The book tells more about Vineet Gill’s world than Nirmal Verma’s, and fails to focus on the latter’s creative writings.
While reading this unusual book, I was reminded of a comment that Raghuvir Sahay, one of the front-ranking Hindi poets of the 20th century, had penned to understand and analyse Tooti Hui, Bikhari Hui, one of the most celebrated love poems in Hindi. The occasion was to felicitate Shamsher Bahadur Singh, widely regarded as “the poet of poets”, on his 60th birthday in 1971. Shamsher’s writer friends had put together a Festschrift and Sahay wondered if he would like to see Shamsher as a man who had fallen in love, and whether the experience would help him understand the nature of love and its expression in Shamsher’s poetry. Like Sahay, I felt a little diffident to peep into the inner world of Vineet Gill to see how he felt while encountering Nirmal Verma and his writings.
Also, I am not too sure of the need to know another man’s literary journey as Gill discovers and understands a complex writer like Verma. Will his experiences help in attaining a better understanding of the writer, or will they colour my own? The book is a specimen of involved and dense writing where the author feels free to express his opinion about not only the writer under his microscope but also on all other issues associated with literary creation.
Two hats
Verma tried to wear two hats, that of a creative writer and a thinker. Others like Jainendra Kumar had attempted this before him. Incidentally, Jainendra was the first writer in Hindi who, despite his close association with Premchand, made a break with his kind of writing and broke new ground by exploring the depths of the human soul, especially through creating a new woman who was non-conformist and rebellious and did not adhere to the established norms of morality and a husband-wife relationship. Verma’s first story that catapulted him into fame was Parinde whose main protagonist is lonely Latika. In a sense, Jainendra was the path finder who laid the ground for the growth and flourishing of a writer like Verma who made a name for himself by creating complex characters and bringing into sharp relief the minutiae of their inner worlds and interpersonal tensions.
President K.R. Narayanan presenting the Padma Bhushan to Nirmal Verma in 2002, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi. | Photo Credit: PTI
Gill happened to come into contact with the ‘thinker’ Nirmal Verma first when he read his collection of essays Shabd Aur Smriti (Word and Memory) and became aware of Verma’s imaginary (or imagined?) Europe and got the sense of world literature through these thoughtful, inward-looking essays. However, his admiration for the writer makes him arrive at certain unfounded and uncalled for conclusions based solely on his own impressions. To cite an example: “In his life, Verma made countless literary discoveries and approached many a great work with the readerly devotion that has all but vanished from contemporary culture.” (Emphasis added). The chapter titled ‘The Man’ begins with a quote from Verma: “I don’t believe that knowing about a writer’s private life grants us any deeper understanding of his writing.” Therefore, it’s rather ironical that Gill devotes so much space in the book to doing just that.
Surprisingly, Verma’s creative writings have been mentioned and, at times, discussed in passing, but they do not form the focus of the book.
Interwoven worlds
Gill has named his study of Nirmal Verma’s life in literature after the title of his story Zindagi Yahan aur Wahan (Life Here and Hereafter) that finds a place in his book of short stories, Kavve aur Kala Pani (Crows and Dark Water). This book had fetched Verma the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award in 1986. As Arvind Krishna Mehrotra has noted, Here and Hereafter is “as much about Verma’s life in literature as it is about Gill’s.” At one level, this book fascinates the reader as he travels through two interwoven worlds of Verma’s and Gill’s. At another, it is rather disappointing as it tells more about Gill’s world than Verma’s and fails to focus on his creative writings.
Verma created his own language that distinguished itself because of its sensitivity, lyrical sensibility and nuances. It cast a magic spell on the reader as it tried to express experiences that were new to the Hindi literary reader. As noted by Gill, Verma was the most cosmopolitan of Hindi writers and his novels and short stories were often set in foreign lands. This book will be of great interest to those who are not familiar with Hindi literature and Verma’s writings.
Here and Hereafter: Nirmal Verma’s Life in Literature; Vineet Gill, Penguin Random House India, ₹499.
The reviewer is a journalist and poet.
