Amritlal Nagar At 100: How A Simple Man Used Simple Language To Create Extraordinary Literature 

These words of wisdom, expressed in the simplest of language and with an arresting metaphor, could only come from someone who had as much of a solid grounding in life as in literature. One can confidently say Amritlal Nagar had both.

Born on 17 August 1916 in Agra, Nagarji grew up in the Lucknow of twentieth century. Awakening to the cries of “Simon Go Back,” he wrote a poem in 1928, inspired after participating in that protest and suffering an injury during a lathi charge. The city was smarting with the aspirations of an independent India at the time, having once seen the failure of the movement of 1857. It was still part of the folklore, as were the stories of brutality and annihilation of natives at the hands of the British.

It was in this era of resettlement and reawakening that this young boy found refuge in stories and anecdotes from his lonely childhood. The Qissa-go (balladeers or storytellers) were still around at the time, as were the stories of the Arabian Nights, Fasana-e-Aazad, Gulebakavali, and so on. This highly sensitive lad from a Gujarati trading clan was soaking it all in and gradually found himself writing poems. He saw prose as his vehicle of expression very early on and wrote a few stories, starting a journey that would be not only prolific but also eclectic enough to create a unique place for Nagarji in the vast expanse of Hindi literature.

“Write from your own experience,” advised Sarat Chandra to the young Amritlal Nagar in the 1930s. Sarat Babu was a doyen of Indian literature known to this young boy; but when the reigning emperor of Urdu-Hindi prose, Premchand, wrote to him saying that he expected realistic stories from him, Nagar paused and introspected. The art as a human enterprise made sense to him. He remembered Tolstoy, who had somewhere stated about that art was not a “form of mere entertainment, but has to be socially relevant.” This lad aged 18 or 19 acquired adulthood as a writer with these life-changing influences. He chose his subjects and audiences in a way that helped him maintain a connect with the masses. Ratan Sarshar of Fasana-e-Aazad fame had been a major influence on him, as were such writers as Premchand, Sarat Chandra and Tolstoy. The synthesis of elements from all these varied writers were seen in Nagar’s writings.

After brief stints as a dispatch clerk, all the way up to being an honorary editorial assistant, Nagar moved between Bombay (now Mumbai), Kolhapur, Pune and Chennai, writing the screenplay along with dialogues for the new medium of Talkie Cinema. This experience of writing for films gave him a keen sense of the visual and made him realise the descriptive power of language. It also created in him a sense of economy of words.

Nagar was one of the earliest writers to translate and dub dialogue from regional films into Hindi. He had even translated a few Marathi and Gujarati plays during this time. But the erratic and ruthless ways of the commercially driven film industry left the idealistic Nagar disenchanted, and he left this world of cinema to be his own master and returned to his favourite city of Lucknow.

Leaving the tinsel world behind, he started working on his first major novel, Mahakal (1947), later known as Bhook, and then followed it up with writing short stories and children’s stories and working at the All India Radio, Lucknow from 1953-1956, which he then left to become a full-time writer. Around the same time came Boond Aur Samudra (1956), a masterpiece that is still rated as one of the finest novels in Hindi literature. Written in the tradition of social realism like his earlier novel, this time with the usage of the metaphor of a drop and the ocean, the lives of the characters in this story related with the larger social development. Set in Lucknow, this novel inspired a whole generation of readers and gave Nagarji a lasting place in the galaxy of great Indian novelists, like Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Sarat Chandra and Premchand.

It is pertinent to note that Lucknow at the time was home to poets like Asrar ul Haq ‘Majaz’, Ali Sardar Jafri and Sajjad Zaheer, besides two other major stalwarts of Hindi writing, Yashpal and Bhagwati Charan Verma. But Nagar remained the fulcrum of literary and cultural activity in the city, moving with ease in all quarters without any affiliation to any ism. He was President of the Lucknow Lekhak Sangh, a non-political alternate forum to the Progressive Writers Association, where new writers like Manohar Shyam Joshi, KN Kacker, Raghuvir Sahay, Kunwar Narain, Kailash Vajpeyi and others would interact with him and discuss their work.

Nagar would also find time to write specifically for children and stage plays with amateurs. His subsequent novels Shatranj Ke Mohre (1959), Suhag Ke Nupur (1960) and several short stories gave him the status of a true successor to Premchand among Hindi writers. He wrote the unique Ye Kothewaliyaan (1960), an account of professional courtesans and prostitutes, documented as a study and survey of their contemporary plight.

Soon, recognition for his writing in terms of awards followed. Boond Aur Samudra received the Batuk Prasad Puraskar (1958–1961) and the Sudhakar Padak of the Kashi Nagri Pracharni Sabha, while Suhaag Ke Noopur received the Premchand Puraskar (1962–63) from the Government of Uttar Pradesh.

