Stories of Kathakar Shivmurti :हिंदी कथाकार शिवमूर्ति: Human Sensibilities

Stories of Human Sensibilities

“The intensity and concentrated presence of poignant, pitiful and tragic expressions & perceptions permeating Shivmurti’s stories are due to their retainment in him for a long time. It seems that in Shivmurti’s life such moments were either experienced by himself or by his acquaintances which continued to get imprinted in his mind. When his heart could no longer bear to retain such experiences and grief he felt the acute need to share it and therefore brought his personal experiences into public domain. “

One of the intended purposes of creative literature has been to protect and enrich human sensibility. In this sense Shivmurti can be categorized as a storyteller of human sensibilities. In fact, the central theme of Shivmurti’s fiction is the protection and enrichment of human sensibility. The progression of the tradition of Muktibodh’s idea of Samvedanaatamak Gyan and Gyanaatmak Samvedana i.e. learning earned through empathy and empathy acquired by knowledge is quite discernable in the fictional world of Shivmurti. Even though we cannot pronounce any literary personality to be insensitive but Shivmurti, in his stories, is seen to have a greater appreciation of human sensibilities. This deeper understanding makes him stand out among the contemporary writers of Hindi prose. His sensitivity is not only limited to humans but it also envelops equally the world of animals and objects. An intense commitment to the surrounding world is continuously felt while reading him.

Shivmurti’s stories tend to present our primitive desires within the framework of ancient Indian tradition of storytelling. In his stories we can see not only a few primitive values of Indian storytelling but some primitive aspirations as well .In spite of the progress of human civilization, underneath overlapping layers of our sub-conscious mind, a weakened desire for the scent of that primitive life continues to exist in all of us. Shivmurti’s stories serve the purpose of moistening the very same vulnerable gaps that exist between the successive layers of our mind. The desire for justice seems to be a primitive desire. The central voice that emanates from Shivmurti’s work is the desire for justice. A feeling of ‘Undeserved Suffering’ is seen to pervade all his stories. Shivmurti’s characters get punished for reasons they are not responsible in any way. He gives space to people deprived of basic human rights in his stories. In the midst of humans he narrates stories of their inhuman and animalistic instincts. With the progress of human civilization, the tale of how such primitive desires gradually get so ruthlessly sidelined by man’s greed is told in Shivmurti’s stories.

Shivmurti’s storytelling seems to bear characteristics of the Indian narrative tradition too.

If the desire for justice that I was discussing above in context of his stories is combined with the courage of his characters, then we also get to see an image of Amtrya Sen’s ‘Argumentative Indian’, reflected in Shivmurti’s literary work. Yet another book written by Amtrya Sen is ‘The Idea of Justice’. Variations of these two streams of thought are quite discernable in Shivmurti’s stories. On the cover page of ‘Kesar Kasturi’, it is written in context of Shivmurti’s narrative style, that “As a naturalist he seems quite close to Emile Zola , while the vivid portrayal of his characters makes him comparable to Gorky”. But his pen makes me remember of Anton Chekhov and O Henry. Just as Chekhov, through an accurate use of short sentences, accomplished the work of coming to grips with reality, Shivmurti too is quite similar in terms of structural layout of the sentences in his stories (Brief and Direct) and at the level of treatment of his stories he seems to me quite close to O Henry. Just as in O Henry’s stories we get to relish a kind of ‘Surprise’, the twist and turns that come in Shivmurti’s stories, create a similar sort of uncertainty. Similar to O Henry, Shivmurti too, quite frequently startles us with the end of his stories. (Kindly consider the comparisons with Chekhov and O Henry only on grounds of my perception of the art and craft of his stories). In mainstream Hindi literature he is recognized to be belonging to the literary traditions of Fanishwar Nath ‘Renu’. At the superficial level it seems correct too. But on the issue of villages, along with Renu, numerous examples of convergence with the literary tradition of Premchand can equally be highlighted. Actually to analyze and categorize on the basis of various preexisting literary traditions is an age old practice in Hindi Literature. It provides quite a few benefits at the same time. First as a writer you immediately get associated with an ideology or a group. Henceforth instead of discussing your personal virtues or faults you get automatically adorned with a predefined set of specialties. Even though possessing lot many similarities with the literary works of Renu and Premchand , Shivmurti has been in his own league. While on one hand the overwhelming presence of the village and the farmer in Shivmurti’s story world associates him with Premchand, the use of a regional dialect and its sonority aligns him with Renu on the other. But such apparent similarities are superficial in nature. Or it can be said that seen from these viewpoints it’s relatively easy to get one associated with the likes of Premchand or Renu.

