VK Shukla, the extraordinary Hindi writer who captures the ordinary

Shashwat Gopal was on his way to pick up his daughter from an exam when he received the phone call that his father, the celebrated poet-novelist Vinod Kumar Shukla, had been awarded the Jnanpith Award. But the response from his dada, as he calls his 88-year-old dad, was muted. “Dada doesn’t get too excited about these things. Most of his awards lie in a box, not on display,” says Gopal. Shukla, who is famously reclusive and off social media, has not only garnered a fair number of awards — the PEN/Nabokov Award in 2023, and the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1999 — but also a fair share of millennial and Gen-Z fans. Many turn up at the house to meet him, says Gopal. A new edition of ‘Deewar Mein Ek Khidki Rehti Thi’, published by Hind Yugm, is currently the top bestseller in the Indian writing section on Amazon. Readings of his famous poems like ‘Hatasha Se Ek Vyakti Baith Gaya’ are quite popular on YouTube. At book fairs, his novels and poetry collections are a hit, especially in the age group of 20-40, says Shailesh Bharatwasi, founder and editor-in-chief of Hind Yugm. “The lives we are leading today are filled with so many social and technological complications that even if we try, we can’t simplify them. When you read Shukla’s work, it almost encompasses a parallel life you wish you could live. It’s a sapno ki duniya (dreamworld) for adults,” Bharatwasi adds. His career began in 1971 with a collection of poems titled ‘Lagbhag Jai Hind’, but he went on to write short stories as well as novels. Whatever the genre, Shukla’s writings are deeply linked to everyday reality: a window, a bird, a group of friends sitting in a park. Yet, there are hints of magical realism. Sometimes people transform into birds, a window in the house leads to ponds and rivers, and elephants come home to pick a man up. In one of his poems, a man wishes to be a ten-rupee note, and hide inside a passerby’s bag to escape his worries. This has led many critics and young writers to ponder: how was it possible to write so simply, yet so beautifully?Back in 2007, one of his fans, the writer and actor Manav Kaul, found his number in Raipur and called him up. To his surprise, Shukla answered. “I was unable to find words. I only said, ‘I love you!’ and cut the phone!” Kaul recalls, laughing. Over the next few years, Kaul mustered up the courage to talk about other things. Asked about the simplicity of his sentences, Shukla replied in his matter-of-fact style: “I am not confident about my grammar and punctuation skills. I keep my sentences simple to avoid errors.” Kaul and filmmaker Achal Mishra, who was a fan of Shukla’s writings too, went on to make a documentary on his life. Titled ‘Chaar Phool Hain Aur Duniya Hain’, it was released on indie streaming platform MUBI India last month. In one scene, looking at the sky the writer says, “I believe everyone should write a book in their lifetime.” ShowQuotesNandini Chandra, an associate professor of English at the University of Hawaii who first came across Shukla’s poetry in 1997, says his works are a hit with students even today. Last year, she was invited to give a lecture on his writings at Ashoka University. Many of the attendees were interested in translating his works or even researching them for their theses. “A lot of the youngsters discovered him via recent English translations,” says Chandra. In the last two years itself, short story collection ‘Blue is Like Blue’ and poetry collection ‘Treasurer of Piggy Banks’ have been published by HarperCollins India and Westland Books, respectively. Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, who translated both, says Shukla’s seemingly simple lines were the most difficult to get across in English. “At the level of language, you understand what he means, but the moment you sit down to translate, the meaning, once so close, slips away. After that, it becomes something of a blind chase,” Mehrotra adds. Is it that simplicity which appeals to young readers? Perhaps it’s the sheer newness of Shukla’s voice, Mehrotra says, “which is seldom not startling, seldom not gentle, even when he’s being iconoclastic.” Mehrotra gives an example. “Without debunking the idea of god, he can debunk the way the idea is being pushed around as though it were a sack of onions: ‘There’s too much god./ Far too much./The formless/has so many forms/that everyone has/ an excess of them.’Shukla also writes children’s stories, both in magazines like Pluto and illustrated books. Like his stories for adults, they’re filled with an imagination built around trees, birds, adventure, and friendship. In a 2021 interview to Caravan magazine, Shukla said: “I think in images, not words.” The fact that many of the pages of his novels play out like scenes can be attributed to the influence of cinema. Gopal says back when his father was living in Rajnandgaon, a movie theatre Krishna Talkies opened right opposite their house in 1937. Shukla and his cousins would spend endless hours inside. Though both his sight and hearing have been impaired by age, Gopal says he still watches films on his computer, with the help of hearing aids and subtitles. A heart attack a few years back didn’t slow him down either. In fact, while lying down in the ICU, Shukla asked the nurses for a pencil and paper so he could write! “The doctors were shocked but I told them if they wanted Dada to relax, they had to do that,” Gopal recalls. He finished an entire story inside the hospital itself. The only thing that has perhaps weighed him down over the years is the feeling that he might have been short-changed by publishers. In a 2022 Instagram post, Kaul wrote about how such a beloved writer was getting just Rs 14,000 in annual royalties. Shukla then publicly came out and asked for the rights to his works back from his publishers Rajkamal Prakashan and Vani Prakashan. While Rajkamal reached out and increased the royalty, matters with Vani still hang in balance. In response to a TOI query, Vani denied any wrongdoing in royalty payments and said they’re open to discussions with the writer “based on mutual respect”.