However, bigger awards were in store for his next major novel. Amrit Aur Vish, based on the memories of the older generation and experiences of the author’s own, presented a panorama of multifarious characters and situations on a large canvas. Amrit Aur Vish works at various levels, introducing a complexity rarely seen in Hindi novels. It creates an interesting parallel between fact and fiction with a postmodernist stance that caught the imagination of a vast readership.

Amrit Aur Vish received the coveted Sahitya Akademi Award of 1967 and Soviet Land Nehru Award in 1970, placing Nagar in the topmost echelons of master storytellers of the country, leading to a translation of his works in several languages.

Gifted with a keen sense of humour and zest for life, Nagar had by then more than thirty published works that included translations from Gujarati and Marathi. He had a habit of taking great pains to research his subjects and characters in detail, making several trips to familiarise himself before putting words on paper. Then, he would isolate himself to do the final draft and come back with a manuscript that would become the final and definitive literary work on that subject.

Novels on Tulsidas and Surdas made him roam in the lanes of Benares and Mathura and Vrindavan, collecting incidents and stories associated with his subjects. Thus, Manas Ka Hans, on the life of the great poet and author of Ramcharit Manas, Tulsidas, received the Akhil Bharatiya Veer Singh Dev Puraskar of the Government of Madhya Pradesh in 1972, the Rajya Sahityik Puraskar of the Government of Uttar Pradesh in 1973–1974 and the Shri RamKrishna Harjimal Daalmiya Puraskar in 1978 to remain one of the most acclaimed biographies of all time. Khanjan Nayan, a biography on the life of poet Surdas, received the Nathmal Bhuvaalka Puraskar of Bhartiya Bhasha Parishad, Kolkata in 1984, and has been a source of reference for studies on Surdas, including Shekhar Sen’s famous stage shows.

Nachyo Bahut Gopal, a saga of an upper-caste lady marrying a lower-caste man who worked as a manual scavenger, created quite a stir in literary and social circles. He also wrote Orchha Ki Nartaki, Chakallas, Karwat, Peedhiyan,  Gadar Ke Phool– novels that have a big canvas and a sense of historicity with very fluent narratives. The easygoing, conversationalist flair would remain the hallmark of Nagar’s writing, as would his language that freely incorporated everyday Urdu and colloquial words with refined, accessible Hindi, creating a synthesised Ganga-Jamni version of Khadi Boli in Devanagri script.

Nagar was also the most popular writer of his times, appearing in magazines and forums on a regular basis. With his encyclopaedic storehouse of history and anecdotes, Nagar was accepted as an authority on Avadh traditions. For many he was the true epitome and representative of the ethos of Lucknow tehzeeb during his lifetime. His haveli in Chowk of Lucknow would remain an open house for writers, research scholars, theatre artists and anyone who wanted to meet him, and Nagar would be a very gracious host. Babuji, as he was lovingly called, remained among the most visited of writers, with several important artists prioritising meeting him while travelling to Lucknow. He could find time to entertain everyone who went to meet him and answer questions, despite his writing commitments and deadlines. Whether it was Satyajit Ray or Shyam Benegal, Dharamveer Bharti or Amrita Preetam, meeting Nagar was often a part of their plan.

Still, like a hermit or Yogi in his meditation or samadhi, Babuji would write in the hustle-bustle of a joint family comprising his two sons and their young children, tended to by Baa (his wife, Pratibha), who remained his anchor throughout his eventful life, taking care of all family affairs and, thereby, giving him the freedom to write. He would sit at his desk and write for several hours regularly. It is only then that he found time to write short stories, satires, plays and radio features, besides a sizeable volume for children.

Nagarji was conferred the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 1981 and Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 1989, besides several other awards from prestigious institutions. But for him, the real award was to remain a man recognised by masses as their own. It was quite a sight to see this paan-loving, handsome man in his traditional white dhoti kurta move around with ease in cycle rickshaws and cars, mingling with the man on the street with as much gusto as he would with a literary colleague. Like Nazir Akbarabadi in Urdu poetry, Nagar would remain a Janvadi (people’s writer) at heart, sculpting characters and stories with an aesthetic finesse that uplifted his readers and characters, giving dignity to the most marginalised and downtrodden with his words.

Nagar created his own independent and unique identity as a littérateur, and remains one of the most important and multi-faceted creative writers of Indian literature of the twentieth century. Unlike the Qissagos or balladeers of the rich, he chose the layman as his audience, creating a body of writing, which, like the neighbourhood he lived in, is a carnival celebrating life in its most myriad and eclectic mix.