The basic stipulation for including a writer into a particular literary tradition should be his belief or ideology rather than his literary skills or narrative style. Seen from this perspective the following statement of Shivmurti is noteworthy -“My outlook is not guided by a predefined belief or ideology. Its only while living life in its intensity and innocence that my creative inclinations get embodied. The past reality was that Kasaibada’s Dalit woman Shanichari was treacherously murdered, her land is usurped. Today’s reality is in ‘Tarpan’. When the next generation of characters like Shanichari , in the form of  Rajpatia in Tarpan  are subjected to similar kind of  brute force, all the Dailts of the village gather in support of him. They not only unite but also jointly face all the difficulties in the ensuing fight. In order to win the fight they do not hesitate to take support of anything. In doing so, the question of right or wrong seems a little irrelevant now. For them any kind of support that gives them an edge over their opponents is correct. Earlier it was a bit abstract but now the hamlet stands divided between two opponents. Caste based equations have emerged in the frontline. The change that came from 1980 till 2000 is quite apparent in my stories…. I am saying it in context of ‘Tarpan’. The emerging world of reality after this time period would be in my upcoming stories & novels … and from it you can very well understand my outlook. The kind of maturity that existed when ‘Bharat Natyam’ was written was different. Then voices that wanted to know the statistics of grief and pain were unheard of. What is the reason? The kind of conspiracies that existed behind the skewed ratio of agricultural cost versus productivity! I mean what game is being played behind the scenes? … Today things are being looked at from these perspectives. Grief-stricken Dalits are uniting. Having forged a unity, they are coming forward.” (Naya Gyanodya, Jan 2008, pg 107). The game allegedly being played behind the scenes often tends to be an abstraction rather an actual experience. When such games are to be busted in literary stories or novels it has to be done within the precincts of fiction. Seen from this angle, fiction seems to be the fundamental characteristic of Shivmurti. However Shivmurti is a writer who gives precedence to actual experience over an abstract thought, yet in his novels we get to see an appropriate assimilation of experience and  perception .There may be other complaints for example if we consider ‘Trishul’ which I think is rather weak when compared with Shivmurti’s other novels. Reason for it is his unfocussed approach in the novel. The kind of assimilation or proportional relationship that needed to be built between the casteist policies and religious activism was missing. A distinct characteristic of Shivmurti, to first validate and then assimilate a thought perception into an actual experience through a long drawn process of introspection before incorporating it into his storyline, doesn’t seem to happen here. It is seen moving at many places at the level of a mere perception. But if we talk of his two successive novels ‘Tarpan’ and ‘Akhiri Chalang’, this lacuna is totally absent. I rate ‘Tarpan’ higher than the other.’Tarpan’, alone is capable of emphasizing the literary style of Shivmurti in totality. The kind of structural cohesiveness present in ‘Tarpan’ is praiseworthy. In ’Tarpan’, Shivmurti has illustrated the emerging political consciousness of Dalits unifying themselves along with their internal contradictions. Another interesting aspect of Shivmurti’s Dalit consciousness is the noticeable absence of any reference to Babasaheb Bheem Rao Ambedkar, while the influence of Mahatama Gandhi is attributed at quite a few places. Any creative work that truly claims to be an authentic document  representing  a particular time period must have along with others, two main attributes .First is the complex totality of the historical reality and secondly the complex totality of ideological reality. It need not be said that in ‘Tarpan’ , both these attributes are present . For this reason one can, not only understand the emergence of Dalit consciousness, but also draw an accurate inference of its limitations and possibilities. It is indeed a remarkable novel from the perspective of understanding the emergence of Dalit consciousness in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. The way it comes into grip with the politico-social undercurrents of its time, it successfully crosses the threshold of literature to reach social science. Seen from this perspective, Shivmurti can actually be seen carrying forward the legacy of Premchand and Renu.

