Dubey Is No Tolstoy & That’s That: The Contemporary Popular In Hindi
Aakriti Mandhwani The English publishing market today is beside itself with questions of viability, visibility and visualization of the popular book. The contemporary Indian book market in English is clearly witnessing a boom, with a proliferation of genres providing a spectrum of delightful possibilities to an increasingly aspirational reading market that continues to latch on to the fetish of the book and yet is unwilling to pay more than 100 rupees for one. It is no stretch of the imagination to say that there is a book for everyone in Indian popular writing in English today. However, what is its equivalent in Hindi? Is there an equivalent at all? After all, what does it mean to publish the Hindi popular today? I suggest that the current Hindi popular publishing market is indeed marking exciting changes in the way we view language, genres, urbanity, and belonging itself. In this short essay [1] I shall focus on two lines of inquiry. First, I shall examine some changes in the distribution, circulation and writing processes in the contemporary Hindi pulp fiction market, particularly through the Delhi-based publishing house Raja Pocket Books. I shall then focus on a new crop of popular writing being circulated by an upcoming Delhi-based publishing house, Hind Yugm. I am aiming to bring together two stances in popular publishing that might seem to be at variance with each other, to be catering to two different reading markets, and suggest that both of them are, in fact, aiming at a similar kind of consumer today. *** My work on the story of Hindi publishing began three years ago, as I researched Hindi pulp fiction in contemporary North India, especially the trajectory of Raja Pocket Books and its investment, since 2009, in uncharacteristically good production – in the form of glossy covers, superior quality paper and “collector’s editions” – for current best-selling author Surender Mohan Pathak’s novels [2], an unprecedented occurrence in Hindi pulp’s history. This attention to quality came at a price: a Pathak novel now costs twice what it used to at one point. In the past, pulp has always existed as a recyclable form, circulating only at the moment of its publication. However, with Pathak’s newer novels, I found that the Hindi pulp fiction novel had embarked on the road to becoming a collectible [3]. In order to further understand this shift in status and sensibility, I also undertook an extensive literary study of Pathak’s novels from 1970s onwards, focusing on the author’s engagement with the Hindi language in the decades preceding India’s liberalization in 1991 and the differences thereafter. By mapping the figure of Vimal, the much loved hero-protagonist of Pathak’s 42-book-long “Vimal series”, I also engaged myself in a longer study of “heroism” itself, arguing that contemporary pulp fiction articulates a conservative yet markedly aspirational cultural and political aesthetic, both in its production and its emphasis on a refined, class-conscious and chaste use of language. I tried to argue, in short, that “pulp” is no longer “pulp” the way it has been traditionally understood, and the pulp hero, too, attains a new, benevolent-moral articulation. I soon realized that the question of production was intricately connected to understanding patterns of consumption itself and hence reception was an area that demanded greater attention.The major question that arose from such a reading was regarding Pathak’s “new reader”, one who was willing to purchase a “non-pulp” pulp novel for a different kind of “pleasure” – now, however, for twice its earlier price. This, in turn, led to speculation about a new readership. A study of reader responses [4] to Pathak, along with the meticulously framed prefaces to his novels followed. This combination of Raja Pocket Books’ new productions of Pathak: by increasing the price of the novels, along with Pathak’s own transitions in the craft of writing and a substantial readership coming forward to read his new novels, therefore, raises its own set of questions. The new reader, it seems, cherishes Pathak’s new respectability. The very fact that the latest Surender Mohan Pathak novel has been published by Harper Collins Hindi stands as testimony to this change. Linking this transition to what one may call a post-neoliberal ethos in India – the current, supposedly benevolent-moral, “political” yet aspirational ethos – with a reading of Hind Yugm, a newer question arises: does the articulation of the new Hindi readership stop here? Or as expected, such a readership will continue to evolve in interesting directions? *** If Hindi pulp fiction has gained an audience in a more acceptable popular middle-class ethos, it oddly finds