Kamleshwar left Hindi richer
NEW DELHI: He was among the pioneers of Hindi's 'Nayee Kahani' movement in the fifties. He edited Sarika, the premier literary magazine now gone with the wind. His film scripts Mausam and Chhoti Si Baat, to name just a couple deftly blended the thin line between art and commerce.
Director Gulzar's film, Aandhi, was based on his novel and banned during the Emergency. He was also a sensitive talk show host in the popular eighties Doordarshan show, Parikrama.
Noted Hindi writer Kamleshwar, 75, who passed away after a heart attack on Saturday, painted life's rainbow boldly and innovatively on a wide, expansive canvas and filled it with quality and craft.
Author Uday Prakash points out that the author of experimental yet popular short stories such as Raja Nirbansiya and Khoyee Hui Dishayein also promoted marginal voices. "He introduced Marathi Dalit writers and Bohra Muslim litterateurs to the Hindi reader," he says.
Friend and poet Kedarnath Singh says, "As Sarika's editor, he tried to forge a new aesthetics by encouraging fresh voices." Writer Mrinal Pande recollects the encouraging letter she received from Sarika's editor after her short story was accepted. "He was not aware then that I was the daughter of a famous writer. He wrote the letter because he had a certain generosity of soul," she says.
In the 1950s, along with the peerless Mohan Rakesh and Rajendra Yadav, Kamleshwar was part of the literary troika that began the 'Nayee Kahani' movement. The new form of story-telling broke away from earlier idioms and preoccupations and positioned itself in the new post-World War II, post-Independence sensibilities.
By the seventies, he also strived to create the 'samantar' (parallel) story movement at a time when Shyam Benegal and company were fashioning a similar style on celluloid. Friends recall that Kamleshwar, who received the Sahitya Akademi and Padma Bhushan awards, was always willing to experiment.
Singh remembers that during a gathering of top Hindi novelists, playwrights and poets such as Dharmvir Bharati and Muktibodh at Allahabad University in 1957, Kamleshwar was asked to speak as a representative of young, progressive writers. "He spoke for about 15 minutes although he had never been on stage before. He was like that. Bold and unhesitating," says Singh.
The writer of the award-winning novel Kitney Pakistan was born in Uttar Pradesh's Mainpuri district as Kamleshwar Prasad Saxena. The post-graduate in Hindi literature from Allahabad University worked as a proof-reader and even as a night watchman before finding success in Bollywood.
Pande points out that Kamleshwar found a firm foothold in the Hindi film industry, unlike several other noted Hindi and Urdu litterateurs such as Premchand, Amritlal Nagar and Rajinder Singh Bedi.
"He wrote successfully without losing self-respect. He had the Midas touch," she says. When Bollywood became too unreasonable, he switched to television where again he carved out a niche. Kamleshwar was active to the end. Singh says, a group of young writers were working under his guidance to bring out a combined history of Hindi-Urdu language and literature.
"The project was close to his heart," he says. Pande says he never missed the deadline for his fortnightly column in a Hindi newspaper. "He also left Hindi a richer language," she says.
Edited by Qwest - 18 years ago
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