Nirmal Varma
A Hindi Author on the Shores of Modernity

THOMAS DE BRUIJN al Varma, April 2001

The perception of Indian culture outside South Asia has changed radically in the last decade. The success of Indian authors in English fiction writing has reached unprecedented heights and a western audience is rapidly discovering the attractions of Indian cinema. The verbal and visual 'masala' of these cultural products fascinates audiences worldwide, but also somewhat obscures the presence of an extensive cultural and intellectual discourse that is expressed in literary writing in Indian languages other than English.

* By THOMAS DE BRUIJN

In France, recent initiatives try to present a more balanced image of Indian writing. In April of this year, the literary festival Salon du Livre du Sud, in the town of Villeneuve-sur-Lot was devoted to Indian writing and invited prominent Indian authors who write in native languages of the subcontinent, such as Ambai, U.R. Anandamurthy, and Nirmal Varma. Next year, the prestigious national festival Les Belles Étrangeres will invite a large group of authors from India who will present their work in various places all over France.

Nirmal Varma, April 2001

Thus, it will provide an impression of India's rich contemporary literary production. Last April, I had the opportunity to meet the authors who had been invited for the festival in Villeneuve-sur-Lot as they stayed back in Paris for a few days, and had a more extensive conversation with the prominent Hindi author, Nirmal Varma. In the interview, his experiences of the encounter with the French audience, the state of modern Indian writing, his place in modern Hindi fiction, and many other issues came up. Nirmal Varma (1929) was born in Shimla in the mountains of northern India and studied at St Stephen's College in New Delhi, a place where many intellectuals and artists from post-Independence India were educated. In 1959, when he had already published stories in magazines, he was invited by the Czech Oriental Institute in Prague to come and translate Czech authors into Hindi. He stayed in Prague until 1971, a period in which he established himself as one of the most gifted Hindi authors of his generation. In 1986, he was awarded the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award. Varma wrote a number of novels, many short stories, critical essays, travelogues, and other works. His latest novel, Antim Aranya (The Last Forest) appeared this year.

Nirmal Varma belongs to a generation of Hindi writers who emerged in the 1950s and '60s and opposed the idealism of earlier writers by bringing realism and high modernism to Indian writing. Although the influence of Western literature was significant, their objective was to create a modern Indian literature that reflected the great changes in Indian society. They met with strong reactions by literary critics who denounced their innovations as 'un-Indian'.

Varma has always chosen his own path and objects to being associated with the influential literary movements of his time such as Nayi Kahani (New Short Story): 'The changes in the new fiction were not as radical as the innovations that happened earlier in Hindi poetry of the Naya Kavya (New Poetry) movement', 'Rakesh, Yadava and others are fine writers, but I was never a part of this movement, they always looked at me as an outsider.' From the early 1960s onwards, he produced a body of Hindi fiction, unequivocally modern and realist. It conveys in great subtlety the anguish caused by the '...gulf between me and the other...' in relationships between family members or between individuals in general in Indian society: 'This is not a social issue, but something in the human species.' Varma's descriptions of this predicament adds a universal, metaphysical quality. It may seem like existentialism from the works by Camus or Sartre but, rather, it describes an alienating experience that is rooted in the specific Indian situation. 'The way the problem of loneliness is tackled in my stories is very different from the way an Englishman or Frenchman would do it, it is stylistically different because the characters I choose are rooted in the Indian family system in which this whole drama of interrelationships takes place. So Indianness comes in a very indirect manner: I do not make a conscious attempt to make my stories Indian. I forget that I am an Indian when I am writing. The fact that it is difficult for a son to confront his father is very much an Indian thing, but it also has a universal side.'

'I do not have to consciously become Indian; the moment I start writing in Hindi, it is part of a tradition ...'

His long stay in Europe has brought Varma into contact with many prominent European authors and artists of the time, including the Czech dissident writers such as Havel, Kundera, and Klima. Many influences are present in his work, but they do not dominate the description of the emotional state and cultural outlook of his characters. Varma's works are set in Europe, feature European as well as Indian characters, but effortlessly convey universal aspects of their situation. Other themes that come up in his works are feelings of alienation that are the result of thwarted expectations for guidance and solace from a value-system or moral authority that is no longer able to provide this, as is the case in modern Indian society. Another theme is the irreparable loss of childhood and its particular outlook on life, which reveals a sense of identity that is lost thereafter. In this way, Varma provides a very natural bridge between a modernist style of writing and being relevant to an Indian audience.

In Varma's eyes, the success of English-language fiction writers from India is not always dependent on its literary quality but on the fact that they write in a language which has global importance and, therefore, attracts more attention. In his view, the use of Indian languages connects authors with an old tradition: 'Language is not merely a language in which you write, but it is something in which an entire traditional world of a person is reflected. The modern word carries the resonance and echoes of the past and that is not available to the English writer.'

In his own recent work, Varma is constantly exploring new areas and wants to write about them in Hindi, not any other language: '...Hindi is no barrier, it gives me the space...'. 'I do not have to consciously become Indian; the moment I start writing in Hindi, it is part of a tradition, if I like it or not.' 'An English writer has to consciously bring in Indian motifs in his writing, which is artificial and makes it very false.'