contention from the new writers in – for the lack of a better word – “Hinglish” writing. In Divya Prakash Dubey’s short story Keep Quiet from his 2014 collection Masala Chai published by Hind Yugm, a young girl in the 7th grade called Dhun wants to know what love is. She asks her best friend, Surabhi, who also happens to be class monitor. Surabhi, smart in many ways – her understanding of “good” and “bad” comes from a personal understanding of who has been “good” or “bad” to her, which in turn determines which names go up on the blackboard for disciplining and which don’t – goes and asks her mother this same question, because, “क्लास में किसी को भी प्यार का कोई first-hand experience नहीं था” (87) [5], (No one had any first-hand experience of love in the class). Surabhi’s mother, burdened with all the anxieties of raising a girl in a middle-class joint family, slaps her, interrogates her about seeing a boy, and ultimately tells her to stay away from Dhun. Dhun ultimately ends up asking the same question of her own mother, who is amused and tells her that love is what her father and she share for her. Dhun’s next question, to which her mother replies in the affirmative is “बहुत प्यार होने से बच्चे आते हैं क्या मम्मी?” (Does a lot of love bring forth children, mummy? ) (90). This family, the author
Clones
Akhlaq Dorji Chanda The two of them entered the world of blunt trauma. And a thick vat of pounding love and lust. In the woods on the southfacing slopes, just beyond the Parthasarathy rocks, they had a rock of their own. A mini plateau of a rock. The small trail where ghostly humans frequented their ancient trembling urges to the root, led to the top of a landing. Mice and mosquitoes accompanied the two at every step. They walked. Wordless. The woman followed the pathway made by the man among the brambles and moss. At the far corner of the thicket a dark curl of smoke rose, burning varnish and twigs perhaps for the kabadis and charwahs after the andhi last evening. They ducked—squatted and tried to make sense of such kindred hellbirds ; other unfulfilled sensile bodies. The two looked liked spirits hollowed out of the marsh. A moonless January evening in Delhi and the dark fell like a thunderclap and twigs and leaves continued to gnash beneath their feet. The two moved on. And a kumthha shrub caught her shawl and millions of thorns held her back. He turned back and freed her move. He looked like a raggedy soul, who could frighten the drifting nilgais with his very presence. And she, something burning within, hardening—eyes now tender, now locked in their corral like hot flex. He entered the consecrated expanse and looked at the ground. An aluminium bucket and some leftover food in the dirt he quickly noticed. Ah, other ghosts had been here. Ghosts seeking their own grave. She whipped out a bottle—still icy cold, water it was. And shuffled a torch through the gloom in order to make sense of their bearings. The woven limbs of the ancient kadamb and dhau trees stood still, motionless above, guarding the rock. And apparitions. She placed the rug, their bedroll, beneath. Squatting tailorwise. He could see her contours—her superb long -lived foreleg, her untousled hair. Her nose most of all—sharp, hungry, sniffing earth and marsh. The torch glowed sideways. He shoved aside his dirty boots. And now he gestured with his elbow. And fastened their possibles on to the near branch—yesterday’s meat, nuts in a panni and a couple of beer bottles. The bygone misogyny returned as he looked at her contours again—he remembered his favourite Appalachian lines—‘they is four things that can destroy the earth—women, whiskey, money and niggers.’ Are these fit for Aravalli too? But this woman he loved. Far beyond his own ways. This creature of a woman. She has been running like a machine for a thousand years. He loved those centuries. They provided habit. Did God make this world to suit us? She thought, even as she was becoming aware of his gaze—tender and fierce. She knew exactly what he had in mind. Lust and harsh dissipation. And a searing jealousy that was their lot. She can know her heart but she did not want to. It was like swinging against a barrage—again and again. Every time she would deeply feel his non-politics, every time his ways of making love left fresh fleck on her skin, every single time she would be aware of her own different destiny. Losing grip, shaken like a guilty thing surprised, she would gain love and strength for one more birth. And grow ancient in some wounded grace. And every single time the beast in her would quiver like a drygulch wraith, booming and banging against her own wish. Best not to peep in there. No. Can she tend this meaningless casual darkness of his soul? Can she bear these destructive caustic blood