By Bhavya Bhagtani
Born in 1937 in Rajnandgaon, a city in the state of Chhattisgarh in Central India, Vinod Kumar Shukla (phonetically pronounced ‘shook-l’) is one of the most important poets of modern Hindi literature. With work that spans over the course of more than five decades, Shukla has been awarded some of the highest national and international accolades, with his poetry and prose appearing in journals like Granta, Plume, Metamorphoses, and elsewhere. In 1999, he was honoured with the Sahitya Akademi Award, one of the most important literary honours of India. In 2023, PEN America awarded him the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.
I first came across Shukla’s work in 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown in India, because of a dear friend’s recommendation. Having not read any Hindi literature in years and being holed up in my parents’ house with not much to do, I picked up his book, Deewar Mei Ek Khidki Rahti Thi (also available in English under the title, A Window Lived In A Wall), and finished reading it within days. His characters brought with them a familiarity that I hadn’t witnessed ever before, instantly evoking in me the kind of affinity one can only harbour for close kin. After this, there was no going back, and I dug deeper into the world of Vinod Kumar Shukla, spending months engrossed in his prose and poems.
Early this year, eminent translator and poet Arvind Krishna Mehrotra handpicked seventy-five of Shukla’s poems from his extensive body of work and put together the first translated collection of his poetry, Treasurer of Piggy Banks. This prompted me to try to get in touch with him. An elaborate Google search led me to find his contact details in a Hindi news article published a couple of years ago. On reaching out, I heard back from his son, Shashwat Gopal, and requested him to help me facilitate an interview with Shukla via written correspondence.
Not only did I get to hear from him, with intricate details, his outlook on time, poetry, intuition, and so much more, but I also got the opportunity to translate our conversation from Hindi to English.
Bhavya Bhagtani
There are so many moments in your poems and prose that slip from this time and space into a different universe altogether, thereby evoking an entirely different emotional reality for the reader. Parrots blend into trees; the sun, while setting, takes down the direction of the West with it, and keys unlock the sky. Do you experience life the same way? As a former assistant professor, husband, father, and grandfather, how do your different realities coexist? Does the magic of your writing seep into your daily life as well?
Vinod Kumar Shukla
All poems exist in this reality. Their presence is felt only when their time arrives; like parrots blending with the trees. Their essence lingers in the green leaves. Even after they fly away, the realisation of their presence does not disappear. It persists for a brief while and then gets embedded in our experience. It becomes a part of our memory and from that memory, emerge more memories.
The days and years when being an assistant professor was part of my daily routine now exist only in the realm of my memory. The past never truly passes. It collects in one place, waiting to be remembered. There is a past Me. That past Me continues to exist in memories of people from that time, in their own ways.
Time exists all the time. But it is time that passes us by. Every single moment of ours slips into the past that was once gathered in the present. Likewise, moments from our future continually get added to the treasure that is our present.
The present is a very strange kind of time, where we are simultaneously passing and living. The life of a father to my children, the life of a husband, the life of earning a livelihood! Daily life.
In actuality, the process of thinking occurs intertwined with everyday chores. In life, there also come times of unanticipated difficulties. The word God and His existence are imaginary creations of humanity. What I create in my imagination is my truth, the reality that I have conceived.
My poems, stories, and novels are my creations, accompanied by my experience of living life. The same reality can exist at the same time for many people, but each individual will experience it differently.
Bhavya Bhagtani
In your poem, “A five-year-old girl,” you write, “Even at home I miss my home.” Your poem, “Writing a poem,” captures a similar sentiment. What is your definition of home? In the past, you have spoken about preferring to write at home and not finding it necessary to go out or travel often. Is it so because you feel at home regardless of where you are or is it that you have never truly felt at home anywhere and are constantly in search of that feeling?
Vinod Kumar Shukla
My definition of home is simple: It is where I live, and from where, when I leave, I am outside. It is where I experience the feeling of having returned to after being outside.
Hence, home is a definite place to return to—the arrangement that facilitates the living of life. It is the social and collective state of the development of human civilization.
Just as home is a place, the place for homes is a town, village or city where people live. Settlement is a place for facilitating lifelong livelihood. Additionally, we are also citizens; we have a country, which is the definite place of many cities and villages. This is our land, and the land outside our country is foreign land—so on and so forth.
In thought, there may at times arise the sensation of missing home despite being at home. Simply the realization that we have been living here since yesterday. That home used to be a certain way then and now it is different. Thoughts can create a reason that can compel one to miss home at home.
Where I spent my childhood was a different place, a different village. I miss it deeply. That house no longer exists, but continues to exist in my memory.
Bhavya Bhagtani
Both “That man put on a woolen coat and went away like a thought” and “A window lived in a wall” are titles of your poems as well as titles of your books. Especially the latter, which is also a work of fiction. What came first, the line or the story? Characters or scenes? Where do your poems usually begin? What inspires you?
Vinod Kumar Shukla
The story came first, then came the title. The title is decided based on how it captures the essence of the story. At times, the title is not important. My poems don’t have titles, but the first line of every poem is considered as the title while putting together the index of a collection.
