Paper short abstract:

Shukla's award winning novel Divar mem ek khirki rahti thi (1997) marked a significant departure from the tradition of social realism in the modern Hindi novel. The paper analyses Shukla's creative use of language as a tool to transcend both realism and reality: toward a poetic of the quotidian.

Paper long abstract:

Vinod Kumar Shukla has often been credited with introducing magic realism and postmodern linguistic experimentation in modern Hindi prose fiction. Following the highly acclaimed Naukar ki kamiz (The Servant's Shirt, 1979) and the sombre Khilega to dekhemge (Let it bloom, 1996), his third novel Divar mem ek khirki rahti thi (A Window lived in a Wall, 1997) is a celebration of ordinary Indian life that both showcases and transcends the confines of lower middle class existence. A framing device and central metaphor of the narrative, the window in the wall opens into a sensuous poetic landscape and enchanted realm of the imagination, where the novel's characters are at liberty to experience desire, abundance, and freedom from social constraints. The paper explores how Shukla playfully, and subversively, uses language and imagery to create a magic of the mundane. As the novel sympathetically evokes the plight of the common man, can we read Shukla's radical refusal to engage with the ramifications of a globalized Indian modernity as a response to dominant trends in contemporary Indo-English and Hindi fiction? Does his magic realism signal a self-assertive return to archetypal forms of Indian narrative?