A Conversation with Uday Prakash
Arnab Chakladar: You mentioned Rs. 25,000 being a large royalty--does this reflect on the state of Hindi readership? Has the readership shrunk dramatically?
Uday Prakash: No, no, it is not that--readership has indeed widened. Last month I published one short story, "Mohan Das"...and I can show you the bunch of emails and sms, and letters from all corners that readers sent me. But we have to look at other things also. Like reading habits have also changed. It is very hard for me even to now read something like Pariksha Guru or Devrani-Jethani, which happen to be the first Hindi novels. I may read it carefully for that reason but it is hard for me to relate my life and experiences to that kind of writing. So, we should similarly accept that after the 1980s and 1990s, with the multiplication of media, readers with their reading habits also have similarly changed--the structure of memories and narrative has also changed. I think this is what Naipaul says, that the novel's form of narration cannot take you anywhere any longer. This is why he is now doing other kinds of writing. But here again I think the good writer has to be on par with other people who are watching cinema or television, communicating through sms and cellular mobiles or other kinds of things, and then the entirely new oddities of daily life, which all together is part of the collective mind of our time. Any form of narrative which is closer to this, I think it will survive. Perhaps this is why a person like me, who has no high place in culture, I have no dearth of readers.
I think the good writer has to be on par with other people who are watching cinema or television, communicating through sms and cellular mobiles or other kinds of things, and then the entirely new oddities of daily life, which all together is part of the collective mind of our time
Arnab Chakladar: That is very interesting, and goes against what you often hear from English language readers and critics that literature in Hindi and other languages is losing readers. But other than your own writing, what would you say is the condition of Hindi writing generally today?
Uday Prakash: It is a very difficult question. I think the problem is not so much with readership as with the establishment. You see, we are all part of this new Indian middle-class now--everybody is the same now, and it has its own cosmopolitan character. But in Hindi unfortunately, if you look at the origins of the Hindi speaking middle class, you find casteism and those kinds of things. Whereas in Bengali you had a strong cosmopolitanism among elites because of a renaissance at the beginning, in the Hindi establishment unfortunately there is still a lot of problems. It is very disturbing, perturbing--for example, look at the Sahitya Akademi and who they have given awards to--unfortunately, regional, casteist, political, those kinds of problems still exist and they play a very decisive role. And for a writer like me, who is not concerned with such things...I don't feel like I belong to any caste or anything like that...it is difficult to know how to exist in this milieu. Take criticism, for instance. As Susan Sontag said, criticism is an interference from a site of power into the field of creativity; almost like the police is interfering with life. So criticism is very close to power politics, is a tool … an act of politics, and especially in Hindi...and I have to tell you I am not able to find much respect for Hindi critics (laughs).
I have written in Peeli Chhatri Waali Ladki about the Buddha, who was perhaps the first liberal thinker who did not believe in segregating, separating types of people. And he had to choose a language, other than Sanskrit for his sermons and lectures--it was Pali or Prakrit, that was the language of the commoners. So here today what we have happening is that Hindi, I mean literary Hindi, is almost like Sanskrit was in Buddha's days. And if you look at it, it is difficult now to write about many things in this Hindi, it has so many limitations, it is prohibitive. My feeling is like that of Nazim Hikmat, the Turkish poet, who faced the same problem with the Turkish language: when he wanted to write the word "revolution" the only thing he could find was something like "jehad" (laughs). I have the same problem with literary Hindi. So either I opt for my regional dialect or for a mass language that is neither Hindi nor Urdu, and these people have a problem with that.
Arnab Chakladar: For someone like me who works and reads mostly in English this is interesting to hear, because you usually in my world we hear about how English is the language of cultural power etc. and here you are talking about literary Hindi as a kind of imperial language that does not allow other kinds of dialects or certain forms of expression to prosper.
in my view new Hindi writing now is confronting these people, the language of Hindi departments, the academics. And I think this is why I am not accepted sometimes, because my language is different.
Uday Prakash: Yes, you see it is a frozen form of language which is not permitting another kind of language, which is closer to life and is spoken by all, to come up. For example, if you look at the Hindi of any teacher in a university Hindi department--and you have to recognize that these people are taken as the authorities, they decide the awards and jobs...in my view new Hindi writing now is confronting these people, the language of Hindi departments, the academics. And I think this is why I am not accepted sometimes, because my language is different.
