Gorakhpur

In August 1916, Premchand was transferred to Gorakhpur on a promotion. He became the Assistant Master at the Normal High School, Gorakhpur.At Gorakhpur, he developed a friendship with the bookseller Buddhi Lal, who allowed him to borrow novels for reading, in exchange for selling exam cram books at the school. Premchand was an enthusiastic reader of classics in other languages, and translated several of these works in Hindi. By 1919, Premchand had published four novellas, of about a hundred pages each. In 1919, Premchands first major novel Seva Sadan was published in Hindi. The novel was originally written in Urdu under the title Bazaar e Husn, but was published in Hindi first by a Calcutta based publisher, who offered Premchand INR 450 for his work. The Urdu Publisher of Lahore published the novel later in 1924, paying Premchand INR 250. The novel tells the story of an unhappy housewife, who first becomes a courtesan, and then manages an orphanage for the young daughters of the courtesans. It was well received by the critics, and helped Premchand gain wider recognition.In 1919, Premchand obtained a BA degree from Allahabad. By 1921, he had been promoted to Deputy Inspectors of Schools. On 8 February 1921, he attended a meeting in Gorakhpur, where Mahatma Gandhi asked people to resign from government jobs as part of the non cooperation movement. Premchand, although physically unwell and with two kids and a pregnant wife to support, thought about it for 5 days and decided, with the consent of his wife, to resign from his government job.