Devrani Jethani Ki Kahani or A Story of Two Sisters-in-Law

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Pandit Gauri Datt’s Devrani Jethani ki Kahani or A Story of Two Sisters-in-Law (1870) is often considered the first novel in Hindi. This sparsely written story, in deceptively simple but elegant prose, follows the fortunes of an Agarwal merchant family in the north Indian town of Meerut, then under colonial rule. Gauri Datt introduces us to a colourful and carefully calibrated canvas of characters in which the family’s two daughters-in-law remain the focus of interest. Following a familiar pattern, only one of them is virtuous, skilled and literate. The novel acknowledges the large extended family’s aspirations for social mobility, reform and modernity, while capturing the swiftly transforming everyday and ritual life of merchant communities.