Bengaluru: Ten years ago, it was a dilapidated building crying for attention. Today, it wears a refurbished look. Literary legend Munshi Premchand’s ancestral home has been transformed into a museum, all thanks to consistent efforts by a city-based Hindi professor and his students.
Among the attractions which will be displayed at the museum in Lamhi, Varanasi, are Premchand’s Saraswati printing press, the cot he slept on and the pen with which he churned out some of his most celebrated works. “All Premchand memorabilia available across the country will be showcased”, said Vinay Kumar Yadav, professor and head, department of Hindi, Bishop Cotton Women’s Christian College, who spearheaded the campaign a decade ago.
“It all started one summer in 2004 during the Hindi class, when I was teaching the lesson ‘Lamhi – Munshi PremChand Ka Gaon’ to my second year pre-university literature students. It had been compared to William Shakespeare’s house in London,” said Vinay. He visited Lamhi in 2005 and was stunned to see the state the novelist’s house had been reduced to. “I came back and told my students about it,” he said.
The professor then wrote a letter to Mulayam Sigh Yadav, the then chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, who suggested a bigger campaign was needed to preserve Premchand’s precious writings. Vinay communicated this to his students, who collected 2,200 signatures for the purpose. They approached other colleges and racked up nearly 1 lakh signatures. Government-funded organizations working to promote Hindi in South India extended support to the cause.
Within two months, Vinay received a call and a meeting was scheduled with the chief minister and the department of culture. It was decided the house would be converted into a museum, and a research centre and library would also be built. Rs 1 crore was sanctioned for the project.
“However, when the government changed in 2007, construction came to a standstill. It resumed only in June 2013 on the behest of chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. When I visited Lamhi for the third time in December 2014, the buildings were almost ready,” said Vinay.
The museum is likely to be inaugurated on October 8, Premchand’s death anniversary. The library will house more than 300 novels and the research centre will be of significant importance to Banaras Hindu University.
“If it wasn’t for my students, this would have never happened,” said Vinay.