clots in his brain? And her own ghosts—yes, they arrive and keep on swarming, dancing naked all around her pyre of a mind. Nilgais stamped and snuffled somewhere close in the dark. And he lurched forward to hug her slender buttocks from behind. Crossbreeds they were at that moment. Running rough. Matted and greasy with the gloom. Her ribs were like fishbones as she turned and swung at his torso. As she put his weight over her wiry body, she was thinking about the meetings with the minister and marches and slogans and papers and write-ups and petitions and about her kid and distant her mind went, to a world of her own—Hallabol Hallabol! The grass and the stars seemed like a hazy nebula. A pattern that has followed her life, never to become her own. She looked up the sky and vultures seemed to be circling above the world. Their silhouettes across the still, vaulted sky like a pale ghost army. Were they from another order? Now sweat beaded her free nipples and as he went wild he kept on muttering, wheezing at times. And she knew this rhythm; across the milky-way like a great electric kite the Great Bear rose and the two of them wrapped like the last sentinels untouched by a decaying, happy world outside. That world—shining, value laden India, was not theirs. Tethered to each other they were tethered to true geology. Like navigators in a plateau pounding and brawling, sifting obstinate jealous shadows of a lifetime, they battled with each other. Their teeth on edge and sand and grit in every pore and in every bit of the meat and nuts there was dust. That night they rode through a region galvanic; raging shapes lead to soft blue fire and returned back to the great clanging ridges of the folded Aravalli. ********************* The sun rose blearily. And he remembered his interview today. 300 yards from the sun and sand that he found himself in. The hallowed world of academia shall greet him, if he is able to play his cards craftily. He turned around and she looked like an angel bathed in contentment. At a distance he saw the corrugated form of a jhinjheri tree in full glow. And geometric butterflies abuzz like wood nymphs, circling around ragged kerfs and shrubs. He knew contentment meant nothing.
‘Irreparable Loss Should Be Forgotten As Soon As Possible’
In a conversation with Anil Sinha, Vamik Jaunpuri also says, ‘Poems should not be slogans but they must be loud enough.’ The interview appeared in a Commemorative volume for Anil Sinha, published by the Anil Sinha Memorial Foundation in 2014. Translation: HUG. Introduction: Anil Sinha The 85 year old Urdu poet (born: February 23, 1910) has seen many ups and downs in life, poetry and in organizational politics. He has an in-depth understanding of the role of the poet, the poet’s craft and his relationship to society. To have an audience with him is like traversing through a few eras all at once. He has published five books so far, four among those are books of poetry—Cheekh( 1948), Jaras (1950), Shab Charag (1978) and Safre Na Tamam. His autobiography is titled—Guftani Ka Guftani, which I had read in Patna’s Khuda Baksh Khan Library. He believes that a poet’s journey is never-ending, since humanity and society never come to an end. He joined the Progressive Writer’s Association in 1972. His poem ‘Bhukha Hai Bangal’ became a great hit. It had instantly spread byword-of-mouth and was on everyone’s lips at that time. He was formally associated with the collective till 1950 until his straight talk, and obligation towards poetry and society,led to his marginalization. To date, his position in the organization is not very sound and yet all his love and lore has always centred on the P.W.A. The ideal, that he ought not to abandon an organization with which he has been associated right from inception, never left him. Most of his poems are the finest of treasures and a bequest of the home grown Indian thought process. He was quite unknown to the Hindi world. Usually Vamik Sa’ab was a man of few words, but whenever he did decide to speak—he would go all the way. Ajay Kumar of Jaunpur has helped me in appreciating and making sense of the Urdu lafz that he has often used in the course of our discussion. This conversation dwells on poetry and politics, and their relationship. We also discuss poets and litterateurs and their intellectual role in matters social. As we enter through the enormous gate of the almost 200 year old Lal Kothi I remember a snippet of Ghalib’s famous sher –उग रहा है दरो-दीवार पर सबजा ग़ालिब“…germinating vegetables on the walls and portals Ghalib.” But these walls and entrances were not marked with decay and loss; they opened us up to a throbbing, transformative, great and living poet, forever eager and restless to dream and instantiate a happier, freer and