The story is among the all-time literary classics penned by the legendary Hindi litterateur Munshi Premchand, which succinctly captures the crumbling socio-economic fabric of the Indian state during the last days of the Nawabs of Awadh during the mid-nineteenth century. With the weakening of the central leadership of the Mughals in Delhi, the regional satraps and the nobility characterized by the nawabs and kings became lazy with heavy indulgence in luxury and vices. Civic administration a...