02. CE 101 - Dinner for the Boss by Bhisham Sahni

• HPU 1st Year English C...
Bhisham Sahni (1915-2003)
Born in Rawalpindi. Wrote short stories, novels and plays in Hindi -- known for realistic and deeply analytical protrayal of society. Won the Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel about the partitition, 'Tamas'.
Dinner for the Boss (translated from 'Chief ki Daavat' by Gillian Wright)
It is a mmoving story about how a simple and illiterate old woman, who sells her ornaments for her son's education and a bright future, becomes a burden and an embarrassment to him and his wife.
Shyamnath's American boss is coming to dinner, and his wife and he are leaving no stone unturned to pleasse and impress him so that Shyamnath may be considered for a promotion.
Their desire to be considered from a higher social status so occupies them that they regard the mother as one of the unnecessary and useless things in the house that they need to hide behind the cupboards and under the beds for the dinner party.
Where to hide Mother becomes their central problem. The absence of love, resepct and sensitivity in the couple is a contrast to the concern and selflessness of the mother, who at the end of the story, consents to embroider a phulkari for the American sahib even though her eyesight is failing and she is much too old for such fine work. She does this only for the sake of a promotion and a better future for her son.
THEMES:
Sahni observed that a generation gap had emerged in society due to the forces of modernisation and corporate ambition. In the present story, he highlights this gap through the contrast between the traditional, self-sacrificing and illiterate mother and her modern, educated, selfish and ambitious son. In such a scenario, the writer raises difficult questions regarding what it means to be educated, or to be modern -- and what we are losing in terms of our traditional values as we move forward as a society towards blind material progress.