Spiczee Bureau

New Delhi, June 26: Recently published T’Ta Professor by Manohar Shyam Joshi, is hailed as one of the most outstanding novels of Indian literature by one of the finest Hindi writers.

The book, published by Penguin India has been translated by Ira Pande, currently Chief Editor, IIC Publications. The novel revolves around Khashtivallabh Pant, Dubbul MA, a school teacher in a remote Kumaoni village, where he is mockingly referred to as T’ta Professor.

A great admirer of the Englishman’s attire, T’ta is also deeply in awe of the white man’s language. His vanity makes him a terrific target for lampooning and the narrator of his novel, a writer who never manages to finish the stories he sets out to write, is determined to produce a ‘biting satire’, and wastes no time finding about T’ta’s life.

When T’ta starts to tell his tale, what begins as an innocent idyll turns quickly into an erotic and scatological romp, and T’ta turns from a ridiculous comic character into a pathetic pervert. As the story unravels, the multiple narratives reveal a complex figure, comic and tragic by turns, and the novel changes gear and darkens into a gothic bleakness of unimaginable dimensions.

Manohar Shyam Joshi, a prolific writer, tried his hand at virtually every form of writing: novels, advertising copy and television scripts, and has a long and distinguished career as a journalist. He is the author of one of the finest love stories in Hindi, Kasap and is the creator of the Hindi soaps ‘Hum Log’, ‘Buniyaad’ and ‘Mungeri Lal Ke Haseen Sapne’. He won the Sahitya Academy award in 2005 for his novel, Kyaap.