The curious case of A & D: The nature of Authorship in Vaid’s fiction
Pre-text
In a curiously compelling characteristic of Roland Barthes’ 2,291- word text The Death of The Author, the word ‘Author’ surfaces on thirty-one instances, with a capital ‘A’ on as many as eighteen occasions, and considering the tone and tenor of his text it can be reasonably assumed that he used small case at remaining places without intending to undermine the authority of the capital A [1]. So here we have a theorist, who refers to an entity with a reverential capital letter (‘Author’ acquires far more reverential space on printed paper than ‘author’) and then goes on to denounce his/her authority. Also note, those wishing to denounce God spell it with ‘g’ and not ‘G’.
Barthes uses two broad arguments to mount the much-mouthed missile of the last century on literary creator. First, by pointing that every text (he uses the neutered and neutralised nomenclature ‘text’ instead of the potent and pregnant ‘literary creation’ [2]) is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture [3] and hence cannot be attributed to a single author, and second by questioning and denouncing the authorial voice of the writer.
Before we examine the legitimacy of these propositions in the Constitution of Krishna Baldev Vaid, the purpose of this piece [4], interesting it is to note that while Barthes asserts the inevitable presence of earlier works and cultures in any text, he neither admits nor acknowledges the authoritative stamp of his predecessors on his own work.
Much before the entire edifice of intertextuality and the consequent birth of the reader came to be based on the assertion that the reader, guided by his intertextual memories, is able to convert a work into an ‘open text’ , reading, in fact and in effect, has been a function of reader’s memory and experience.
Taking the baton from Mikhael Bakhtin, who in his extraordinary work on Dostoyvesky called the novel polyphonic [5], Julia Kristeva coined the word intertextuality in 1966 two years before Barthes, explaining a text in terms of vertical and horizontal axis — the former joining the text to other texts and the latter the reader with the text [6].
Clearly, even if we were not told by the Frenchman, who fails to express gratitude towards the Russian, memory and external references constituted the epistemic epicenter of a person’s comprehension of a literary work, though that wouldn’t warrant concluding the ‘death’ of its creator.
A major reason of a reader’s recurring inability and insufficiency to confront the works of Krishna Baldev Vaid, in this context, is the visibly closed nature of his authorial universe, wherein external references offer no help in deciphering his words.
Two opposing forces, centripetal and centrifugal, simultaneously operate on a work, generated by the inherent strength of the work, and a reader’s memories, respectively. In Vaid’s oeuvre, one encounters the almost absence of the centrifugal force due to the inability of a reader to locate her past references. She, consequently, is dragged along with a formidable gravitational pull towards the centre of Vaid’s work, which assumes the form and magnitude of a black hole (One of his novels, incidentally, is named Kala Kolaj) — an all-devouring space of no return.
अगर जिस्म न होता तो यह जंजाल न होता तो कोई जंजाल न होता मालूम न होता मुझे मालूम न होता महसूस न होता मुझे महसूस न होता अगर जिस्म न होता तो मैं न होता क्योंकि जिस्म ही चेतना की जड़ है अगर चेतना न होती तो यह अज़ाब न होता महसूस न होता। मैं इस अज़ाब से तंग आ गया हॅू। मैं इस अज़ाब की नुमाइश से तंग आ गया हॅू। मैं इस अज़ाब के नाम की तलाश से तंग आ गया हॅू। [7]
तो क्या मैं लाइलाज हो चुका हॅू और अगर हो चुका हॅू तो मुझे वैसी महामायूसी का अनुभव क्यों नहीं होता जिस पर मुझे मुक्ति का भ्रम हो सके तो क्या मैं बेहिस्स हो चुका हॅू और अगर हो चुका हॅू तो यह व्यर्थ वर्थरीय व्यथा क्यों तो क्या मैं एक ऐसे मुकाम पर आ पहुॅचा हॅू अगर इसे मुकाम कहा जा सके तो अगर इसे पहुॅचना कहा जा सके तो न जाने मैं क्या कहना चाहता हॅू अगर इसे कहना कहा जा सके तो। [8]
Fatigued and faded, as she attempts to wade through his words, and probably achieves little in terms of expected meanings, known references, familiar visuals, popular quotes — the usual prizes a reader takes home after a reading — the instinctive reaction is to term him ‘non-readable’. Such adjective, cruel and cynical, doesn’t suggest the failure of a reader’s comprehension and comfortably blames the author.
