Inside out

The Servants Shirt is a voice of anguish against an exploitative system that refuses to change, says Vinod Kumar ShuklaVinod Kumar Shukla...

The Servants Shirt is a voice of anguish against an exploitative system that refuses to change, says Vinod Kumar Shukla

Vinod Kumar Shukla feels his knowledge of world literature is limited. So much so that he wasn8217;t even aware that his novel, The Servant8217;s Shirt, recently translated by Satti Khanna, has been nominated for the Crossword Book Award in the regional category. Yet, he writes with only his reader in mind.
quot;Writing was the only way I could reach out to people. My works are a cementing bond with people.quot; People8217; are crucial to Shukla8217;s ideology. quot;I cannot keep myself detached from the ordinary man8217;s travails the mass experience.quot;

Is that what The Servant8217;s Shirt is all about? The humdrum life of man?
quot;Santu Babu, a junior clerk, the protagonist, is one of us. He belongs to a mundane world of hierarchical, lower middle class living, having to cope with family responsibilities and whims of the boss. The story is as real as it isimaginary.quot; Yet the unique flavour of small town India can8217;t be missed.

Shukla has spent all his life in Raipur 8212; does his life parallel Babu8217;s in any manner?
quot;Yes, there is a lot of myself in Santu. But I8217;ve drawn from many other characters I know. Imagination cannot be divorced from reality. The book has situations that I have gone through myself. For the rest, the imaginary8217; situations, I have had to live their lives. And that is a very real experience.quot;

What is flesh-and-blood real here?
As a professor of Agricultural Extension at the Agricultural University at Raipur, quot;my profession left no room for creative freedomquot;. quot;But I kept writing. My brother showed some of my poems to Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh, a renowned writer of the time. He wasn8217;t impressed but I didn8217;t stop writing. Gradually, writing became a liberating, exhilarating experience.quot; And Lagbhag Jaihind, a collection of poems, was published.

How long did his first novel take?
quot;I was given one year8217;s leave.I spent six months trying to learn typing, which, finally, I couldn8217;t. The remaining six months, I just wrote.quot; From start to finish. The Servant8217;s Shirt took him just six months.

Another vitriolic piece, full of satire?
quot;It is annoyance, more than satire, directed at an exploitative system. An anguish and helplessness at values that refuse to change.quot;

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Is there any anguish or annoyance about Mani Kaul8217;s film version of the book?
quot;It must be a good film, because I know Mani Kaul has worked very hard on it.quot; Shot in Raigarh and recently released at the Kochi Film Festival and later at the Asian Film Festival in Delhi, the film hasn8217;t made it to Shukla yet.

In any case, Shukla is busy with his next book, Nacha, based on the nacha8217; satire tradition of Chhattisgarh.
quot;I have always been fascinated by the nacha8217; performers. The ground beneath is their stage. They are constantly ridiculing life8217;s sorrows. They grow up in the tradition and their lives revolve around it.Their drama is spontaneous and it touches a chord in me. So I decided to work out a story around characters from a nacha8217; play.quot;

At 63, writer Vinod Shukla still aspires quot;to be honest to my own experiences and those of othersquot; whenever he puts pen to paper.