Mulk Raj Anand - Role and Achievement

Writing this book has been uncommonly difficult for me. Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004) wrote so extensively and about such a variety of issues that to track down each one of his publications was quite a job. That apart, there are a few other things which need to be referred to.

The first one is that while Anand had made a will of his assets several years before he passed away, he decided to rewrite it a few years later. However, it so happened that the new nominee herself passed away a few months before his death. By then, he had become so weak that he could not take the initiative to write out a new will. The situation today, therefore, remains confused. Anand's original intention was to make his Khandala property, christened as 'Sarvodaya Farm', into some kind of a 'Writers' Home' but that remains an unfulfilled dream. While the property at Hauz Khas village in Delhi is invested in Lokayata, a registered society, which is functioning actively as of today, the same cannot be said about his property in Khandala.

Most of his manuscripts and the entire record of his extensive correspondence with hundreds of persons lie in Khandala. Those few people who looked after him during the last few years are controlling the entire range of this invaluable material. In the absence of a clear title to that property, things continue to drift. Were the Ministry of Culture to take a hand in the matter, it may be possible to save the situation.

**Contents and Sample Pages**