Shivmurti, commenting on the process involved in composing his stories has remarked –“First and foremost the story flashes in my mind in the form of an aphorism. Having seen an incident, a discussion or a sequence … specially its context or its basic assertion evolves in me as a landscape. Then starts the process of putting together such multiple landscapes into a logical sequence … next is knitting them into each other … then comes the work of bringing credibility and spontaneity into the storyline. More often then not the final draft is about a fifth of the first one. Even so a small portion of it is left after a final bottom-line retrenchment …. But one thing I would like to emphasize that the character is unreservedly the central pivot of my stories. My stories are predominately character based. Whatever has been done in my stories is basically to describe its characters. … My stories essentially talk about my characters.” ( Manch ,Jan-March 2011,pg 154 ). In the above statement of Shivmurti there are three important clues by which we can proceed to recognize the underlying pattern of his stories. First, the manifestation of his story as an aphorism happens and then the emergence of its contextual landscape takes place. For this reason the origin of shivmurti’s stories cannot be attributed to any particular preexisting tangible literary source or inspiration. Secondly, the assiduous preservation of credibility and spontaneity during the course of knitting is important. This also in fact accounts for the readability of his work. Thirdly the basis of existence of his stories is its characters which points to his earnestness. Characters cannot be convincingly laid out in a story unless we are deeply affected by them or they have deeply touched our sensibilities. In each and every story of Shivmurti we come across at least one character that successfully touches the filaments of our sensitivity. How does it become possible in each of his story? Actually the secret behind successfully nudging his reader’s sensitivity or impacting their mind with his stories lies in the narrative style of Shivmurti. One noticeable aspect of his character based stories is that the central character in these stories enjoys the emotional support of its author. Though it may sound quite simple but to make it possible in course of the storyline is quite difficult. These characters which enjoy a deep emotional connect with the writer must have lived with him for quite sometime. Consider the time gap between Shivmurti’s successive stories ,’Kasaibada’ 1980, ‘Bharat Natyam’ 1981, ‘Siri Upma Jog ‘ 1984 , ‘Tiriyacharittar’ 1987, ‘Kesar Kasturi’ 1991,’Akal Dand’ 1992 etc. It can be safely derived by looking at the intervening time that Shivmurti is a storyteller who experiences and nurtures his characters for a significant time before putting them unto paper. These characters, before being written about, live as citizens on a conceptual level in the mind of Shivmurti and then when they are finally introduced to us they do not seem sculptured but quite natural and realistic. There is yet another way in which characters are treated in Shivmurti’s work, the name of characters carrying a negative shade is minimally used, the emphasis is rather on their position, their strength, and their influence etc. Along with being fellow characters they also seem to be a living symbol of inequities of our times. It’s not without reason that in stories of Shivmurti Leader, Headman, Secretary, Neta, Inspector, Administrator, ADM Sahib, Contractor, Priest, Councilor, Bhaiji Etc are not referred by their proper names. Actually Shivmurti is also making us realize that if any person attains an eminent position in the society then his primary identity becomes his position itself. Although they do give a feel of being humans, but fundamentally they have been transformed into their positions. Their sensibilities have unexpectedly gone dry. For this reason Shivmurti likes to refer them by their respective positions and not by their personal names. Readers reap a two pronged benefit from it. First, their sensibilities get seamlessly connected with characters such as Shanichari, Surji, Vimili, Kesar etc and at a different level, characters that are the cause of their grief and agony quite easily become the symbols of the establishment. Seen from this perspective, unlike other storytellers, in Shivmurti’s stories, readers quite easily get this dual opportunity of blanket generalization. On a checkerboard of ever evolving equations at the local level, life of a common man gets transformed into a mere pawn that is destined to be used and sacrificed. The python of the establishment having firmly constricted such incapacitated people in between its body, proceeds at an unhurried pace to swallow them. Readers are left with no option but to be a mute witness to such happenings. The perplexity, helplessness and the inabilities of these characters grips its readers. In this way even after having read the full story it continues to haunt us for quite sometime. An observation of an English writer Cyrus Mistry viz a viz fiction seems quite applicable to Shivmurti’s literary work-“Fiction should be able to move its reader at some fundamental level .to disturb and rearrange his outlook on life ,perhaps even change him as a person ….”. Shivmurti’s stories does the job of taking its audience to that fundamental level from where Cyrus Mistry hopes for the rest…Apart from this we can recognize many distinct characteristics of Shivmuti’s narrative style . First Shivmurti’s treatment of reality in his stories is distinct from his contemporary writers for example before depicting a reality in his stories he makes them feel more lighter and analogous. In other words before communicating a particular reality to his readers, he brings it to the level of experience and makes it look an integral part of the story. If this needs to better understood then one should read Shivmurti’s ’Barkas Sanjeev’ , as to how he makes reality feel lighter and relatable. Secondly in popular Hindi literature, Shivmurti is a remarkable storyteller who very minutely understands the behavior and psychology of animals. Even though the influential in his stories are recognized by their position in society, animals however are given names. In every story the presence of animals is recognized in some way or the other. To draw a comparison with the behavior and attitude of his human characters, he often gives precedence to that of the animals. Thirdly, Shivmurti is not a storyteller of idioms but of popular folk sayings and proverbs. A concentrated distillate of the very essence of life is obtained after distilling such popular folk sayings and proverbs through a filter of successive layers of human civilization. Shivmurti likes to use such popular sayings and proverbs to present the philosophy of life in the form of aphorisms. The usage of such local folk sayings and proverbs also serve the purpose of increasing the intrinsic value of his Hindi dialect to make it even more spectacular. If we haven’t forgotten the humanistic values found in the animal world of Panchantra and Hitopedesha ,if we take into consideration the usage of slang language , Avadhi or Brij dialects to make Hindi an active medium of mass communication , and if we keep in mind Shivmurti’s narrative style instead of his storytelling , then it can be rightly accepted that in Shivmurti’s stories we get to hear the reverberations of our ancient Indian values. For this reason I can find some discernable traces of ancient Indian tradition of storytelling in Shivmurti’s work. Some of the reasons for the presence of mass appeal in Shivmurti’s stories are to be found here. The fourth characteristic of Shivmurti’s narrative style is his knowledge of the artfulness of women. An understanding of a woman’s desires her sensibilities, nature, disposition and her conduct. This virtue of Shivmurti makes him unrivalled among his contemporary writers of Hindi prose. This assertion can be validated by his lone collection of stories ‘Kesar Kasturi ‘published in 1991 which is a collection of six stories. Among them, apart from ‘Bharat Natyam’, the rest of the stories are directly or indirectly addressed to the existence of a women .Women are found sporting varied colors in Shivmurti’s stories. Fifth is the Dalit perspective .The rise in the collective consciousness of Dalits in the state of U.P. after the decade of eighties can be seen in totality along with its inner contradictions, in the works of Shivmurti.

