RAIPUR/NEW DELHI: Vinod Kumar Shukla, who created a universe of quiet grace from the small histories and inner worlds of ordinary people in his novels and poems, and who became the first Jnanpith awardee from Chhattisgarh last year – passed away Tuesday. He was 88.The renowned Hindi writer was undergoing treatment for a lung ailment in the Chhattisgarh capital since Dec 2 and was on ventilator support since Dec 19. His body had weakened but his resolve to write remained unswerving.“He carried a writing pad, even inside the ICU. In the hospital, he wrote his last poem. Probably inspired by what he had observed around him,” his son Shashwat told TOI.His last poem, penned in an infirm hand from his hospital bed on Dec 6, went: “Batti maine pehle bujhayee / Phir tumne bujhayee / Phir dono ne mil kar bujhayee (I turned out the light first / then you did / then we turned it off together).”In a conversation with PM Modi some weeks back, he had said, “Writing is like breathing for me. I want to return home as soon as possible – I want to keep writing.”PM condoled the writer’s passing in a post on X, “He will always be remembered for his invaluable contribution to the world of literature.”Shukla wrote sparingly, but deeply. He wrote in a tone that never needed to raise itself. His prose moved gently like the wind, his poetry like breath. His writing did not insist; it illuminated. And it traversed the vacant space between remembering and forgetting.“Forgetting is my nature. I forget, again and again. Since forgetting is my nature, so is remembering. If I forget, I also remember. Forgetting is a form of leaving behind. Remembering is trying to bring it back,” he told actor Manav Kaul in director Achal Mishra’s documentary on his life, ‘Chaar Phool Hain Aur Duniya Hai’ (2024).Naukar Ki Kameez (The servant’s shirt, 1979) was his most celebrated work. The novel was adapted by renowned filmmaker Mani Kaul into a feature film in 1999. “Initial sales were slow. But after 2020, it became a best-seller,” says Satyanand Nirupam, editor, Rajkamal Prakashan. A Facebook Live presentation by him was watched by a high 18,000 viewers during the 2020 Covid lockdown.“In 2025, it sold 10,000 copies, a huge number for a book released five decades ago,” says Nirupam. Some months back, there was even an unpleasant online controversy over the royalty he had earned.Shukla was born in Rajnandgaon, now part of west Chhattisgarh. A post-graduate in krishi vigyan (agriculture science) from Jabalpur, his first poetry collection, Lagbhag Jai Hind (Almost Jai Hind) was published in 1971.As a writer, Shukla never carried the baggage of literary politics. Perhaps a reason why fame trickled to him, like water dripping from a tap in a desert town. He received the Sahitya Akademi award in 1999 for his novel, Deewar Mein Ek Khidki Rehti Thi (A window lived in the wall). Khilega To Dekhenge (Will see when it blooms) was another feted work.In 2023, he became the first Indian to receive the PEN/Nabokov Award. “Writing for decades without the recognition he deserves, Shukla has created literature that changes how we understand the modern,” the PEN/Nabokov judges panel said.Sahitya Akademi recipient writer Mridula Garg says that Shukla was truly one of a kind. “Articulate but not verbose, simple but not simplistic, real but not realistic, individualistic but not self-centered. Equally empathetic to individual and social desires and ills,” she says.Another Sahitya Akademi awardee Anamika poetically puts it that in Shukla’s poems and novels “we meet a lonely man full of empathy and grace, a man of the community, a man like the Christ on cross in Rembrandt’s painting, a man who belongs – his bones hanging, skin sagging, the pain of inner struggle writ large on his face.”Senior journalist Sunil Kumar, who was associated with Shukla for decades, said, “He was the most prominent Hindi writer of significance in the last half a century, but his feet remained solidly on the ground. Shukla ji was a man of unique simplicity, in language, life, and values, all. He had a strange ability to remain aloof from praise or criticism, success or failures.”When asked for his reaction on receiving the Jnanpith, India’s most prestigious literary award, Shukla had said, “Mujhe likhna bahut tha, lehin bahut kam likh paya,” (I had a lot to write, but could write very little.” Following his demise, every reader too enchanted by his world of writing has been left wanting for more.
