Refreshing pastures of Hindi literature

Shortlisted in the Hindi non-fiction category, the biographies of Pandita Ramabai, Rahul Sankritayan, and Osho Rajneesh highlight a renewed interest among readers in these diverse and impactful figures. Two other books in the category – Joram Yalam Nabam’s Gay-geka ki Auratein, a fresh account of the Nyishi community, and Suresh Pant’s study on the evolution of the Hindi lexicon in Shabdon ke Sath Sath – are essential reads as well

Three biographies, of Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922), Rahul Sankritayan (1893-1963), and Osho Rajneesh (1931-1990) are on the shortlist for the Hindi non-fiction category, showing a resurgence of interest in the lives and times of these pathbreaking individuals among Hindi readers of the sub-continent. None of the three were active in politics or governance, but led remarkable lives that challenged the extant status quo. All three were also as different from each other as cheese, chalk, and chocolate!

The first of these, ‘Vikal Vidrohini: Pandita Ramabai’, published by Raj Kamal, is penned by Sujata, who had been on our shortlist in 2022 as well, for her feminist critique of contemporary literature. In choosing to write about Pandita Ramabai, Sujata (who goes by her first name) breaks new ground about one of the most forceful reformers of her times. In today’s day and age, when names and titles are associated with denominational categories, many may find it odd that Pandita Ramabai ‘Saraswati’ had converted to Christianity but was so proud of her heritage that she refused to wear the locket with a Latin inscription and insisted on the aphorism being transcreated in Sanskrit, the language she excelled in and was extremely proud of. She was the first woman to be awarded the titles of Pandita as a Sanskrit scholar and Sarasvati after being examined by the faculty of the University of Calcutta. She was also one of the ten women delegates of the Congress session of 1889. Seven years earlier, in her deposition to the Hunter Commission (1882), she had suggested that women be trained as teachers, appointed as school inspectors, and given admission to medical colleges.

In 2004, I was appointed as an election observer to Azamgarh – then a country of dons, but for me, it was the district where AO Hume had been a District Magistrate, much before he founded the INC, as well as of the great litterateurs: Kaifi Azmi and Rahul Sankritayan. I picked up their writings from the local bookshop and became a devoted fan of the latter. Sankritayan continued to be a legend in the district, even though after his extensive travels, he preferred to stay in the hill towns of Darjeeling and Mussoorie. Known as the “father of Hindi travel literature,” Sankritayan the polyglot essayist, playwright, historian, and scholar of Buddhism played a pivotal role in giving Hindi travelogue a literary form. He was one of the most widely travelled scholars of India, spending forty-five years of his life travelling away from his home in locations like Russia, Tibet, China, and Central Asia. Rahul Sankritayan: Anatm Bechaini ka Yayavar by Ashok Kumar Pandey (Raj Kamal publications) covers his life and times in critical detail. Like his muse, Ashok, a brilliant teacher of economics, has an eclectic range of reading and writing – from two anthologies of poems, a collection of short stories, a book on globalization, one each on Marxism, Autobiography of Marx and Literary Criticism, and books like ‘Kashmir Nama’, ‘Kashmir aur Kashmiri Pandit’, and ‘Usne Gandhi ko Kyon Mara’.

The most controversial biography is that of Osho Rajneesh, the controversial godman who flaunted his wealth, talked of achieving super consciousness through sex, established a new city in the US, but returned to his homeland as a fallen hero to many, and a wronged savant to many of his acolytes. Mere Priya Aatman! by Sushobhit (Hindi Yugm) does justice to his life and work, for his writings and philosophical discourses, which were much ahead of his times, are as relevant to the millennials. Was he ahead of his times, or was he too, a human being, with all the challenges and failings? Was he a manipulator, or was he manipulated by a system that was threatened by his new-age philosophy?

Then we have Gay-geka ki Auratein: Adivasi Nyishi Samudaay Ke Grameen Jeevan Ke Kathaathkam Samskaran by Joram Yalam Nabam, who teaches Hindi at the Rajiv Gandhi University in her home state of Arunachal. A born storyteller, she got her first short story collection ‘Sakshi hai Pipal’ consisting of 9 long stories published in 2012, followed by a collection of folk tales ‘Tani Momen’ in 2014 and a full-length novel ‘Jangali Phool’. This is the first account of the Nyishi samudaay (Nyishi community) which looks at the legend and origin myths from an internal gaze, a take very different from the Verrier Elwyn approach which looked at ‘tribe’ from the outside. Moreover, the focus is on women – their lives, their rites of passage, their joys and struggles as well as their agonies and ecstasies. This has been published by Radhakrishnan Publishers.

And finally, we have this absolutely wonderful study on the evolution of the Hindi lexicon Shabdon ke Sath Sath by Suresh Pant (Hind Pocket Books). This distinguished linguistic talks of the etymology of words, the changing meaning in the context of changing times, and mediums – as blogs and social media posts become the preferred mode of expression, even for a discussion on our epics and classical texts. Of late, Hindi has broken out of its rigid shell and adopted many new terms and phrases from English and other Indian languages; this new amalgam has made it more widespread and acceptable. An absolutely fascinating read, it is a good volume on the shelf of Hindi teachers, journalists, parliamentarians, translators, transcreators, and all those preparing for competitive examinations. But I would add that even those who write in English, and for the English press, need to read this book to understand the new vocabulary – both on the street and the High Street!

The writer, a former Director of LBS National Academy of Administration, is currently a historian, policy analyst and columnist, and serves as the Festival Director of Valley of Words – a festival of arts and literature

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