He came to me as my husband, how could I revere him? If I did, I would worship him with flowers and paan, but instead that’s how he worshipped me. He would fan me when I couldn’t sleep, he’d run errands for me… you see, love and reverence cannot exist together," wrote Shivrani Devi of her fellow writer and husband Munshi Premchand in her autobiography. When a thespian friend introduced Mumbai-based novelist Yashwant Shekhawat to Munshi Premchand Ghar Mein, he felt that a dramatised reading of the memoir could offer an insight into the private world of the couple, who led a life, which more than a century ago, was unheard of in India.

Yashwant Shekhawat