Fairytale of a Fallow Land

Hope Bihar can once again be that impossibly noisy village in Phanishwar Nath Renu's Parti Parikatha-divided, yes, but still capable of insisting that rights are not favours and development is more than a slogan shouted from a stage

- Ruchira Gupta

PARTIParikatha is a landmark Hindi novel by Phanishwar Nath “Renu”, one of India’s greatest subaltern writers—a small, indebted farmer, who even added “Renu” (debtor) to his name as a quiet, permanent protest.

At its heart, Parti Parikatha is a many-voiced portrait of a region and its people, scarred by the Kosi river and by history, yet still dreaming of renewal. The novel is set in and around Paranpur and the wider Kosi plains, once lush and water-rich, now suffocated by silt after the river suddenly changed course.

Renu describes this landscape as a kind of “corpse of the earth”—cracked and dry, like the back of a tortoiseshell, fields buried, ponds vanished, livelihoods destroyed. Over this ruined ground float memories, myths, and rumours that refuse to die.

Balladeers, birds, and a wandering buffalo-herder keep alive an old, sacred legend of Kosi maiya, the insulted daughter-in-law who storms out of her husband’s house. Her rage unleashes floods that destroy villages, and her tears, blessed by her gentle stepsister Dulari Dai, promise that life and greenery will one day return.

Around this myth cluster smaller tales.

Panduki, the poor rice-thresher who loses her son Jeetu before she can finish his beloved fairy-tale. She is now the stranded Himalayan bird calling out across the sandbanks for a child who has been swallowed by poverty, migration, or the river.

The land itself is waiting for a story to be completed. From this legendary past, the narrative moves into contemporary Paranpur, a once-prosperous village, now riven by caste politics, land disputes, and broken institutions.

A mammoth land-survey is underway, with the purpose of redistributing land owned by the big landlords to those who have tilled the soil. It triggers an explosion of “claims”, court cases, and betrayals. Brothers disown each other, daughters-in-law break