Prem Parkash’s demise came as a shock. When I met him not so long ago, there was the usual glint in his eyes and the tone of his voice was striking. Age had cast its disabling effect, but not to the extent that his departure had become unavoidable.

His stories are available in five or six volumes of the labyrinthine sort. They, at places, read as if the intent is to violate the way of life sanctioned by habits and manners, morals and beliefs, customs and rituals. They go on destabilising it all till nothing seems to come ahead to replace.

The reason for this lay in his inheritance. He was born and brought up in a family that solemnly believed in customs and rituals. By the time he turned an adolescent, doubts had begun to arise about their piety and the veracity of all that they believed in.

Story-writing was the mode that interested him the most. ‘Kachkare’ (The Half-baked) was his first collection, describing playful and wayward persons. From progressive writing constrained by the leftist ideology, he made a departure. He could now talk of men and women without binding them to any political ideology.

Then came the next collection, ‘Namazi’ (Performer), that made him more known as a storywriter. Rather than deal with themes as singular items, he used to forge a network. As a result, it were not the feelings and thoughts of characters in the singular that came to the fore. Instead, commonsense of the people was under focus. As a result, what resulted from force, fear and fright got exposed without any let-up. What the writer might have learnt partly from reading Sigmund Freud but more from hearsay was laid bare without any vagueness.

By this time, the Punjab problem had led to turmoil and an infringement in human relationships. Prem Parkash wrote a story, ‘Eh O Jasbir Nahin (He is Not That Jasbir), in which the protagonist, a Hindu by faith, feels outraged that his friend, a Sikh by conviction, pleads the case of his brethren.

In counterpoint is the story ‘Satwanti’ (Chaste Woman), portraying a Sikh woman who, intimidated by the Delhi riots, is given shelter by a Hindu family, residing close to the Punjab border. For some time, she does not utter a word due to the mortifying threat held to her. After having attained her emotional composure, she asks those who had given her shelter what they proposed to do with the land close to the Punjabi Suba. This was to show that the Sikh community had got infected with the communal virus.

In several stories, the family as an institution comes under focus in a poignant way. In this regard, two stories are of crucial significance. The first is ‘Gharr’ (marital home dealing with inter-religious marriage). Against the solemn advice of her parents, a Hindu girl falls in love with a Sikh youth. Her parents, particularly her father, are constrained to submit to the daughter’s wish. Much time has not passed when the Hindu bride and the Jat Sikh bridegroom begin to differ on all matters under the sun.

The writer feels content to narrate the feuds, ranging from vulgarity innate in the husband’s family to his intemperate language. They offend the bride so much that she seeks a divorce without any intention to accept reconciliation. Righteousness becomes the preserve of the Hindu family and the Jat Sikh family gets no chance to voice its grievance.

‘Deadline’ is the story that attracted the attention of acclaimed actress Deepti Naval. In this story, a sensitive and well-intentioned girl, newly-married in a Hindu family, is determined to see that no sorrow, howsoever terrifying, comes to harass any member of her in-laws’ family. As ill-luck would have it, a mortal disease afflicts her brother-in-law, who is younger to her husband.

At the deathbed, he is not to be denied anything. He begins to copulate with his sister-in-law, at first against her wish and later with her consent. Accorded with the best of intentions, the mental and physical sufferings she has to undergo are no less than spiritual torture. Out of a solemn sense of duty, she has to suffer all without any recompense.

Deepti Naval felt the urge to turn it into a film. She met the author and that pleased him a lot. To her innocuous question on why did she not get pregnant, he had no answer. The eagerness she had displayed to turn it into a film vanished. It was an opportunity for Prem Parkash to realise that a superstructure had to have a sound structure.

As per his confession, a backward glance on his story-writing did convince him of the veracity of her advice. It was too late to act upon it. Now, with his demise, it has turned into an impossibility of the absolute sort.

      — The writer is a former professor of English, GNDU