A Handful for a Hand Full: Munshi Premchand’s Godan and Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai’s Randidangazhi

Abstract

Society sets norms and rules which its members have to adhere to. It has also set up
mechanisms to deal with the anomalies that may potentially disrupt the system. The
paper attempts to vouchsafe the phases as well as the faces of a wretched human being’s
entity through the novels Godan (The Gift of a Cow) by Munshi Premchand and
Randidangazhi (Two Measures of Rice) by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai. The novels
can be looked at not as an individual story but a piece of story expounding the extreme
sorry state of multitudes of the oppressed and suppressed sections of the society. A
comparative exegesis of two novels which represent the two facets of exploitation and
feudal hegemony opens an avenue to closely look at the tragic issues of harassment,
corruption, subjugation and hypocrisy. In both the novels, there is a clear depiction of
the politics and the corruption of the land owners and the feudal lords and the lower
sections who were the victims of this system.