Hats and Doctors

by Upendranath Ashk, Daisy Rockwell (Translator)

Hats and Doctors offers English readers the opportunity to savour, for the first time, the work of Upendranath Ashk, one of Hindi literature’s best-known and most controversial authors. The stories in this collection often display a wry sense of humour, such as ‘The Dal Eaters’ in which a family of cheapskates journeys to Kashmir. While Ashk’s satirical eye is employed to great effect in ‘The Cartoon Hero’, where a hapless traveller encounters a petty politician on a train, his talent for capturing human frailties is amply evident in ‘Furlough’ and ‘In the Insane Asylum’—two thought-provoking stories that later became part of his novel Girti Divarein. And finally, stories such as ‘Mr Ghatpande’ and ‘Hats and Doctors’ give the reader a glimpse of some of Ashk’s primary personal preoccupations: his health and his hats. Exhibiting a lightness of touch and a deep engagement with the human condition, these stories come alive in Daisy Rockwell’s delightful translation.

Genres: Short Stories, India

240 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2013

About the author

Upendra Nath Ashk is acclaimed as one of the most controversial authors of the Hindi–Urdu tradition. He has written over a hundred books in almost all genres of literature. His magnum opus, Girti Deewaaren, written in seven volumes, is hailed as an epic of Indian middle- class life. Ashk has been widely translated. He was the first Hindi dramatist to receive the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1965. He also received the Soviet Land Nehru Award (1972) and Iqbal Award (1996).

Reviews

[Vivek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hats and Doctors is a collection of Hindi and Urdu short stories by Upendranath Ashk translated by Daisy Rockwell. The stories are set in India at a time when trains had an Intermediate class and a Third Class and when Lahore wasn't a city across the border. Even so, the keen observations Ashk makes about the Indian middle class would hold true even today. The characters in his stories are believable and one can see their contemporary versions around us today. The stories are funny and sometimes sad. The translation is very good though sometimes I couldn't help trying to translate a particularly funny line back to Hindi to see how it would sound. Recommended reading.

[Ila · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't had the pleasure of reading Ashk in his original Hindi, but didn't feel terribly deprived having to read him in translation. What's stayed with me as I read through the stories is the sharp yet non judgemental gaze of the author as he exposes the foibles of his characters, their motives and mores and habits. In each story I was left feeling... Can't think of a bigger accolade to an anthology of short stories.