Garhwali prose maker-1

Mohan Lal Negi :Great Garhwali Language Story teller
Bhishma Kukreti

It is not possible to describe the history of Garhwali language story writing without mentioning the name of Mohan Lal Negi. His contribution in Garhwali language modern story writing is remembered for accelerating the pace in Garhwali prose creation.
Born in 1930, Mohan lal Negi belongs to village Belgaon, Patti Athur of Tihri Garhwal. After graduation he completed L.L.b and started his practice as advocate in Tihri . He started to write in Hindi and published stories like ‘Tihri ke Ghataghar’ and ‘Naukar’ but after the influence of dr Mahaveer Gairola , he started to write in Garhwali .
Mohan Lal Negi assisted Dr Mahaveer Gairola in editing, writing articles, publishing and distribution of ‘Naitiki’ magazine a quarterly magazine from Tihri.
He published his first collection of modern Garhwali language stories in 1967. Critics appreciated his work and called his work as mile stone in modern Garhwali language story world. He published his second modern story collection ‘ Burans ki Peed’. no doubt his stories are more of preaching and happy ending but there we find wit, reality and can see the historical happenings in Garhwal in his stories. ‘Dola Palaki’ is one example wherein he takes us the resistance shown by upper class against the Harijan using Dola Palki in their marriage procession. This story shows his capability to use reality and at the same time to hook the readers by his language, story telling style, creating tension because of conflicting situation or self interests of two individuals or classes , uses of common proverb for providing speed to story and common dialogues of his area.
His main specialty is to retain the dialects of Tihri area in his writing . He also wrote a novel ‘Jaumala’. He was influenced by Dr Mahaveer Gairola, therefore, the stories are having touch for dreaming equality in the human society and at the same time shows the importance of spirituality too. Dr Mahaveer Gairola is firm believer that if Communism should be deeply rooted in India communism should aquire Indian spirituality in its principles.
He was awarded for his writing by Jaishree Samman’ by Garhwali Bhasha Parishad , Dehradun. Jay Shri Samman and Navani Puruskar provided by private organizations but these two awards are equal to Padma award in Garhwali li literature.
He also carved the pictures of Gandhi, Lenin, Radhakrishnan, Meerabai on copper plates an d was appreciated by art collectors and art lovers.
Mohan Lal Negi will be remembered for his stories publication when there was a strong wave of creating poetries in Garhwali language specially in Delhi (in sixties to nineties Delhi was also capital of Garhwali language creativity) and for insisting regional dialects in Garhwali literature.

Copyright@ Bhishma Kukreti, Mumbai, India, 2009