egalitarian life for his fellow beings. Vamik Jaunpuri, at 85—seeking and searching Urdu’s real spread and enlargement, is very much the same creative persona that we have known for so many decades. Vamik Sa’ab, who has forever tried to take poetry to an elevated height, thinks that to be a poet is to be a paigambar—a prophet. If a prophet means someone who, for the betterment of the world, for the sake of a peaceful future, works toward bringing forth an equitable world into existence, so does the poet. By presenting before us testimonies of daily struggles, the poet stirs us with energy and furore so that one may imagine a more equitable and just society. This idea of the poet as a prophet is much of Vamik Sa’ab’s belief and it means that in his own way he is aware of his responsibility to contribute to nation building. So, he would often draw portraits of those higher prophets with china ink—the likes of Tagore or Ghalib, for instance. We reach a veranda in Lal Kothi. The rain soaked sun shines lightly and the spotless sky is reflected in the green grass and brambles on the walls. On the other side of the veranda a greying poet with his paan-dabba sits on his easy chair. The dabba is placed over an old, dilapidated chowki. The poet’s eyes burn. I am with Ajay Kumar, I say, and the poet greets him—“Come Ajay, if Begum was alive, she would have offered you paan right now.” In his thoughts I could see his begum—his homemaker, sakhi, secretary too perhaps. And as he stands up and makes us comfortable—he says; “Irreparable loss should be forgotten as soon as possible.” One can see why Vamik Sa’ab, in spite of relentless pressure from his sons and friends, is beholden to his soil, his world. “ए मेरे प्यारी ज़मी / नौर सो नाज़ आफ़रीं/तेरे चमनजन पर/हुस्न की सरशारियां /फ़िक्र की महमेज़ पर /फन से तो जन्नत निशाँ /गगन ज़लज़लों के क़र्ज़ में, जन तुझे ठंडक मिली /आदमी की भी बनी/आशिके मज़दूर तू …” This zamin begins in Lal Kothi but spreads all over India. He says, thinking deeply, dreamily —that a new mutiny is needed now. Fresh and fecund.The ones who are dividing the nation and are hell bent on keeping the poor in their rightful place—it’s they whoshould be worried instead, not the poor. Their dreams must never be fulfilled. One should think of a fresh blueprint. Ever optimistic, he believes that such a future is not very far, that such sentiments might again stir our nation, especially in the rural sector. Mutiny itself is a sentiment and a powerful, hidden one too. One who understands this sentiment might work towards shahadat(martyrdom). This sentiment was very much present in Ashfaqulla Khan and Bhagat Singh, he ponders. In my ancestry too, there has been a tradition of such sentiments. One can use the very idea of being a shahid (martyr) in making a surat (representation/face)—that is, for composing art and literature. This very idea of inquilabi poetry should be the basis of our writing, he feels. Now, more than ever. Otherwise we are destined to fall into a bottomless pit. ********************************* Anil Sinha: Can you please tell us a bit more about these powers that are trying to get the country into a morass? Vamik Jaunpuri: Do I need to explain it after all that has happened? You too have been
Prayers, Power, Coronation
1649, Charles I—bodies temporal & eternal Eikon Basilike –The Pourtrature of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings-—Frontispiece. *************************************************************************** 1530-1584, Ivan IV (The Terrible): stills from Sergei Eisenstein’s 1944 film. *************************************************************************** 1973, Chile: Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte ************************************************************************** 1998, General Sani Abacha and his Family: Being blessed by late Pope John Paul II when he was in Nigeria. Kneeling before the Pope is Rakiya, General Abacha’s daughter. Looking on are the two sons–the eldest, Abdullahi ‘Moglee’ and the youngest one, Mustapha. *************************************************************************** Imam Khomeini : In Solitude, In Public–transfering piety *************************************************************************** March, 2009: General Than Shwe offers prayers during the consecration ceremony of the Uppatasanti Pagoda in Myanmar’s administrative capital of Naypyidaw. *************************************************************************** 1984-85: General Zia-ul Haq–President after the Referendum–the clerical world meets the political. ************************************************************************** New Delhi, May 20, 2014 *************************************************************************** adminhumanitiesunderground.org