When a language is taught as a subject, generally the course material consists of stories and other literary works of the language. Stories and books written in a language help in understanding the language in a better way.
But once there was such a book, for which people learnt the language. Just to read the book, and to have that experience of reading it. It had acquired such popularity that it added to the language’s and the script’s (Devnagri, in this case) growth.
The book I am talking about is “Chandrakanta” . Written in Hindi (Devnagri Script) by Babu Devki Nandan Khatri , it was published in 1888, and is considered one of the early works of prose in Hindi Literature. It is also one of the rare works of Fantasy genre in Hindi.
It is a love story of a prince and a princess of 2 kingdoms which are not friendly. (This idea has been done to death in recent years but it was very intriguing and quite new to the public in 1888 ). The kingdoms are Navgarh and Vijaygarh. (Navgarh Vijaygarh me thi Takraar, remember ?) .
The famous character of Kroor Singh keeps on belittling to King of Vijaygarh about Navgarh and its prince, and wants to marry the princess (Chandrakanta) . But because of Prince Virendra Singh and his friend and Aiyyar Tej Singh , Kroor Singh’s plans are foiled. Kroor Singh runs away to a 3rdkingdom which is ruled by King Shiv Dutt. Kroor Singh somehow makes Shiv Dutt, a partner to his plan and thus Chandrakanta is kidnapped by Aiyyars of Shiv Dutt and is kept in a Tilism . Now the Aiyyars of Navgarh and Vijaygarh have to outsmart Aiyyars of Shiv Dutt . Besides, Virendra Singh has to break the Tilism and get Chandrakanta back to her kingdom.
What makes the story interesting is the Characters of Aiyaars. Aiyaars were people in secret service of the kingdom. They had terrific knowledge of medicines, herbs, places, were also skilled fighters, and most importantly could change their faces to act in disguise .They were the best of spies and very loyal to their respective kings. They believed in using their brains instead of swords.
As said earlier both the kingdoms had Aiyaars. These Aiyaars tried to outsmart each other and major portion of the story rests on Aiyaaar’sshoulders.
As aforementioned, Chandrakanta is kept in a Tilism. These were buildings and places which were built by skilled people and were used to hide Treasures and could be broken only with help of certain clues and applying loads of brains. Tilism captured popular imagination and became part of common language.
Any further explanation of the story will lead to spoilers (which will kill the fun), so I will not delve into the story and will leave the rest to the reader.
The book was adopted for a very popular T.V series in 1990s but as usually happens, books and their adaptations become two different stories and works, this also happened with Chandrakanta .
The book was followed by its sequel Chandrakanta Santati , and Bhootnath.
Needless to say the book is still in print and quite famous.
Read it for the Experience of reading. Experience which made people learn reading and writing
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