100 year of Shrilal Shukla: Remembering the bard of 'Raag Darbari'

New Delhi, Dec 30 (PTI) Hindi writer Shrilal Shukla’s timeless classic “Raag Darbari” was initially met with sneers in some corners of the Hindi literary world, as leading authors and critics like Nemichand Jain put it down as "noise of discontent" and Sripat Rai termed it "great novel of great boredom".

Not only did Shukla go on to win the Sahitya Akademi award next year in 1969, the biting satire has stood the test of time and is one of Hindi literature's most read and translated novels.

Shukla, whose 100th birth anniversary is on Wednesday, became synonymous with his 1968 book, now considered a landmark in Hindi satirical writing. Shukla, who died in 2011, wrote over 25 books, including ”Makaan”, “Sooni Ghaati Ka Sooraj”, “Pehla Padaav” and “Bishrampur Ka Sant”.

In a 2005 collection of essays titled “Shrilal Shukla: Jeevan Hi Jeevan”, the IAS officer, born in Mohanlal Ganj in Uttar Pradesh, recalled that the novel “kept him sick” for almost six years, turning him into an outcast, as he acted like a “responsible householder with a mistress”.

"Living day and night with those boorish characters, my tongue became worn. Respectable women sometimes raised their eyebrows at me at the dinner table, and I began to avoid my family, and my family began to avoid me. My problem was that no place seemed appropriate for writing the book.

"So, I left my house to my wife, children, relatives, and other well-wishers, and took a separate flat, parked my car in a desolate area, and used its seat for months,” Shukla wrote in the book.

"Raag Darbari", set in the fictional village of Shivpalganj, presented a critique of the Indian power structure where the village becomes a metaphor for a nation that has failed both in governance and morality.

The sharp critique of India’s socio-political structure was made memorable through its characters that lack moral and ethical balance, are shorn of “civility”, and form a collective portrait of a society where corruption is normalised, ideals are ornamental, and survival depends on adaptation rather than integrity.

Talking about Shukla’s contribution to Hindi literature, poet and critic Ashok Vajpeyi said that the writer "shattered the myth surrounding development in India".

"What he did in 'Raag Darbari' – showing how this so-called development was riddled with paradoxes, corruption, delays, negligence, carelessness, and inertia, and how it affected people's everyday lives – was truly significant," Vajpeyi told PTI.

Shukla was also one of the chroniclers of modernity in Hindi literature, he added.

"If we look at the last 100 years of Hindi literature, Shrilal Shukla is undoubtedly one of its great luminaries. He primarily wrote prose and was a major novelist. In a way, these 100 years also mark 100 years of modernity in Hindi literature – modernity itself is roughly that old. So, he was not only a part of modernity but also one of its chroniclers,” Vajpeyi said.

Ashok Maheshwari, chairperson and managing director, Rajkamal Prakashan, noted that Shukla showed a village life that other writers of the time, including Premchand and Maithili Sharan Gupta, did not.

“‘Raag Darbari' shows the ugliness or deformities afflicting our villages, which exist to this day, the political manipulations, the difficulties people face in village life, all presented realistically. This makes it a relevant novel even today,” he said.

A running theme in his works was the exploration of the moral and political decay in Indian society.

In “Makaan”, sitar player Narayan Banerjee remains torn between artistic purity and worldly success. “Bishrampur Ka Sant” delves into post-independence India's democratic failures, showing how power corrupts through the central character of Kunwar Jaytiprasad Singh, a former landlord and governor.

Novelist Asghar Wajahat said that if one wants to understand Shukla they should read not just 'Raag Darbari' but other works as well.

“He is very well known for his novel ‘Raag Darbari’, but his other works are also very important. And if you want to understand him, then one has to read not only ‘Raag Darbari’ but also his other works — only then can you judge him correctly,” he said.

The author received the Vyas Samman in 1999 for “Bishrampur ka Sant”, the Padma Bhushan in 2008, and the Jnanpith Award in 2011.

Stark realism, draped in satire, was Shukla’s ink to portray a people who he neither romanticised for being oppressed nor demonised for their power, allowing irony itself to carry the weight of his critique.

As he concludes his most memorable work, “Raag Darbari”, Shukla writes to the middle class man who is stuck in the mud of an immoral society to run and hide in a world where “many intellectuals lay eyes closed”, or in the pages of history, or in buildings, resorts, and hotels that run never-ending seminars.

"Jahan bhi jagah mile, jakar chhip jao. Bhago, bhago, bhago. Yatharth Tumhara piccha kar raha hai (Hide wherever you can. Run, run, run. Reality is chasing you).” PTI MAH MIN BK BK