"Ivanov" is the first 4-act play written by the celebrated Russian writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov for the theatre (earlier, Chekhov used to convert his own stories into plays) and translated directly from Russian into Hindi by Dr. A. Charumati Ramdas and Dr. Kunwar Kant. A highlight of the book is that the translators have converted Russian proper nouns into Hindi using their (orthoepic) pronunciation, rather than the spelling (transliteration), which has been the tradition so far. For instance, Chekhov and Ivanov are rendered not as चेखोव and इवनोव, but as चेख़फ़ and इवनोफ़.
"Ivanov" has a sad ending (one main protagonist dies at the end of the 3rd act, another at the end of the 4th), but Chekhov intended it as a comic, realistic, eye-opener. The spectator may at first laugh at the failings of the characters, but would almost immediately be forced to reflect on the (late 19th century Russian) society and its realities.
On the one hand, there is absolutely nothing unrealistic in the play (indeed, Chekhov so very realistically describes how, while the main protagonists are grappling with life-altering events, some minor characters are concerned only with mundane desires like winning at the game of cards or hunting in the host's house for something to eat or drink), and, on the other, there are some seemingly irrelevant scenes, which can safely be omitted while staging the play (!), e.g. VIII and XI in Act 2, which would not affect the main narrative, but the comic effect - and the contrast between the important and the mundane - would suffer greatly!
There lies Chekhov's mastery!
The cover of the book has been designed by Dr. Kunwar Kant.