Tribute | The singularity of author Vinod Kumar Shukla

Author Ashutosh Bhardwaj, successful a 2023 nonfiction successful The Hindu, notes that erstwhile helium made the “pilgrimage” to the location of Hindi literate elephantine Vinod Kumar Shukla, on with his histrion person Sushant Singh, Shukla asked Singh if helium could interaction him to guarantee helium was so the aforesaid idiosyncratic helium had seen connected television.

It indispensable person generated a giddy feeling successful Singh, and Bhardwaj indispensable person savoured this brushwood arsenic 1 among the precious moments successful his writerly life. 

However, if 1 scrutinises this effect successful narration to Shukla’s literate works, it becomes wide however — and wherefore — the writer was capable to illuminate the mean successful his works, dissimilar his contemporaries oregon different writers earlier him. Shukla, victor of the 2023 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement successful International Literature, approached everything successful beingness with a childlike curiosity. This funny kid near the satellite connected December 23, 2025. 

In A Window Lived successful a Wall (2005), translated by Satti Khanna, Shukla’s protagonist Raghuvar Prasad arranges a heap of bricks “to spot that helium was not successful his room”.

Re-reading this caller aft Shukla’s demise, it made maine funny if, from determination acold away, the writer was observing his lack from the look of the earth. He had done truthful overmuch successful his literature. He could bash this arsenic well.

The ‘self-metaphorising’ imagery

Shukla’s penning acrophobic places and radical that helium observed keenly. He was calved successful Rajnandgaon and lived successful Raipur. “They are 2 cities connected the map, but successful his imaginativeness they are one. As helium says successful his effort ‘Old Veranda’, “The aged veranda of our location successful Rajnandgaon is present successful the location successful Raipur.” Arvind Krishna Mehrotra and Sara Rai enactment this successful the instauration to their translation of Shukla’s Blue Is Like Blue: Stories (2019).

If successful Shukla’s fiction, bicycles could person consciousness, a brace of slippers could spell connected looking for their owner, and a antheral could look astatine his lack successful his country erstwhile extracurricular the room, past wherefore couldn’t the Rajnandgaon veranda beryllium successful Raipur?

Shukla wasn’t funny successful projection oregon transposition. He didn’t rearrange radical and objects successful his stories to ascribe meaning to the former’s actions oregon render immoderate signifier of meaningful beingness to the latter. He toyed with experiences and shared possibilities. For example, coins would bare themselves from their owner’s pouch “whether they were successful his pouch oregon not” (The Windows successful Our House Are Little Doors, 2020).

It bears asking, then, if galore writers bash that, however tin 1 assertion that Shukla wrote similar Shukla? Mehrotra, successful his instauration titled ‘Grass Lives Next to Grass’ for Treasurer of Piggy Banks (2024), a prime translation of Shukla’s poems for the Literary Activism bid by Westland Books, provides the astir definitive answer. He writes, “In the poems of Lagbhag Jai Hind [trs Almost Jai Hind] are lines like: This flock of ducks/ was similar a duck./ It had a duck’s measure and wings and Six successful the greeting was similar six successful the morning. The lines are unsocial to Shukla, similar a fingerprint.”

The “self-metaphorising” imagery successful Shukla’s penning made “[a] enactment of Shukla” work “like a enactment of Shukla”. His works portion themselves of immoderate different comparisons, which is possibly wherefore if idiosyncratic would’ve said that his works punctual them of immoderate European avant-garde writer, creator oregon movie, Shukla wouldn’t person thing to connection arsenic a response.

In his writing, Shukla wasted fewer words. Often, it appears that helium had a hard clip saying each that determination was for him to say. Mohini Gupta, successful an effort titled ‘The Caged Bird’, recollects Shukla lamenting the information that helium couldn’t assistance “gather [him]self completely” fixed truthful overmuch of what helium wanted to accidental was “scattered each implicit the place”. 

Whatever is reflected oregon refracted from that scattering is inactive significant. In fact, it’s a blessing for Shukla’s readers, who whitethorn arsenic good beryllium wondering if their maverick writer did adhere to what helium professed successful his 2021 caller A Silent Place: “Stop earlier you’ve finished saying each determination is to say.”

The writer is simply a Delhi-based queer writer and civilization critic.