A Hail of Stones (Barish-e-Sang, the Urdu original), is, perhaps, the first novel in Indian languages in respect of its theme, regional location and its historical setting. It deals with the theme of material and spiritual exploitation of the Indian poor by the rich and the powerful, within the suppressive system of bonded labour of rural and urban variety. The novel offers a fascinating scenario of the struggle of a peasant youth for freedom from these bondages in the village and the city, of atrocities by the landowners in the village and by the business magnates in the city, and of the emotional content of his human existence being rendered irrelevant to the world around him. The tale obtains greater intensity against the backdrop of the socio-political upheavals during the 1940s to 1950s, experienced in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh through the break-up of the Nizam’s state of Hyderbad.
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