Arnab Chakladar: Do you feel alone in this?
Uday Prakash: No, there are many other writers in this situation, particularly young writers. Because they know they have no future existing only in university libraries. Every writer wants a large readership. The pleasure of having a readership, I tell you, is very strong--the pleasure I get from reading letters from my readers, the joy is very strong.
Arnab Chakladar: Do you think Penguin entering the world of Hindi publishing will have a strong impact on how Hindi publishers work and on the landscape of Hindi literature?
Uday Prakash: I think it will have a good effect. With Hindi publishers, they are largely dependent on government purchase or institutional purchase. So it is a funny situation. Say a government bureaucrat comes out with a book, and there will be a big celebration, a book release will be organized. And you will find everyone from the Vice President to ministers there. Because the purchase of certain number of copies is assured--to libraries and academies and institutions. So these are very safe "writers", and so many Hindi publishers don't want to enter into the real market where people spend money to buy books of their choice. This is one thing that has really affected badly the quality of writing, and growth of a free market of books--that’s why we don't have a Premchand now, writers who made their reading public through their writing.
This is how it happens here--you ask anybody--some government figure may come and start playing the flute and he will be hailed by the music critics as a greater flute player than Chaurasia or Pannalal Ghosh! One fellow was writing about law, and his writing was recognized as the finest writing in Hindi prose; another fellow was writing about religious problems--he was again awarded a major prize and his writing was judged the best. If you remember, the same thing was happening in Russia--like Brezhnev at one time, his book on collectivization was given the highest literary award! It has to change, it will change, but it is taking its toll. It is very ironic, really: people now say that culture will be at the heart of civilization, and it is true that there is a lot of money these days for culture, if you look at the budgets. And here in Delhi or other political centers there is a lot of money for festivals and book releases.
Sometimes I think it is criminal--there are so many talented, brilliant writers who are lost.
But at the same time the state of real writers....for example, recently a very prominent Hindi short story writer, Shailesh Matiyani, died in pain in Shahdara in a mental hospital--he was penniless. They don't have any fellowships for writers, they don't give any support for writers who are surviving on their writing--but I tell you they can spend millions on halwais for sweets and samosa, on tenthouse-wallahs, for ticketing for all these celebrations of culture! Sometimes I think it is criminal--there are so many talented, brilliant writers who are lost. In my mind, any organized, systematic program for promoting culture should consider these problems also. You cannnot think of a culture factory running without the workers--who are the workers? We authors and writers we are like labourers or farmers--like Premchand used to say, "Main bhaasha ka mazdoor hoon, aur mazdooron ka dost hoon".
Arnab Chakladar: Related to these questions of writing in a common language, about people on the margins (and people have described as someone who is following in the steps of Premchand) is this a conscious decision you made early on?
Uday Prakash: No, and let me tell you at first I was accused more of violating Premchand's legacy, and by most critics I have been put almost as a counterpoint to Premchand as though I am opposing his tradition. But it was not conscious. What I certainly do sometimes is write about a kind of subaltern reality. I see flyovers and metro rail being made, but I also see my village. So it is not conscious, but a natural choice of material. Big dams are made and 5 crore people are displaced. If you come into Delhi early in the morning and look at the people shitting on the railway tracks--but you'll also see that 3 out of 10 of these who don’t have sanitation facilities will have a mobile. So this kind of technological changes, they really don't mean much to me. These are the ironies, anomalies--the paradoxes of my time which I write about in my fiction and poetry. And in some ways it is not so different from Premchand. I no longer see sahukars and mahajans in my village, like Premchand did, but there are rural banks, which give money on very liberal terms to villagers--but the same banks act as ruthless sahukars: when crops fail, they go and auction their lands and sell their houses. You know, few things have changed, but the suffering of many people in India has not changed much. For anyone who is sensitive...I don't belong to any politics now, I don't have any ideology, but definitely one thing I have is the love of human life--I share people's joys, their sorrows, and it is something I write about.