The locol color that permeates the work of writers hailing from the Awadh region of Northern India is to be similarly found in Shivmurti’s work but with a difference. The difference being that Shivmurti does not mentions the name of the village in his stories but writes about it in such a way that, “The news spreads in the village like wild fire” (Kasaibada, pg 7) , “Who is there in the village to dare speak against the secretary” (Akal Dand , pg 27) , “There is no village on the raised platform” (Siri Upma Jog ,pg 68), “To the west of the village about half a kilometer away flows the river Visui” (Triya charitar, pg 94) , “Keasr is to be seen off  back to the village as soon as the date is finalized”(Kesar Kasturi, pg148) , “At the fourth day itself, I became useless for my house, neighborhood and for the whole village” (Bharat Natyam , pg 85). The existence of this village of shivmurti is quite interesting. Reverberating without a name or an address in all of Shivmurti’s literary works, what essentially is this village? Is it a thought, belief or a reality? Why does Shivmurti not give his village a tangible identity like Senari Billari, squares and by lanes of Lucknow or Shivpalganj of Premchand, Amritlal Nagar and  Srilal Shukla respectively. He could have also reconstructed a Malgudi like R K Narayan but what is the reason that a mere mention of a village endured in his literary works. In fact Shivmurti has utilized this village to amplify the possibilities of developing an emotional connect of the readers with his stories. What actually is the identity of this village? This may be a subject of debate for the critics but for an average reader his interest is limited to the story itself. For those few vigilant readers who are interested in getting to know the whereabouts of his village, Shivmurti has left a lot of suggestive clues via usage of a local dialect and its regional affiliation. This way people of that particular state or region can easily recognize their villages from the seasoning of its language while others can equally relate themselves with the various characters and incidences which tend to increase its geographical inclusiveness.

