CHANDRAKANTA

Devakinandan Khatri

Description

The dashing Prince Virendra of Naugarh is madly in love with the breathtakingly beautiful Princess Chandrakanta of Vijaygarh. But there are obstacles galore in the paths of the lovers. There are evil ministers with sinister magicians at their beck and call; enemy kings only too happy to go into battle; masters of disguise who can fool the cleverest of spies; and magic all around. Then Chandrakanta gets trapped in a fantastic maze; from which only Virendra can rescue her. But will he be able to decipher the clues; follow the trail correctly and get to her before it is too late? And will their friends; Tej Singh; Chapla and the others; help them adequately with their deep knowledge of the art of divination and disguise?

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788184750652
• Langue: English

Extrait

CLASSIC PLUS: FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR, HIS WORK AND HIS WORLD
 
Chandrakanta’s eyes grew wide when she discovered a hugestone crane right in the middle of the ruins. The moment shedrew closer, the bird opened its mouth. Alarmed, Chandrakantamoved away, and accidentally stepped on a stone slab. Immediately, the crane swung around, opened its beak andswallowed Chandrakanta!
 
The dashing Prince Virendra of Naugarh is madly in lovewith the breathtakingly beautiful Princess Chandrakanta ofVijaygarh. But there are obstacles galore in the paths of thelovers. There are evil ministers with sinister magicians attheir beck and call, enemy kings only too happy to go intobattle, masters of disguise who can fool the cleverest of spies,and magic all around. Then Chandrakanta gets trapped in afantastic maze, from which only Virendra can rescue her. Butwill he be able to decipher the clues, follow the trail correctlyand get to her before it is too late? And will their friends, TejSingh, Chapla and the others, help them adequately with theirdeep knowledge of the art of divination and disguise?
 
A rollicking story of fantasy and adventure, Chandrakanta has been read and loved since 1888, when the book waspublished serially in short chapters. The first mystery novelin Hindi, and the biggest popular bestseller of its age, Chandrakanta was a trailblazer. This modern translationand retelling of a gem from Indian literature is sure tomesmerize a new generation of readers.
 

 
TRANSLATED FROM THE HINDI ANDRETOLD BY DEEPA AGARWAL
 
 
Cover illustration by Prosenjit Saha


 
Chandrakanta
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PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
 
 
First published in Puffin by Penguin Books India 2008
Copyright © Deepa Agarwal 2008
 
All rights reserved
 
ISBN 978-01-4333-041-7
 
This Digital Edition published 2011. e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-065-2
Digital conversion prepared by DK Digital Media, India.
 
This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned publisher of this e-book.

Contents
 
 
Copyright
 
Introduction by Prasoon Joshi
 
Chandrakanta
 
The Lovelorn Prince
 
Hullabaloo in Chandrakanta’s Garden
 
Tej in Action
 
The Secret Prison
 
A Narrow Escape
 
Krur’s Revenge
 
Masters of Disguise
 
A Game of Wits
 
Chapla the Aiyaara
 
Champa Proves her Mettle
 
Good News and Bad
 
The Enemy Strikes
 
The Battle
 
The Search
 
Captive!
 
A Ray of Hope
 
The House of Wonders
 
Champa Gets into Trouble
 
Virendra Enters the Fray
 
Chapla’s Incredible Journey
 
Into the Maze
 
The Mysterious Maiden
 
Outmanoeuvred!
 
Strange Visitors
 
An Amazing Discovery
 
Virendra’s Midnight Adventure
 
The Mystery Thickens
 
The Beat of Victory
 
More Obstacles
 
Where is Chandrakanta?
 
The Mystery Unravels
 
At Last!
 
