 "Rajesh Joshi")
Rajesh Joshi is a renowned poet of contemporary Hindi literature. Joshi's major poetry collections are 'Ek Din Bolenge Ped', 'Mitti Ka Chehra', 'Nepathya Mein Hansi', 'Do Panktiyon Ke Beech' and 'Zid'. He was given the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2002 for his poetry collection 'Do Panktiyon Ke Beech' (Joshi announced he would the award to protest against the attack on writers).
Excerpts from a conversation Sandeep Kumar had with Joshi.
How did you get connected with poetry and literature?
Writing is a very conscious activity. I started writing in the true sense in 1972-73 when I became friends with Venugopal, a poet who emerged from the Naxalbari movement. We started living together in Bhopal and my understanding of literature developed. My first poem was published in the magazine 'Vatayan', published from Bikaner.
Can a writer in Hindi earn a living only by writing?
Some writers have done this. For example, Harishankar Parsai and Sharad Joshi left their jobs and took up writing. Shailesh Matiyani [a Hindi writer] once told me that he would never do a job but would only do freelance writing. I had an argument with him and I stand by my arguments even today. I told him that there is only one commitment in a job but freelancers have to make many types of compromises. This never became a tradition in Hindi.
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Why could this tradition not develop in Hindi; are publishers guilty?
No one has control over Hindi publishers. Publishers who were once very ordinary are now millionaires but there has been no change in the status of the author. In fact, the Hindi writers could never put any kind of pressure on the publishers. There was a dispute regarding the royalty of Nirmal Verma when his wife Gagan Gill took back all the rights from the publishers.
Is there still a lack of professionalism in Hindi publishing?
None of the Hindi publishers are professional. They don’t maintain clarity regarding sales statements, royalties etc. The Hindi publisher basically behaves as if he is doing a favour to the author. Writing is also divided into serious and popular lines, but this boundary line is getting blurred. It is unfortunate for Hindi that there are no quality popular writers in it.
Publication of popular books in Hindi has increased. This includes both literary and non-literary books.
Yes, that has definitely happened. Yuval Noah Harari's books on human development were translated. Harari's books became bestsellers. His book ‘Sapiens’ reverses all the theories till date and says that whatever man has done till date was wrong. Every step of man is against nature. This is not a new theory. It has a shocking element which attracts readers.
This is not a new debate. This debate is also in our Puranas. This was the struggle between gods and demons. The gods used to perform yagya and the demons who came from the Raksha culture used to attack because the forests were being cut down for havan and urbanisation. It is very interesting that there were only two types of societies in India, either Nagar Samaj or Aranyaka Samaj. Villages are not found anywhere in the entire mythological literature. Village is formed when agriculture comes. That is a very modern thing.
You have also written for children. What is the status of children's literature in Hindi?
Things were imposed on children in Hindi. All they were told was that telling the truth is good, lying is a sin, helping others, etc. In our country, children's literature continues to teach the lessons of morality, ideals and nationalism. We did the same in the curriculum. Whatever I am writing for children, I try not to impose false morals on them. The scene has changed but not on the scale it should have.
What things should be kept in mind while writing for children?
It should be clear in your mind for which age group of children you are writing. This will be helpful both at the language level and at the content level. The process of communicating with children is different. You do not speak the same language to your children as you speak to your father. When Shamsher Bahadur Singh translated 'Alice in Wonderland', he used to narrate his translation to the children every day and used to change the words which were difficult for the children to understand.
What challenges do you see in writing currently?
The pace of change has increased greatly since the 1990s. The challenge for all writers has been how to keep pace with rapidly changing technology. Earlier, a large part of our memories resided in our brain. Now that memory is stored in smart phones. Technology and machines have taken away our memories. This affected creativity. A new crisis has arisen due to artificial intelligence.
Is there a danger that machines may become a challenge in fiction writing?
I do not agree. Nothing can happen in creativity without humans. It is too early to say how much of a threat it will pose to creative writing, but it will definitely challenge popular writing because it is heavily based on information. Machines can learn to write information. But no machine can replace creativity.
The ability of machines to translate has improved greatly. Could this be a threat to translators?
Hindi translation is actually translation of translation. First the translation is done from the original language into English and then into Hindi. It is possible that in future, with the help of technology, direct translation from the original language to Hindi can be done. The only problem with that is that when you translate creative writing, verbatim translation will not work.
Creative translation is actually reconstruction. A machine will not be able to translate poetry because it has an entire culture attached to it.
How do you see the current economic, political and social situation of the country?
The concept of global economy that came with globalisation has failed all over the world. Earlier, when one system failed, capitalism would introduce another system. This is why when the theory of the welfare state failed, the theory of globalisation and free economy was introduced. It replaced the concept of a welfare state throughout the world.
Now when this principle also failed, capitalism used two major weapons in the form of nationalism and religion to defend itself. Religion became a big factor in India. Donald Trump won in America. He emphasised protectionism. ‘Make America Great Again’ became the new slogan of nationalism. Right-wing reactionary forces won in most countries of the world. This did not happen only in India. This happened everywhere in England, France, Turkey etc.
Last year, Geetanjali Shri received the Booker Prize. Vinod Kumar Shukla received the Pen America Award. What benefit will this bring to Hindi literary writing?
Very little Hindi literature went out. The main reason for this was the lack of good translation. It is said that if there had been a good translation of Sharadchandra or Premchand after Rabindranath Tagore, we could have got more Nobel Prizes. Rabindranath's own English was Victorian English which was not considered good. The great British poet Yeats, who translated his work 'Gitanjali', had even said that Rabindranath should not translate his poems into English.
There are very rapid changes in language. Take Hindi only, there is a huge difference between the language of Bharatendu and today's Hindi. Very few Hindi writers are able to come in contact with the outside world like Vinod Kumar Shukla and Geetanjali Shri. It is good that Hindi is going out but this did not create any enthusiasm for Hindi in the minds of foreigners, nor did it increase the prestige of Hindi.