In Shivmurti’s fictional literature the existence of a village is not merely as a thought or a belief but as a living entity. Shivmurti has tried to present its inner vulnerabilities and not its peripheral structure. In an age when cities are continuously grazing upon the existence of villages, cities in turn tend to sprout unabatedly in the villages. During such times Shivmurti seems duty bound to nurture the villages in his stories. Today if we consider the economic policies of the Indian governments, is it needed to explain whether they are pro rural or pro urban? If we look at the story ‘ Siri Upma Jog ‘ from the context of a wider socio-political landscape rather than through the limited perspective of its characters and personal relationships, we get to see an evolving story of a modernistic India with a progressive character. Born in the womb of a village a bureaucrat chooses to settle down in the lap of a capitalistic society of a city. His village has become a source of trouble for him. It’s not without reason that Shivmurti at the fag end of the story writes –“Having got up in the morning he (ADM sahib) sees that the village does not exists on the raised platform. He gives out a sigh feeling relieved “(pg 68). This is constructive opposition. That’s why even though in Shivmurti’s work there is such a forceful and meaningful presence of village, I refrain from introducing him as a storyteller of native reality or rural reality, but I see him in a wider sense to be storyteller of Indian reality. To categorize him such is not only to underestimate his role but to present one's own short sightedness and narrow thinking.

Basically a village is an entity that has its social, economic, political and cultural dimensions. Through conjunction of these dimensions it not only becomes animated but its distinct identity too gets evolved. To transform this living entity into a literary one together with its multi dimensional and animated nature is certainly not an easy task. Now the question arises as to how Shivmurti could successfully complete this task? Before him Fanishwarnath ‘Renu’ remarkably achieved this objective in his first attempt. After that one or two isolated writers could use their ability to replicate his success. But the most noteworthy in recent times have been a batch of Dalit writers. It happened for the first time that a group of writers could achieve success in this direction. Has Shivmurti in order to successfully depict the vulnerabilities of a village taken help of a literary tradition? Though Shivmurti has imported a lot from this tradition but at the same time he has also served the purpose of enriching it. Shivmurti has been able to catch hold of a distinct ‘Psyche’ or ‘Body language’ of a village .Although it may sound awkward in context of a village but that is indeed the beauty and uniqueness of Shivmurti.

If we set aside ‘Trishul’ , and consider the conduct of Shivmurti’s  characters , we would find  that even though possessing their own personal attributes they seem to actually serve the purpose of  enriching the collective ‘Psyche’ of the village. The influence of the local equations at the village level is quite apparent in the behavior of each and every character of Shivmurti irrespective of caste, age or status. It can be easily observed in Shivmurti‘s novels ‘Tarpan’ and ‘Akhiri Chalang’. In the stories ‘Kasaibada’ and ‘Tiriyacharittar’, it is overtly visible while in ‘Akal Dand’ and ‘Bharat Natyam’ it exists covertly. The women characters of Shivmurti's stories are seen to be most adept in exhibiting this psyche and after them if someone has a crucial role in this matter then they are the overly ambitious and rapacious characters of his stories. During the decisive moments in the story ‘Tiriyacharittar’, when it looked that the truth of Vimili would eventually be slayed by the falsehood of a group, child widow Birija is the lone ray of hope. Her conduct is noteworthy at this juncture –“The child widow Birija is thinking while quietly sitting there, shouldn’t she confess that she herself had in fact prepared fish curry for Bisram. While returning from Shiv temple he had brought it to her Then? Immediately the whole village council would revert … But in that case she might herself be questioned. For how many years has she been preparing fish curry for Bisram? Apart from that, hence forth she would never get to prepare fish curry anymore “(pg 140). Another hallmark of the story ‘Tiriyacharittar’ is that, though men tend to encourage the spread of rumor in the village but the responsibility of its broadcast rests with the women.

