A 1947 novel by one of Hindi literature's best-known names Upendranath Ashk, which offers an intimate portrait of lower-middle-class life in the 1930s is now available in English.
From the back lanes of Lahore and Jalandhar to Shimla's Scandal Point, "Falling Walls," translated by Daisy Rockwell from the original "Girti Divarein" is also about the hurdles an aspiring writer has to overcome to fulfil his ambitions.
The novel explores in great detail the trials and tribulations of Chetan, a young man from Jalandhar who longs to become a writer but fails at every turn.
The six-volume novel cycle "Girti Divarein" earned the author comparisons to French novelist and critic Marcel Proust. Ashk was the recipient of numerous prizes and awards during his lifetime for his masterful portrayal, by turns humorous and remarkably profound, of the everyday lives of ordinary people.
Ashk wrote in 1951 about his novel, "The story is concerned with the depiction of the lower-middle-class environment and the suffering of an alert and sensitive young man trying to find the right path to developing his genius in his grim environment."
The author intended to write the novel in "three parts, or if possible, nine, and I'd chosen 'Falling Walls' to be the title for all of these parts combined. This is why I abandoned the title 'Chetan', and since I'd abandoned 'Chetan', Chetan's love story also became less important."
While writing the novel, there were two things that Ashk especially kept in mind.
"One was that whatever was expressed was done through the medium of the characters' lives, their life events, their conflicts and their entanglements. The author, as far as possible, did not jump into the dialogue himself. Neither did he get into debates, nor did he make speeches.
"The second thing was that the hero shouldn't speak in the manner of someone older than he actually is. It wouldn't have been hard to put big words in his mouth; what was hard was not putting them there.
