An Ode To Hindi Wordsmith Nirmal Verma

Great literature often transports you into the realm of memory 바카라� both personal and textual. The other day I found myself in a South Delhi café, reading Nirmal Verma바카라�s short story Lovers. It suddenly occurred to me that the corner of the café I was seated in was not dissimilar to the one Verma바카라�s protagonist chose in a Connaught Place café. The young man yearned for the fiction he had not yet written, perhaps would never be able to write. This was a typical Verma story, where every inanimate object, however mundane, registered some presence, with a tinge of Verma바카라�s own personality echoing in the narrator. As the story unfolded, the narrator faced rejection from his lover. It, however, brings no change to his life. Nothing. I wait for this 바카라�nothing바카라� every time I read this story.

It also reminded me of Vineet Gill바카라�s recent book, Here and Hereafter: Nirmal Verma바카라�s Life in Literature, which emphatically suggests: 바카라�Verma was a writer of nothingness.바카라�

Journalist-author Gill traces the development of Verma바카라�s 바카라�writerly sensibility,바카라� and explores his life as a reader, critic, and essayist. Gill insists that his book not be read as a biography, though the idea of 바카라�biographical excavation바카라� excites him. He finds biographies 바카라�a way of oversimplification of certain complications 바카라� in life and literature.바카라� Instead of choosing the conventional path of presenting the chronological life of his subject, Gill vividly details nuances in Verma바카라�s life and craft as and when they occur to him.

Verma once said in an interview, 바카라�I think all my writings together constitute an autobiography.바카라� Gill writes, 바카라�While reading about the young narrator of 바카라�Ve Din바카라� (Those Days) 바카라� a tragic but ebullient hero 바카라� how can one not think about Verma as a young man in Prague?바카라�

바카라�Ve Din바카라� is not the only instance. Verma바카라�s other works also carry imprints of personal sorrow. In 바카라�Ek Din Ka Mehman바카라� (A Day바카라�s Guest), a man makes an uneasy visit to his daughter and his ex-wife, which reminds of Verma바카라�s own troubled first marriage.

Verma바카라�s fiction often leads me to a prolonged maun (silence), a melancholic yet alluring contemplation of life. His uprooted characters form intimate bonds with cafés, roads, leaves바카라�even pullovers and corduroy jeans. I instantly identify myself with homelessness, the loneliness of metro life, and a longing for lost childhood. In Gill, I found a perfect interlocutor who decoded and translated the unsaid emotions Verma writes about.

Verma was also a passionate reader and traveller. For Verma, Gill writes, travelling was a 바카라�creative practice바카라� and his writing was an 바카라�offshoot바카라� of his journeys. Verma travelled like a flâneur 바카라�with an eye on historical currents바카라�. His travel writing has the imagination of an artist, the curiosity of a reporter, and sensibility of a poet.

Verma is also a writer of memories. He saw places as 바카라�habitation of memories바카라� 바카라� the daily grind of life that make us appreciate nature, inanimate objects, and things we leave behind. The memories he writes about swiftly come to occupy the solitary space of the reader.

Gill underlines that memory is central to Verma바카라�s craft, as 바카라�it provides a form, an idiom, a language to his realism.바카라� While Verma believed that 바카라�every writer is absolutely alone in his own experience바카라�, he did not consider writing to be the product of a singular mind as he stated that 바카라�every writer, no matter how alone he is in his experience, is always connected to others through his memory.바카라� It lends several layers to his text, sometimes 바카라�concealing altogether different linguistic sensibilities바카라�.

Verma was essentially a cosmopolitan writer. His story, 바카라�Parinde바카라� (Birds), 1959, called the first notable example of Nayi Kahani (New Story) by renowned Hindi critic, Namvar Singh, ushers in a cosmopolitan sensibility in Hindi literature. 바카라�Parinde바카라�s바카라� Mr. Hubert addresses its protagonist Latika in Elizabethan English, while 바카라�Picture Postcard,바카라� another short story, Gill points out, is set in 바카라�strictly Anglophone set-ups바카라�. Characters greet each other 바카라�with posh affection: 바카라�How do you do?바카라� The travelogue Cheedon Pe Chandin (1962) marks the beginning of Verma바카라�s European writings and becomes a 바카라�record of his cultural discoveries.바카라�

And what was his literary politics? Gill underlines that Verma sought a middle ground in his writing between art for art바카라�s sake and engagé art (morally or politically committed art).

For Verma, writes Gill, literature 바카라�is a record, an exploration of a set of questions more pressing than any politics.바카라� Verma faced several accusations of being a right-wing sympathiser towards the end of his life. While he always claimed that for a writer 바카라�ideological independence was of paramount importance바카라�, the accusation refuses to diminish. Gill quotes the late Hindi poet Manglesh Dabral: 바카라�Verma fell victim to the notion of 바카라�civilisational superiority바카라� that 바카라�the Indian right has drawn sustenance from.바카라� However, Gill avoids examining this crucial aspect of Verma바카라�s life, as he remains focused on Verma바카라�s craft.

According to Gill, the turning point in Verma바카라�s life was an essay he wrote after his visit to the Kumbh Mela in 1976. Gill feels, 바카라�as is often the case with Verma바카라�s non-fiction, what바카라�s at the centre of it is a personal void, a sense of loss바카라�. It was the loss of one바카라�s civilisation that perhaps took the Europe-returned writer to undertake the search for 바카라�Indianness.바카라�  Soon it became an 바카라�abiding preoccupation바카라� for Verma, with many of his essays dealing with a lost Indian identity.

Here and Hereafter articulates the loneliness of artistic endeavour바카라� a sentiment jointly shared by the writer, the reader, and the critic. The book invents its own form. A personal meditation, analytical reportage, a literary pilgrimage바카라�one can read it in multiple ways but whatever the case, it is a compelling read.

(This appeared in the print edition as "The Power Of Nothingness")