Today when the government seems bent on demolishing village after village. It is in this atmosphere of overt hostility towards villages and farmers in general that Shivmurti has tried to nurture the village in his stories. In order to give shape to his village Shivmurti has used the traditional skills of knitting for example the use of local or regional flavor in his language, seasoning of folk songs, the sonority of proverbs and popular sayings etc. But even if we set aside such usage of traditional skills, then too there is some substance left which exists uniquely in Shivmurti’s work. Just as it is not needed to separately discuss the special relationship that exists between a village and a farmer, similarly the intrinsic relationship between a farmer, his livestock and nature need not be specially highlighted. The way nature and the animal world has been depicted in Shivmurti’s stories, it makes him quite distinct from his contemporary writers. In his work animals have been presented as symbols of humanistic values. I am giving one such example from Shivmurti’s story ‘Akal Dand’ –“The leaves after wilting have either fallen from the trees or entered the stomach of the animals. While the buffaloes have been sold, those left are not able to attract a buyer for themselves . But if they are kept tied in the cowshed what could be possibly fed to them? So people are letting loose their tethers and shooing them away.” Go away I have set you free from today .You are free now. Free to die. Break away the bonds of love and relationship. Die while wandering for food and water, but do so at a distance. At least spare the villagers from the foul smell.” Such liberated animals can easily be seen underneath a stump of a tree, stamping their hooves, twisting their tails and shedding tears from the corners of their large eyelids. Animals waiting for their death. Not animals but their carcasses for which the vultures sitting on the stump of the tree have to wait sometimes for three to four days in order to let life finally exit from them. People want to save their bullocks till they could do so. If the rain finally does fall at least the land can be ploughed. But due to the scarcity of fodder, water and the outbreak of epidemic they too are gradually getting wiped out. The fodder doled by the government is barely enough to feed them even once. Now only a few bullocks that still survive can be seen either in the coachman’s house or in a few affulent families of the village. Of those who are either callous or are influential. Those who get to fill their large drums for the bullocks and large pitchers when the water tanker comes to the village and only then does rest of the village gets a chance to fill their pots and pans. What one can hear now in the name of a bird’s cry is the cry of eagles hovering above in a circular fashion or the scream of vultures feasting on the dead carcasses of animals. Rests of the birds have either died out of hunger and thirst or have flown away to an unknown land “ (pg 29)

Shivmurti is an expert connoisseur of words .His dexterous word selection and its effective use in his stories is praiseworthy. The fundamental reason for the presence of candidness, communicative competence, mellifluousness, vividness, symbolism, sonority etc in his language is his expertise in understanding and experiencing the real potential of words. He is a storyteller who has the skills to succinctly present the literal, implied as well as the suggested meaning of a word at the same time. His linguistic pranks can sometimes seem quite mischievous. I am citing here two such examples from his novel ‘Tarpan’ . When Chander unsuccessfully tries to rape Rajpatia, then the daughter-in-law of Mistri remarks-“His sword (of Chander) seems to have lost its balance “(pg 11). A little later when Rajpatia receives summons from the local police station, men of her family decides – “ Piyare should accompany Rajpatia to Bhaiji’s house by the early morning train. For the sake of safety five men should accompany them, but the household women should not get any inkling of this. After all it’s the women who give out the secrets “ (pg 47) . Such suggestive linguistic measures can be seen in Shivmurti’s work. In totality the structure of his stories seem to be a work of a skillful artisan. Just as a mason puts a brick at a time to finally give shape to a strong wall, Shivmurti by an appropriate mix of experience, sensibility and thoughtfulness in his stories, creates a strong and incisive fictional entity.