Characters come according to the story. And based on their personality, their features, characteristics, and mannerisms have to be determined to keep in mind while writing. Later, a definite sequence is established for the reader.
While writing prose, I mean stories or novels. Apart from this, I haven’t written prose.
Stories, poetry and novels are genres that have been written since the very beginning of time; genres to which early writers as well as my contemporaries have contributed. Poetry is the medium to express oneself in fewer words, with the use of metaphorical symbols and imagery. A novel is a longer work, composed of more pages. This is my understanding of it, as it is practiced.
What can I say about the so-called inspiration on the path of writing! First, we inspire ourselves to write about an event or a concept—something we don’t have an understanding of until we write about it. Then, it is what we have written that inspires us, creating ideas within our thoughts. Even the characters inspire with their actions and mannerisms.
Bhavya Bhagtani
There is significant abstraction in your work, so much so that often yesterday blends into today, and before one knows it, today melts into tomorrow. At nighttime, everything is the shape of night and darkness embodies whatever it touches. In your poems, you don’t measure time using the hands of a clock but instead synonymize it with the falling of leaves from trees. Is it safe to assume, then, that a lot of your work is centered around abstraction? How do you perceive time? In your opinion, is time linear or nonlinear?
Vinod Kumar Shukla
Some of my work revolves around abstraction. I do not deny that.
Today indeed becomes yesterday, and likewise, tomorrow becomes today. This is the truth of time.
Time is full of many different truths. I have also spoken about this in my response to a previous question. There is also the illusion about the truth of time in life, and what really is an illusion sometimes feels like the truth. In this way, time is full of various contradictions but is still a sequence.
Bhavya Bhagtani
Has a poem ever changed into a story? Or an idea that initially felt like it had the potential to be a story but transformed into a poem through the course of it being written? Do the two forms ever interfere with or overlap each other? How do you decide what becomes a story and what becomes a poem? Is this an intuitive understanding?
Vinod Kumar Shukla
None of my poems turn into stories. But while writing a story, some words and sentences, whether half-formed or in entirety, suddenly emerge. In those moments, I get the urge to write a poem. In such cases, sometimes, a poem is born.
While writing prose, poetry happens. But this is not an interference. Instead, it should be considered a part of creativity. It is creativity that decides what becomes a poem.
The creation of a poem and its expression in written word do not follow a predetermined process.
Each poem or creation brings with it its own creative process. And once the poem is complete, so is the process.
Bhavya Bhagtani
There is an undeniable intuition in your work. Your stories and poems make the reader experience this intuition as well. It seems as if you allow every character and element to come to life within the poem in a way that blurs the line between the real and the surreal. Can you talk about the role intuition plays in your writing?
Vinod Kumar Shukla
Intuition is the sieve that supports the process of carving a poem into a poem. There are many known and unknown sieves that play a part in the creation of a poem. I, myself, do not know all of them.
Bhavya Bhagtani
How do you determine that a poem has reached its final line?
Vinod Kumar Shukla
Perhaps the poem itself decides whether it is finished or not. However, I have often said that I could spend my entire life writing a single poem. Everything we write in life, whether it is poetry or a novel or a story, are all derivatives of the same form.
Bhavya Bhagtani
Do you often write from imagination or memory? Do you think you write from both? According to you, how are the two connected?
Vinod Kumar Shukla
To write, experiencing life and memory are both important. In thought, we inch closer to imagination. Our imagination is our truth. When it comes to creating, imagination is the inherent essence of creativity.
Bhavya Bhagtani
Tell us about your revision process. Do you revise while writing, or does most of the revision happen after the draft is complete?
Vinod Kumar Shukla
If the work is not yet published, then revision is an ongoing process.
Bhavya Bhagtani
How did you start writing? Did a particular book or writer inspire you? Or, a film, a memory, a specific incident?
Vinod Kumar Shukla
Growing up, there was an environment of reading and writing at home. My older brother and my cousin also used to write.
Bhavya Bhagtani
What is your writing routine? Do you set aside a specific amount of time each day to write?
Vinod Kumar Shukla
Whenever I get an idea, I sit down to write.
Bhavya Bhagtani
Having been writing for so long, have your creative processes gone through any changes?
Vinod Kumar Shukla
There has been no change in the writing process. Thoughts and experiences, however, keep going through changes.
Bhavya Bhagtani
Does dialogue direct prose or is it the other way round?
Vinod Kumar Shukla
Dialogue directs prose and prose also directs dialogue.
Bhavya Bhagtani
When you transition from writing poetry to completing a book or putting together a collection, what creative challenges do you have to face?
Vinod Kumar Shukla
There certainly are creative challenges that occur. And, they are often unknown in advance.
Bhavya Bhagtani
What is the most important piece of advice that you have ever received? What advice would you offer to poets, especially those who are just beginning to write?
Vinod Kumar Shukla
For poets… If you believe that you have written a poem, then it is a poem you have written, even if others may disagree. However, do pay attention to what others have to say and ponder upon it.
