Class IX Unit - III Tales of Toil - The Resignation (Short Story)

Munshi Premchand  

Premchand was an Indian writer famous for his modern Hindustani literature.
Born Dhanpat Rai Srivastav, "Munshi Premchand",was a  novel writer, story writer and dramatist, and he has been referred to as the "Upanyas Samrat" ("Emperor among Novelists") by some Hindi writers. His works include more than a dozen novels, around 250 short stories, several essays and translations of a number of foreign literary works into Hindi.
Premchand was born on 31 July 1880 in Lamhi, a village located near Varanasi (Benares).
When he was 7 years old, Premchand began his education at a madarsa in Lalpur, located around 2½ km from Lamahi. Premchand learnt Urdu and Persian from a maulvi in the madarsa. When he was 8, his mother died after a long illness. His grandmother, who took the responsibility of raising him, died soon after. Premchand felt isolated, as his elder sister had already been married, and his father was always busy with work. His father, who was now posted at Gorakhpur, re-married, but Premchand received little affection from his step-mother. The step-mother later became a recurring theme in Premchand's works.
He took the job of selling books for a book wholesaler, thus getting the opportunity to read a lot of books. He learnt English at a missionary school, and studied several works of fiction. In 1895, he was married at the age of 15, while still studying in the 9th grade. The match was arranged by his maternal step-grandfather. The girl was from a rich landlord family and was older than Premchand, who found her quarrelsome and not good-looking. In 1900, Premchand secured a job as an assistant teacher at the Government District School, Bahraich, at a monthly salary of  20.
Dhanpat Rai first wrote under the pseudonym "Nawab Rai". His first short novel was Asrar e Ma'abid (Devasthan Rahasya in Hindi, "The Mystery of God's Abode"), which explores corruption among the temple priests and their sexual exploitation of poor women. The novel was published in a series in the Benares-based Urdu weekly Awaz-e-Khalk from 8 October 1903 to February 1905.