Varma acknowledges the problems in bringing Hindi literature to a larger audience outside India. Although translations are available, they are few and not always of the best in Indian writing. He was very pleased that recently a French translation of his novel Ek Cithara Sukh (A Rag of Happiness) by the French Hindi scholar Annie Montaut has been published (see list of translated works). His work is particularly difficult to translate, as his use of Hindi is known for its remarkable fluidity and semantic richness. Subtle depictions of the emotional anguish of his characters are matched with evocative descriptions of the landscapes or urban surroundings of his stories. The mountains around Shimla often feature as a backdrop for his work, providing a timeless, stable counterpoint to the emotional turmoil of his characters. The muffled indirectness in his portrayal of emotional stress reflects the Indian context, according to the author. As opposed to Western culture, verbal expression is not always an option in Indian society and characters have to come to terms with their pain in silence. Some commentators have gone further and connected this quietist reflection in Varma's work to Indian philosophical concepts.

Nirmal Varma is a very well-respected author who, like most Indian authors, is also active as literary critic and writes essays on various cultural issues. During his years in Prague, the scene of Hindi writing was dominated by the rise of a group of innovative writers and the intense debate with more conservative critics. He did not participate in the literary circles that formed around prominent authors of that time. Being mainly interested in literary quality he is not always happy with the tone of the critical debate in India, which is very much divided along lines of political preference. His wide literary interests are evident in his literary essays and discussions with other Indian authors and critics. A point which he constantly emphasizes is the following paradox: the Indian cultural past is present in everyday life, while the Indian author is very much disconnected from this tradition. In contrast, the Western author is much more aware of his own roots and traditions, even if he lives in a much more modernized society.

When asked about his view on the present state and the future of Hindi writing, Nirmal Varma sees enough movement and innovation: 'Each period has brought its changes and specific themes: the 1950s and 1960s were the period of the influence of the French existentialists, now the magical realist writing of Marquez and Borges is an example for Hindi writers.' For him, labels such as post-modernism are not very relevant as he is more interested in what new writers have to say and is impressed by new authors such as Dhruva Shukla, Udaya Prakasha, Surendra Varma, or Udayana Vajpeyi. 'There is quite an enlargement of the fictional imagination in modern Hindi literature, which was not there in the fifties and sixties...An example is the novel by Surendra Varma, Mujhe cand cahiye, (I want just so much) the struggle of a young woman from the provincial backwaters, how she tries to make it in the Bombay film industry and asserts her femininity.' He also sees the spread of Hindi in the Indian diaspora as a potential for a future for Hindi literature. *

A small excerpt from the story: Andhere mem, (Under cover of darkness, 1960). The story relates the experiences of a child growing up in the mountains near Shimla, who witnesses the strained relationships between his parents. It describes the perceptions of a confused and frightened boy: his fear for a possible divorce of his parents, their affairs, and his alienation from his mother. When the child’s illness is over and the family moves to Delhi, this period with its intense and fragile emotions is closed forever.

Her arms were white and smooth like marble, and I was always a bit shy when touching them. She would pull her hair back really tight, which made her head seem very broad and made a straight division in the middle when I saw that I would often be sad. Her ears were very tiny, like the ears of a doll and she hid them under her hair. When she would come and lay beside me, I would uncover her ears from under her hair. I remembered Bano's words and a light shiver spread over my entire body. Bano had said one day: 'Those who have small ears will die soon.' I did not mention this to my mother, but I imagined that, when she would be dying, I would tell her that her death was due only to her having small ears.

From those days of my illness, I often remember this one evening even though nothing in particular happened during that evening which I can remember. When we started on our way back, uncle Biren came along for a while. When my mother indicated that we would be able to go the rest by ourselves, he turned back. My mother and I silently climbed up the road for a while. With large strides I had gone ahead. After walking for a while I suddenly held my pace. It seemed as though my mother was no longer following me. I turned around and started to walk back. In the darkness my heart had started to pound violently.

After descending a while I suddenly stopped I stood and peered anxiously into the darkness. My mother stood there in a bend in the road, leaning over the railing that was attached to the side of the road the border of her sari was lifted up by the wind and had come down on her shoulder totally lost in her own thoughts she stared downwards...

Down the slope it stood there the cottage of uncle Biren, which appeared empty and deserted in the hazy evening light. The grass on the lawn glittered in the dim beam of light coming from the window in the library.

For a while we stood there in the evening dusk in total silence, then suddenly my mother turned around and started to walk on her gait was so abated that it seemed for a moment that that she was sleep-walking.

She came towards me and with her eyes turned upwards looked at me for a long instance with her a distraught, powerless look. Then she pulled me towards her with great force and started to kiss me again and again with cold, dry lips.

(All translations by Thomas de Bruijn)

The following works of Nirmal Varma are available in translation:

Maya Darpan and Other Stories. Delhi: Oxford University Press (1986).

The World Elsewhere and Other Stories, Columbia and Los Angeles: Readers International (1988).

Nirmal Verma, Un Bonheur en Lambeaux, translated by A. Montaut, Marseille: Actes du Sud (2000).

Dr Thomas de Bruijn is a specialist in early and modern Hindi and Urdu literature, was the Guest Editor for the special theme issue on South Asian Literature in IIAS Newsletter 21, and was, until 15 October 2001, an affiliated fellow with the IIAS, Leiden.

E-mail: Th.de.Bruijn@let.leidenuniv.nl

Nirmal Varma A Hindi Author on the Shores of Modernity

Nirmal Varma
A Hindi Author on the Shores of Modernity