small towns, the helplessness of financially and emotionally dependent women, the compulsion to continue a meaningless marriage, the stigma associated with extra-marital relationships, parent's desire to get their children married at "suitable age" preferably according to their choice and almost definitely within their community, and so on. There are incidents and thoughts that seem to be outdated, but that may be acceptable because of its setting in villages and towns in hills of Uttaranchal, and because it was written so long back.
It is a good story altogether, with bits of humor, and has a happy ending, unlike most of the stories of the same genre and era. I like haapy endings :-))