Before bidding adieu, it would be in the fitness of things to instead of talking in entirety, one by one we take a bird’s eye view of Shivmurti’s stories. Although the literary journey of Shivmurti started in 1968 itself (‘Mujhe Jeena Hai’ 1968, ‘Paan Phul’ 1969, ‘Udi jao Panchi’ 1970), it is not mentioned as such in ‘Kesar Kasturi ‘his first official publication which is a collection of stories. According to it the actual progression of publication of his literary work started in 1980 with ‘Kasaibada’ . From childhood itself we are taught and inculcated with an impression that India is a land of villages. Eighty percent of its population lives in villages and about the same percentage of land is tilled for agriculture etc. The question arises then ,why does a writer whose soul resides in the village starts his literary journey by challenging the conventional wisdom of Indians itself? Shivmurti tells us that the nexus between the vestiges of old feudalistic system (casteism) and the new order (police administration) has transformed villages into ‘Kasaibada’. The masterful capability of Shivmurti to dexterously depict reality in his stories through numerous short length sequences describing a few moments of activity is an attribute which needs to be specially highlighted. For example in ‘ Tiriyacharittar ‘ , when Shanichari’s daughter Roopmati is being ceremoniously seen off  after her marriage , she is mindful so as not to forget to embrace her goat .Whether it is the  skill of portraying the trait of mutual envy that exists among women to increase the momentum of the story, or to effectively describe in his stories the dynamics of caste based  equations at the village and local level is indeed quite noteworthy. The unscrupulous advantage taken of Shanichari’s helplessness by the headman, Leader and the police inspector at some level evoke memories of ‘Mahabhoj’ written by Munnu Bhandari . How unchecked ambition makes a person vulnerable and detestable can be seen from the example of the headman and Leaderjee in the story ‘Kasaibada’ . An identical image of this unmindful ambition is seen   in Shivmurti’s story ‘BharatNatyam ‘published in 1981. Here a husband’s self respect, straightforwardness and gentlemanliness get sacrificed at the altar of his wife’s overarching yearning of bearing a son. In the end her husband looses his mental balance and is seen performing Bharat Natyam ( a classical Indian dance form ) in a musk melon field . The story in its end recreates such a tragic set of circumstances that it would not be enough to just mention it separately.

‘Siri Upma Jog’ , published in 1984 seems to be compensatory to ‘Bharatnatyam’ from the point of view of the plot . If in the earlier work a women’s ambition makes her an object of abhorrence in the later it is a man who is found similarly despicable. Both these stories of human behavior though seemingly natural but are motivated by a kind of normality that looks scary. Mind gets filled with a sense of grief and deep compassion.

The flavor of ‘Kesar Kasturi ‘published in 1991 is quite different from rest of Shivmurti’s stories. Interspersed between the inaction of a father and sublimity of the daughter, it is quite an emotional story. It pierces us by its apparent normality. The whole story is metaphysical in terms of its narrative style or at the level at which it communicates with its readers. The spirit in Kesar to accept her destiny and face it hands on is indeed quite poignant. Trying to cover up inch by inch for her father’s inaction and negligence, due to his false sense of self-esteem, she looks quite like the common next door daughter or a sister. While reading ‘Kesar Kasturi ‘ , it comes to our mind quite strikingly that Shivmurti perhaps is a writer who through his writing seeks to redress the feelings of pain and agony tormenting his own sensibilities . That means that his personal experiences have given birth to his stories. Such experiences when start to weigh down his mind in order to provide them an appropriate outlet , he takes recourse to literary activities in order to assuage himself from such strong emotions. The intensity and concentrated presence of poignant, pitiful and tragic expressions & perceptions permeating Shivmurti’s stories are due to their retainment in him for a long time. It seems that in Shivmurti’s life such moments were either experienced by himself or by his acquaintances which continued to get imprinted in his mind. When his heart could no longer bear to retain such experiences and grief he felt the acute need to share it and therefore brought his personal experiences into public domain.

