Queen who ruled the hearts

Sarika Sharma

Krishna Sobti dedicated all her life to writing and writers and she wanted to do the same in her death too. Long before she passed away, she had decided to turn her residence into a guesthouse for young writers coming from outside Delhi and wanted it to be a place where they could come and work without having to worry about the logistics.

Writer Ashok Vajpeyi says Sobti and her husband, Dogri writer Shivnath, had always wanted this and Sobti had willed their four-room Mayur Vihar flat for a writers’ residence and entrusted Raza Foundation with the task of getting this done.

Vajpeyi says she was deeply interested in doing things for other writers. “She penned four volumes of memoirs for other writers (titled Hum Hashmat, its fourth part came out recently). These include memoirs of writers younger to her by 40-50 years. In Hindi, there has not been a writer who can outdo her in generosity. After all, she gave Rs 1.11 crore to Raza Foundation. With that amount, which includes Rs 11 lakh of her Jnanpith award money, a separate Krishna Sobti-Shivnath Fund has been created by the Foundation for the promotion of Hindi writing. Her interest in others as proverbial at every level,” he says.

Upcoming writer Sunita Ratika would vouch for that. She says she did not know how to react when Sobti called her a lekhika (a writer). “It was 2008 and I had no published work to my credit. I had just come to show her my PhD synopsis. She was so supportive of young writers,” she recalls. Ratika maintained her relationship with Sobti till the very end, visiting her in the hospital daily during her last days. She says Sobti’s generosity knew no bounds. From the jacket that senior journalist Om Thanvi wore to her memorial earlier this week to the many clothes she would gift Ratika (as recently as in December) to paying honorarium to young writers for reading her manuscripts, there are so many stories...

Ashok Maheshwari, managing director of Rajkamal Prakashan and Sobti’s close associate, says she would read works of young writers, admire their writing and encourage them to write. “She would also recommend young writers to us, too. In fact, all her life, she fought for their self-respect. This house would be her ongoing effort in this direction,” says Maheshwari.

Legal angle

The housing society that holds the flat is apprehensive about the idea as it is a residential area. However, Raza Foundation, which is the custodian of the house, is in talks with the society and hopes to find a way. Foreseeing this scenario, says writer Ashok Vajpeyi, Krishna Sobti and her husband, Shivnath, had considered selling the flat and buying a property elsewhere and converting it into a writers’ residence. Nonetheless, Vajpeyi, who is managing trustee of Raza Foundation, says they had also told Sobti that, for the time being, they would want to maintain the house as a memorial for her.