![]() ![]() In fact, one of the criticisms of Raag Darbari when it first appeared was that it didn't say anything new-it just described what everybody knew already. Whatever I describe in the book, for example the working of the Co-operative Union, was the kind of thing that was common knowledge. In fact I kept my official personality completely detached from my personality as an author. And my being in the administration did not mean I had a special insight into the way the government worked or that I wrote as a bureaucrat. Vaidyaji, for example, is a mixture of characteristics from three or four different types of people. Similarly Shivpalganj is not my village, and none of the characters are based on individuals I know. 'It's true I am a Brahmin,' he said, 'but I have never been conscious of my caste when I write, nor is caste particularly important in Raag Darbari, as in politics, then, it had not become the dominant force it is today. During this time Vaidyaji, who controls the local Co-operative Union and college, launches a bid for power over the Village Council and faces a stiff challenge to his dominance in the college from a group of dissident teachers backed by his main political rival in the village.īut the author emphatically denied that. Rangnath comes to his uncle's village of Shivpalganj to recuperate from an illness and the novel covers the period he stays there. Among the novel's other main characters are Vaidyaji's elder son, the village strong man, Badri Wrestler his younger son, the student leader Ruppan Babu and his nephew, Rangnath, a graduate from the town. ![]() The story, set in the late nineteen-fifties, describes his struggle for political control of Shivpalganj, a fictional village typical of Rae Bareli district, south-east of Lucknow. ![]() The court of the title is presided over by Vaidyaji, a Brahmin ayurvedic doctor who is the political mastermind of his village, Shivpalganj. In the novel it refers to the tune sung by the courtiers of a latter-day local raja, that's to say a village politician. Raag Darbari is the name of one of the most difficult raags of Indian classical music, but Shrilal Shukla has taken its meaning literally - the melody of the court. The title itself reveals the political emphasis of the plot. ![]()
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