Highway House : A Translation of Adhe Adhure

"A sort of frost seems to have descended on the souls of the human agents... Every confrontation and the play is a series of confrontations-instead of thawing the ice, leaves it a bigger Iceberg' -R.L. Nigam, In Enact. Mohan Rakesh (8-1-1925-3-12-1972), author of Aadhe-adhure (1969), was one of those who contributed so significantly in building up the early post-independence Hindi literature. His contributions to its various branches (short-story, novel, drama, essay, translation) not with standing, it is as a playwright par excellence that he is most emphatically remembered today. He revolutionized dialogue-writing In Hindi drama, and in his short life-span experimented to bring in more than one kind of freshness in dramatic construction-successfully. Besides Ashadh ka ek din, Lahron ke rajhans and Aadhe-adhure, he wrote Mad Delight (Chhatriyan), other short plays and radio-plays more than a dozen in number, and Pair tale kee zameen, a full-length play which he could not complete. Halfway House is the first ever translation of Aadhe-adhure. Bindu Batra, while translating Aadhe-adhure worked in continuous consultation with Rakesh. A student of History and foreign languages, she began her career as a translator and arts-journalist. She then joined the Government and worked in the areas of film, performing arts and trade. She is now a marketing and media consultant and lives in Delhi with her daughter."