The Wedding
 
Translator’s Note
 
Classic Plus

Introduction
In a somewhat rickety jam-packed state government bus heaving down a winding road from Almora to Haldwani en route to Delhi, sat a bony twelve-year-old bespectacled boy crammed near a window seat, holding tight a shaking book with both hands, eyes burning into the bouncing text. This is what I remember so vividly of my first mesmerizing encounter with Babu Devakinandan Khatri’s Chandrakanta and his mahajaal .
A restless traveller with awkwardly long legs, I used to hate sitting cramped up and eagerly looked forward to any stop where I could get off, stretch my legs, sample a roadside snack and explore the surrounding area. But during that particular journey, I sat inside the bus mindless of the stops. In fact a kind of a rhythm had been established between the movement of the bus and the world of the tilism; a static bus was a break in that rhythm. It was a fantasy so gripping and fascinating that when I looked around I started to imagine an aiyaar in my fellow passengers. An encounter with reality was not desirable: it jarred compared to the world Babu Devakinandan Khatri had invented.
Later, I was to realize that I wasn’t the only one entrapped in the world of Chandrakanta and Virendra’s love story that played out against a backdrop of warring kingdoms, with mysterious and endearing characters like Chapla and Tej Singh, the vile Krur Singh and Shivdutt, and my favourite aiyaars and aiyaaras. Generations of young and old alike had been ensnared by the magic of this tale and have distinct memories of when they first read Chandrakanta and its sequel Chandrakanta Santati . They remember borrowing the book from an uncle to while away time on a train journey and reading it through the night in dim light; or escaping to the chatt (roof) of the house to continue reading uninterrupted; of hiding the book from an overzealous father who thought it wasn’t a subject fit for children; of coming across the book in a library and begging for it to be issued; of tenth standard grades suffering due to the obsession with reading all the volumes of the book; of being surrounded by grown men who could not read Hindi and being begged for the story to be read aloud to them.
Chandrakanta is a swashbuckling adventure, with warring armies, sword-fights, treason, deception, gallantry against magical creatures and in dire situations. With their omnipresent bag of tricks the aiyaars—specialists in warfare and spy work, masters of disguise and magical powers—could impersonate any person, or sometimes even an animal, often with the noble intention of furthering his king’s cause. Woven into this tale is a tilism—a kind of maze containing many secret passages, traps and prisons—which has to be‘broken’, or deciphered by a chosen person. The person who successfully breaks the tilism gains the immense treasures hidden within it.
The land is described in detail and you can picture the area, as well as the mood, vividly. The battlefields, dark caverns, forests or the beautiful secret prison where the aiyaars keep their prisoners safe, are places that one can never forget. The secret prison with its hills, waterfalls, gentle breeze rustling the jamun trees, the peacocks dancing are so wonderfully depicted that you feel you are really present there. The characters are described and developed in detail, be it the beautiful Chandrakanta and Bankanya or the ‘dakini’ Surajmukhi.
It’s a documented fact that this book by Devakinandan Khatri made a strong contribution to the learning of the Hindi language by the people of the times.
In the ancient period of Hindi or Adi kaal (before AD 1400), Hindi literature developed in the northern states of Kannuaj, Delhi, Ajmer and adjoining areas. It was during this period that the famous Prithviraj Raso was written by Chand Bardai, considered one of the earliest works in the history of Hindi literature.
The Bhakti Movement left its influence on medieval Hindi literature and long poems and epics were composed during this time. Avadhi and Braj were widely used dialects. A priceless classic from this era is Tuslidas’s Ramcharitmanans . This was also the age of tremendous integration between Hindu and Islamic elements in the arts.
During the late 1800s khadiboli developed amongst educated Hindus. Khadiboli was heavily sanskritized. It was also called Sahityik Hindi (literary Hindi). To distinguish themselves from the general masses, learned Muslims now wrote in Urdu which borrowed from Persian and Arabic vocabulary. Soon Urdu became the dominant language of the classes and much of the masses alike.
It was in this milieu that Devakinandan Khatri wrote Chandrakanta . It is considered to be the first authentic work of prose in Hindi in the Adhunik kaal (modern period). This book brought the Hindi language alive and into the limelight although many terms are of Urdu origin. People were so eager to know what happened next, they started to learn Hindi just to be able to read the works. The author wrote ‘bayans’, or chapters, and these were published and distributed widely. People would enthusiastically await the new bayans which, legend has it, were auctioned hot off the press.
It wasn’t that Hindustani culture had a dearth of fiction. Storytelling is a part of our ethnicity and has a rich tradition. And whilst words are important everywhere, in India the spoken word has always played a pivotal role. Our country has an enviabl