Which are our novels that give us the sense of birth of a country? I find most such novels have women at the centre. Sometimes she is a 'fallen' woman (as in Umrao Jan), sometimes she is a slave (not just hidden behind purdah, but locked up in castles as well), or subservient in love. The oppressed woman frequently appears as a heroine in what appears to be a national allegory, to borrow Fredrick Jameso's term. When the novel and the country were born together, in India, the focus became the woman's freedom. The crucial texts are not those like Pariksha Guru which depict contemporary social reality directly, but those texts where truth and delusion coalesce, facts and desires get interwoven sometimes in dreams - and most of these happen to be love stories. These are imaginative creations, not imitations of some other model. Such novels have remained neglected by and large, because our approach has remained technical. We did not talk about the form of the content or the content of the form.
The identification of such neglected novels and tracing their trajectory can be a process of intellectual liberation for us. In this year 2000, seen by many as the beginning of a new millennium, we must start looking at the history of the novel in India in our own terms.
Which text is referred in the passage for depicting contemporary social reality directly?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → text like Pariksha Guru
The author writes that the important texts "are not those like Pariksha Guru which depict contemporary social reality directly". Pariksha Guru is the one text named as showing the social reality of its time directly.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: texts where truth and delusion coalesce — Incorrect. Wrong link: these are the texts the author values most, which mix truth with imagination instead of showing reality directly.
Option 3: text where facts and desires get interwoven — Incorrect. Wrong link: this too describes the imaginative texts, where facts and desires blend, sometimes in dreams.
Option 4: text that revolve around love stories — Incorrect. Wrong link: most of the imaginative texts "happen to be love stories"; they are set against direct depictions of reality, not given as examples of them.