A Portrait of Love

<p><b>Nirala (Suryakant Tripathi) (Author) </b><br> Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’ (1896-1961) was an editor essayist novelist and one of the architects of Chhayawaad Movement in Hindi poetry. His writings alongside those of Premchand and Jaishankar Prasad herald the first major flowering of Hindi literature in the twentieth century. Some of his notable works include Anaamika Geetika Tulsidas Chaturi Chamar Kulli Bhat and Ravindra Kavita Kaanan.<br><br><b>Gautam Choubey (Translator) </b><br> Gautam Choubey teaches English at Delhi University. He has previously translated Pandey Kapil’s Bhojpuri novel <i>Phoolsunghi</i> Andre Beitelle’s <i>Democracy and Its Institutions</i> and co-translated the Hindi novel <i>Twelfth Fail</i>. <i>Chakka Jaam</i> his forthcoming novel is set in the<br>turbulent 1970s. It is a riveting saga of family<br>friendship and love scattered across Bihar<br>Bengal and Rangoon.<br><br></p> Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’ was among the maverick writers who shaped modern Hindi literature. In his prose writings—fearless provocative and startlingly original much like his poetry—Nirala regards the world with the eyes of a compulsive satirist committed to laying bare its hypocrisies. A Portrait of Love is an ode to Nirala’s genius drawing attention to his long-ignored legacy in prose. From his poignant yet humorous sketch of rural India in <i>Billesur Bakriha</i> to the sophisticated urbanity of Lucknow in ‘Portrait of a Lady-Love’; from questioning the ideals of marriage and love in ‘Sukul’s Wife’ to celebrating the nexus between writers and courtesans in colonial Calcutta in ‘What I Saw’; from hailing agency among the oppressed castes in ‘Chaturi Chamar’ to shining a light on an uneasy relationship between education and progress in ‘Jyotirmayee’—this collection sparkles with wit atmosphere and an unmistakable autobiographical streak taking readers to the heart of India and introducing them to the colourful cosmos of Hindi literature. <p>Gautam Choubey’s introduction to the translation of one of Nirala’s novella and six stories recreates the persona of the iconoclast poet refusing to be cowed down by authority be it literary or political. It transverses through the times of the poet with amazing insight and anecdotes sprinkled with lines from his own poetry to really make us understand what made him ‘nirala’ the unique one. The translation itself is excellent much needed to tell the world of Nirala’s tryst with language in giving a new dimension to the craft of writing.<br><br>Alka Saraogi<br><br>Nirala is in my view the greatest Hindi poet of the twentieth century. As Choubey points out in his Introduction Nirala was also a wonderfully versatile writer of prose. Choubey presents English readers with some of Nirala’s stories that are pathbreaking both in content and in style.<br>Ruth Vanita<br>Dr Gautam Choubey offers an engrossing translation of selected short stories by Nirala as well as Nirala’s novel Billesur Bakariha whose satirical exploration of caste and socio-economic realities remains highly topical. This collection of fiction by one of Hindi’s greatest writers accompanied by an erudite introduction is a welcome addition to the world of translated literature.<br>Tabish Khair<br>Nirala's vivid sketches of life in rural and small-town India before independence draw a darkly hilarious portrait of a world changing as modernity creeps into traditional communities. They tell compelling stories of survival in a harsh unforgiving world subjected to a relentlessly unsentimental scrutiny. Nirala's characters engage in desperate maneuvers to cope with scheming and hostile neighbours outwit complacent hypocrites and puncture the pomposity of deluded hedonists and ingeniously negotiate with narrow and rigid social and religious constraints. Delightfully irreverent and irrepressibly playful Nirala deftly employs pungent humour as social critique and sharp-edged irony as a powerful mode of moral evaluation.</p>