The story ‘Kasaibada’, starts on a rather tense and open– mouthed note with its first sentence being –“The news has spread like a current throughout the village that Shanichari has started a protest fast in front of the headman’s house. Leaderjee was saying that Shanichari would continue her fast unto death till the headman returns her daughter”. ‘Akal Dand’ too starts with an air agog with excitement and suspense – “Sercretary Babu has done a very shocking thing with Surji, but no one would open his mouth. Alas! What purpose would it serve?”  Both these stories proceed with the gradual unraveling of successive layers of excitement and expectancy which they seem embedded from their opening sentences. In the center of the story is the youthful body of Surji and the overpowering desire of Secretary fixed on it (“Having lived for years on an unwholesome food that could hardly fill her stomach, her body was bereft of its curves, What was intact however was her naturally provided fair complexion, lustrous eyes, a seemingly attractive expressive face and a radiance that accompanies a youthful body of not more than twenty five. Alas where could she hide all this given her woeful state of affairs and it was exactly what had caught the attention of the secretary” pg. 28). The story is about the dogmatic efforts of the Secretary to make Surji a victim of his carnal desires and the commensurate gestures of Surji to dodge his intentions. In the backdrop is the dread of the famine. The famine seems to have become a tangible sign of adverse times. But Surji although a sufferer of such adverse time does not in fact become a victim of it but on the contrary, eventually makes the willful secretary the actual victim of such a debilitating time.     

  

Another story in the collection ‘Kesar Kasturi ‘is ‘Tiriyacharittar’. The central character of it is Vimili . The presence of Vimili defines rest of the things in the story. It’s through Vimili that objects and people get related to each other. She is youthful and therefore solicited by scores of lustful eyes. Shivmurti in the following way makes an observation on this state of Vimili – “Difficult it is as if to guard a tree laden with ripened mangoes. So many craving eyes are there on the ripened mangoes” (pg 115) Vimli determinedly protects her dignity and virginity to keep it safe for her unseen and unheard husband from a child marriage. In ‘Tiriyacharittar’, her husband never returns to her.  Just as in Samuel Beckett‘s play ‘Waiting for Godot’, Vimili becomes a victim of an endless wait. ‘Triyacharitar’ is at once ironical and tragic. This story and other stories of Shivmurti have so many successive layers and each of it deserves to be independently illustrated. Here in ‘Tiriyacharittar’, setting aside other things, the central theme of the story is being highlighted which in fact is a distinct characteristic of Shivmurti’s literary work. First is to be punished for things one is not responsible for, due to one’s inability to defend and second the desire for justice. In the whole world women even though born a human are the most repressed living being. The nature and character of repression on women has a world wide pattern. The difference if any is that of the nationality and religion. Of all the language spoken around the world, apart from Hindi, I know a bit of English, due to which I have been viewing and understanding several noteworthy films from around the world. In many such English , French , Polish , Chinese , Japanese , Iranian , Afghani , Dutch , Korean , Russian , Spanish  and Hindi movies women have been filmed undergoing a series of senseless and unjust repression . Here it is not possible to write in detail about them but I would like to make mention of an Iranian movie based on a true story ‘Stoning of Soroyo M’ (2008) for the fact that bereft of its Iranian background and Islamic influence, it shows a striking similarity to ‘Tiriyacharittar’ (1987)

In a nutshell, point is that Shivmurti although sporting a very short list of literary work to his credit in a well extended literary career, has successfully attained both an uncommon degree of fame and credibility. That is why even with his limited creative pursuits, he has become a benchmark of credibility in contemporary Hindi Literature, for being able to depict reality in his own distinctive style. If the readers of this literary review of Shivmurti’s work are able to grasp even one or two fundamental reasons behind his seemingly uncommon popularity and credibility, I would feel my effort has not gone in vain or else … does it need to be said!  

This article by young scholar and critic Rahul Singh was published in the special issue (October –December 2012) of Hindi literary magazine Lamhi based on the writing of eminent hindi fiction writer Shivmurti. It is its English version.