World Lit Essay
29 March 2017
In Premchand’s “The Road to Salvation”, the main characters Buddhu and Jhingur are sabotaging each other by ruining each other’s crops and setting up one another to look like they created disasters. The story revolves around Jhingur and Buddhu, both farmers or sheep and sugar cane, who were very full of pride. Buddhu had sheep. Jhingur had sugar cane. Jinghur insisted on not letting Buddhu’s sheep pass by his field. This caused an uproar between the two that led to the start each other them torturing each other’s possessions. Thesis—
In the broad spectrum, the spiritual quest that Buddhu and Jhingur took has a very underlying effect that led to their road to salvation as they were trying to ruin each other’s success. Buddhu, his name meaning idiot, is a sheep owner. He had a very prideful lifestyle that makes him ride his high horse around all day in the village. Jinghur, meaning cockroach, also lives a very pride filled lifestyle.
The two of them crash lifestyles because they both want to be most respected in the village. Jinghur didn’t want Buddhu’s sheep crossing his sugar cane fields and he beat the sheep owned by Buddhu. Because of what Jinghur did, Buddhu threatened him. Jinghur was feeling regretful and decided to go to Buddhu’s house to apologize but found his fields up in ablaze. The villagers helped to kill the fire but they were too late and the crop was already burned into ashes. Many villagers, especially Jinghur, knew that Buddhu did it but no one can say a word without evidence. Catastrophe went over the whole village as the cane-field got destroyed because the villager’s lives depended on sugarcane that was used as Cane juice drink, leaves (warm themselves from fires made of it), cuttings (what they feed to their livestock).
Jinghur was really determined to put Buddhu down with him. While Buddhu was on his glorious days enjoying his living and reputation that was not yet ruined. Jhingur was plotting on how he will drag Buddhu down and keep him from ever getting rich again. The next day on his way to work, Jhingur stopped at Buddhu’s and asked him if he can keep a cow in his pasture. Buddhu dismissed any suspicions about Jhingur. Instead of questioning Jhingur further he proudly displayed the piles of food being prepared for his feast. After his work, Jhingur came home and then went straight to Buddhu’s house with his calf. Jhingur knew that Buddhu was too preoccupied with entertaining the Brahmans in his newly built house to think about the calf outside.
Buddhu just awoke and was having his breakfast when a man came and said that a calf died in his flock of sheep. And then someone cried and acted in shock upon knowing what happened, it was Jhingur who at that time was also having his breakfast. Buddhu was blamed with the death of the calf but he denied it because he didn’t do anything. Harihar, a friend of Jinghur’s, came and said that he saw Buddhu killed the calf. At that moment, Buddhu knew that it was Jhingur. Buddhu was punished. He was sent out to beg and go on a pilgrimage, and to feed 5000 Brahmans. Buddhu did not mind the hardship because he was used to wandering with his sheep, he was ashamed of begging. When he was gone many of his sheep had been stolen. Helpless, he sold the whole flock.
The Road to Salvation is enlightening on multiple levels. The fundamental lessons it teaches about the way societies less developed still have stringent systems that condone appropriate behavior while punishing deviant actions. Contrary to our nature of being able to enter into a defined political region, acquiring the applicable codes or laws and discerning what is deemed right or wrong, this society had common law with deep rooted societal and religious foundations. One of the reasons laws were developed, and in this story we gain some insight in to the evolution of modern legal systems, was primarily in response to the circumstances that Jhingur and Buddhu found themselves in at the commencement of the story. Jhingur and Buddhu each were directly responsible for their fate purely by the nature of Man. The decisions they made were for the purpose of how they would be perceived by the villagers who they wanted to show pride and leadership to.
The author, Premchand, seems to have a very extensive view of religious faith as he guides Jinghur and Buddhu through the story toward their “road to salvation”. At the end of the story, Buddhu and Jinghur are trying to make spiritual progress. One day, Jhingur and Buddhu once again crossed paths and confessed what they did in the past. They are getting along now because they don’t have anything to fight over any more. They are sharing food and drinking (fellowship and commun(ion)ity) together over a meal prepared together.
In “The Road to Salvation”, the author Premchand is trying to point out some of the problems in the social structure of India. In this story, two working class men, Buddhu and Jinghur, financially and spiritually ruin each other through their actions to gain pride and seniority over one another in a sense. Premchand is not only trying to point out the unrest between the two members of the same caste, but he is also trying to make people see that while they ruin each other, nothing will change in their social structure. This was very a very important theme to pull from the story because it enhances the fact that the even though Buddhu and Jinghur are causing problems and sabotaging each other they can achieve forgiveness from both each other and a higher power, God.
The idea of fellowship and communion/ community is something very prevalent in the Christian faith. Buddhu and Jinghur have essentially achieved this by creating a larger meaning from their experiences that they underwent. A spiritual enlightenment is achieved, an awakening, when the story concluded by them ironically going to sleep, and eventually having that awakened moment. The falling asleep scene at the end of the story is the entire wrapping up of events that happened to both Buddhu and Jinghur and how they sabotaged each other. This theme of finding salvation and discovering how self-pride needs to be put aside to find real happiness.