‘Munshi Premchand’s short stories popular at Qatar University’

GORAKHPUR: Short stories written by legendry writer Munshi Premchand, are not only fascinating Indians, but students abroad are showing keen interest in his rich literatures.

Dr Saeed Roshan from Qatar University, who was here in Gorakhpur to attend the ongoing centennial year celebration of writer’s arrival in Gorakhpur shared with HT that there were significant number of students in Qatar University who are studying Premchand’s stories as optional paper in their graduate programmes in Urdu.

He said that the Urdu syllabus that includes writers’ famous stories including Godan, Do Bilaon Ki Jodi and Idgah and several others, has been taken from Aligarh Muslim University.

“Though there are chapters on other Urdu writers including Ghalib and Faiz Ahmed Faiz, students in Qatar show more interest in studying Munshi Premchand,” said the teacher who along with others watched a drama staged on writer’s popular story ‘Saut’ at city’s Munshi Premchand Park, which preserved the rich heritage associated with the writer. The drama was staged by the artists of Ipta.

He also visited an old building in park where Premchand used to live while working as assistant teacher in city’s Narmal School before quitting his job on the call of Mahtama Gandhi in 1921 during the freedom struggle. This old building named Premchand Sadan has now been turned into a library holding rare works of the writer.

Professor Manoj Singh from Premchand Sahitya Sanstha along with others also also visited sculptures carved out on the walls depicting scenes from some of the popular stories of the writer. The organisation engaged in preserving the rich heritage with the Premchand shed light on life of Premchand in Gorakhpur.