Two young writers of Himachal

Shriniwas Joshi

I got introduced to a young writer Kunal Sharma from Himachal Pradesh, now living in Gurgaon, through his maiden novelette ‘MBA for the Mafia’ (See Photo) published in soft cover by Partridge India.

He earned his MBA from INSEAD and did jobs in renowned firms; quit those and says: “He is now living a far more fulfilling life by putting his pen where his heart is.” And why should he not? Chetan Bhagat, an MBA, started his journey with ‘Five Point Someone’ in 2004 and today The New York Times quotes him as “the biggest selling English language novelist in India’s history.”

Amish Tripathi, another management buff, with his Shiva’s Trilogy is a known writer today. His debut work ‘The Immortals of Meluha’ is a bestseller.

Kunal has divided 133-page novelette into three parts, which partition, I find, could have been avoided because despite the splitting, the story remains unidirectional. The poem in Hindi which Don Raju writes to feed his emotional self is too childish. It saps the culture of English novel-writing. Although extraneous, yet the Chamba lullaby at the start of the novelette is exciting. The candidates who are preparing for a personal interview could gain from protagonist Nakul’s preparation for the same: “He had practiced his interviews far too many times to reach the stage of poised sentience. Whenever he found airtime, he steered the conversation towards topics that he was more familiar with or towards relevant news that he had gone over just before the interview.” Kunal has his way of inspiring youngsters not by preaching ‘Do’s and Don’ts’, but through the wisdom, ‘sheer sunshine’, of Talukdar, a character in the novelette: “Hard work pays-eventually.

It is never too late to start a disciplined life. Make everyday goals to gain ground between your expectations and the result. Do everything in true form, which is only possible if you focus completely on the job at hand. Perfect balance between thinking and putting thought to actions results in perfect life.” Good words for Shimla by the author attracted me: “The small, scenic mountain town had every ingredient one could want for pure and pristine living. It was a fairytale land where birds woke you up in the mornings and monkeys made faces at you if you happened to cross their path. The water was clear and, come nightfall, you could actually count all stars in the sky.”

In the recent past, I have read ‘The Kite Runner’ by Khaled Hosseini and my purely personal fancy is that novels should have that riveting story.

Words on Shimla towed me to an anthology of poems ‘Prospect Hill-Shimla Poems’ by Kanwar Dinesh Singh (See Photo), who teaches English at a government college. Published by Hyphen Publications, it costs Rs 90/-. Dinesh, at the young age of 41, is the recipient of the HP Academy Award and Acharya Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi Samman for English and Hindi poetry, respectively. He is the editor of ‘Hyphen’ – a bilingual monthly tabloid of contemporary thought and human values.

I am thoroughly impressed by his zeal and enthusiasm towards Hindi and English literature. The journals ‘Litcrit’ or ‘Hyphen’ that he has edited or is editing are of acceptable standard. I start with a Haiku on Shimla taken from his book ‘Prospect Hill’. Haiku is supposed to complete the entire picture in three lines of generally 17 syllables: “Rainy days/ Sudden light, sudden rain, / Sudden haze.” “Frost bite/ Gloves, muffler, socks, boot/ Chester tight.” “Frost cease/ Watch gorgeous Earth/ Striptease.”

No description of Shimla is complete without the monkeys. Both Edward Buck and Rudyard Kipling wrote about those. Dinesh writes: “They are extremely temperamental, excitable, impulsive, / Unpredictable like the proverbial weather of Shimla. / They walk the roads, and on trees and housetops they live, / They are rightful domicile claimants of Shimla.”

Shimla is known by its Deodar trees and Dinesh says that though they stand tall, they are not haughty because: “They do stand up for the underprivileged, wanting, / They prop up vines, feeding them on their body.” Shimla is agreeably picturised in this anthology of poems.

TAILPIECE

Asking a working writer what he thinks about reviewers is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

Christopher Hampton