Bio-note for author of original work: Vinod Kumar Shukla was born on 1 January 1937 in Rajnandgaon, Madhya Pradesh, and is one of the most distinguished writers in the contemporary Hindi literary tradition. He has written three novels: Naukar Ki Kameez (1979), which was made into a movie by Mani Kaul, Khilega To Dekhenge (1994) and Deewar Mein Ek Khirkee Rahati Thi (1996). Naukar Ki Kameez and Deewar Mein … have been translated into English. His first collection of poetry, Lagbhag Jai Hind, was published in 1971. Other collections of poetry include Vah Aadmi Chala Gaya Naya Garam Coat Pehankar Vichar Ki Tarah (1981), Sab Kuch Hona Bacha Rahega (1992), Kavita se Lambi Kabita (2001), and Atirikt Nahin (2002). Shukla’s poetry is marked by the simplicity and precision of expression. Gajanan Madav Muktibodh, one of the most prominent Hindi writers of the 20th century, was an important literary influence of Shukla’s. Vinod Kumar Shukla’s contribution to Hindi literature has earned him a number of awards, including the Shikhar Samman, the Muktibodh Fellowship and the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award. In 2023, he won the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International literature.
No one incomplete is ever whole
No one incomplete is ever whole
As another new begins
a new incomplete is lost
So many from the beginning
that a count would also remain incomplete
But this life –
full of unfinished incompletes
can be considered whole, not incomplete
so life could be lived completely
In this complete life
Even in the moment before my death
I could start a new poem
Like a poem from long before my dying
Like a poem that is life’s own first poem
No new incomplete should be thought to be the end.
My own aloneness
My own aloneness
I put amidst each of the lonely
and make it into an us.
For the sake of poetic expression
I transgress grammars
and say it like a Bihari would
That “we are coming”
For this companionship of words
In Chattisgarhi too – we’re a-coming along.
You are an us
They are an us too.
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