Hats and Doctors: Stories
Page 23
The train stopped at the station. His wife got down with her purse, her back turned to the sick man. The husband got down behind her. Then the conductor stepped into the compartment with the railway doctor.
Whether or not the ailing passenger died he never knew. But though the husband lived another fifteen years after that trip, it was on that day that his true death occured.
Introduction
1 Chehere: Anek, vol. 3, p. 22.
Sources
‘Who Can Trust a Man?’ was first published in 1949 as ‘Mard ka Etbar’.
‘Brown Sahibs’ was originally published in 1950 as ‘Kale Sahib’. This was translated into English as ‘Dark Sahibs’ by Edith Irwin and published in the Arizona Quarterly in 1973. The version in this book is based on her translation.
‘Hats and Doctors’ was originally published in 1966 as ‘Topiyan aur Doctor’.
‘The Ambassador’ was originally published in Hindi in 1961 as ‘Ambassador’.
‘The Bed’ was originally published in 1961 as ‘Palang’.
‘The Dal Eaters’ was originally published in 1955 as ‘Daliye’.
‘The Cartoon Hero’ was originally published in 1966 as ‘Kartoonon ka Nayak’.
‘Mr Ghatpande’ was originally published in Hindi in 1948 as ‘Mr Ghatpande’.
‘Formalities’ was originally published in 1948 as ‘Takalluf’.
‘Some Suds and a Smile’ was originally published in 1961 as ‘Jhaag aur Muskaan’.
‘The Aubergine Plant’ was originally published in 1940 as ‘Baingan ka Paudha’.
‘Furlough’ was originally published in Hindi in 1940 as ‘Furlough’.
‘In the Insane Asylum’ was originally published in 1936 as ‘Pagalkhane Mein’.
‘A Listless Evening’ was originally published in 1966 as ‘Ek Udasin Shyam’.
‘My First Letter of Resignation’ was originally published in 1931 as ‘Hamara Pehela Tyag-Patra’.
‘Dying and Dying’ was originally published in 1966 as ‘Marna aur Marna’.
Acknowledgements
After fruitlessly sending this manuscript around to publishers for a number of years following its completion in 2002, I finally decided to put it aside. Perhaps Ashk had been right and there was a vast conspiracy ranged against him. I had in fact given up on it entirely until recently, when Bilal Hashmi, a graduate student at New York University, put me in touch with R. Sivapriya, an editor at Penguin India, who proved to be favourably impressed with the collection and seemed to harbour no feelings of ill will towards Ashk. Although Ashk would not like to hear that his notoriety had lasted scarcely more than fifteen or so years after his death, I am sure he would also be delighted to see this work come out from Penguin, an outcome that he had dearly hoped for.
I must thank Ashk first and foremost, of course, for entrusting me with this project. After Ashk’s death, his son, Neelabh, has been a great help to me as I have grappled with these translations. If it weren’t for Bilal Hashmi and R. Sivapriya, the project would probably never have seen the light of day. Ambar Sahil Chatterjee, who has edited the volume, has been wonderful to work with. I have many people to thank for reading versions of these translations over the years, chief among them, my husband, Aaron York, and my mother, Susan Merrill. Other helpful readers have included Colin P. Masica, Amitava Kumar, Rupert Snell, Yigal Bronner and David Clingingsmith. Adamya Ashk, Aftab Ahmad, Manan Ahmed, Salman Hussain, Sean Chauhan and Megan MacDonald have been on call for help with a wide variety of queries. Recently, a host of friends on Twitter have helped out with numerous details and knotty problems in the final versions of the stories. A big thanks to Musharraf Ali Farooqi, Sunny Singh, Siddharth Singh, Sabbah Haji, Prashansa Taneja, Awais Athar, Saurabh Gupta, Avni Majithia-Sejpal, Tula Goenka and Shashwati Tendulkar. Many thanks as well to Edith Irwin, who graciously granted permission to use her translation of ‘Brown Sahibs’ in this edition.
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PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published by Penguin Books India 2013
www.penguinbooksindia.com
Copyright © Neelabh Ashk, Anurag Ashk and Shwetabh Ashk 2013
Translation copyright © Daisy Rockwell 2013
Acknowledgements are an extension of the copyright page
Cover illustration by Gillian Blease
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-01-4341-718-7
This digital edition published in 2013.
e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-936-5
Not for Sale in North America