What makes Vaid’s fiction a near-impregnable fortress, refuting Barthean proposition, are not his seemingly unyielding monologues or unrelenting metaphors, but the absence of signposts by which a reader plods her way through any work. The prevailing instruments to unlock and uncover a work — characters, plot, story, dialogue, conflict, various ‘isms’ — are either absent in him or at variance with their usual forms, formations and formulations, as he challenges and subverts every literary norm, grammar rule and syntax to construct and conjure up his narrative.
He does narrate a story, but its strands are so minute and fragile that touch them and they disappear. He has characters, but one is highly unlikely to witness even their faded facsimile in life or art. Bimal, the old man of Dusra Na Koi, the middle-aged man-in- waiting of Dard La Dava do not ruffle even the faintest corner of a reader’s memory. Their obsessions are unflappable, idiosyncrasies unpredictable, movements undetectable. They defy definitions, reject conclusions. Try confining them in a bracket — unconventional, mystic, cynic, eccentric — and they will break out the next moment by the sheer force of inquisitive negation.
Question, negation and counter-negation decide and define Vaid’s work. He questions every phenomenon, everything visible, non-visible, known, unknown, noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, proposition, conjunction and as he appears reaching an answer, springs up another question by challenging the solution itself. If this corresponds with the Adwait’s neti neti, wherein a seeker reaches the final truth by denying all what comes his way; it also marks the quest of a scientist, who in his relentless urge to experiment is not averse to refute his earlier conclusions.
Confronting himself and his prejudices in a closed home or on a deserted road — the other is virtually absent in his work as his narrator is his own other (we shall return to this other soon) — his protagonist appears to be a primeval seeker in a perpetual meditation or a scientist immersed in experimentation, hence, to denote time uses phrases like सदियों से, मुद्दतें, अर्सा हुआ। Time, obviously then, stands almost still in his novels and his narrator a prehistoric hero narrating his tales.
Vaid doesn’t have the final solace of a mystic or a scientist though. A creative artist, he revels in questions and never gets the satisfaction of reaching any solution. Every affirmation, in his case, remains a negation, and hence leading to a new question.
मुझे लगता है कि शब्द मेरे दुश्मन नहीं कि शब्द मेरा दुश्मन नहीं कि शब्द ही मेरा असली दुश्मन नहीं कि मैं जो कहॅूगा जो भी कहूॅगा कि मैं जो कह सकता हॅू कि मैं जो भी कह सकता हॅू कि मैं कुछ नहीं कुछ भी नहीं कह सकता नहीं यह भी ग़लत है बिल्कुल ग़लत है नहीं यह भी ग़लत है नहीं….। [9]
Self-doubt and negation are visible in other writers too, but in Vaid they culminate into an epistemic enquiry — the limitations on our knowledge and irredeemable inadequacy of our cognitive abilities to know the phenomenon around us. His protagonist reminds of a person who knows more than he can tell [10], and his entire quest is to retrieve his knowledge in exact words, which have always eluded him.
His inquiry, like that of Ludwig Wittgenstein, can be termed as essentially a linguistic one. If all philosophy is a critique of language [11], then for Vaid, all writing is the critique and search of the right language to express his universe, and precisely therefore, it’s not the language which speaks, as Barthes persuades us to believe, but Vaid the Author who speaks and expresses himself through the language. Vaid sure does not precede the language, but he certainly is not produced by it either. The language, admittedly, is given to him a priori, but his Authorial bodh takes it to the extreme few are capable of.
Wit, incredibly, is an important tool of this quest. At every turn, he challenges and teases your perceptions, and never ceases to throw imperceptibly funny and mischievously witty alternatives to your cognition even when he is in a search for answers.
पसरे हुये पिशाच सा यह मकान। इसमें मेरा अकेला मर रहा होना यहाॅ के दस्तूर के हिसाब से कोई अजीब बात नहीं। यहाॅ इस उम्र के सभी लोग अकेले ही मरते हैं। मिसाल के तौर पर साथ वाले मकान वाली बुढ़िया। बढ़िया बुढ़िया।
पूछना चाहिये बुढ़िया का ज़िक्र क्यों ज़रूरी है। पूछ रहा हॅूं। जवाब मिलता है कि ज़रूरी कुछ भी नहीं। मुझे मालूम था यही जवाब मिलेगा। मुझे अब अपने किसी सवाल या जवाब पर कोई हैरानी नहीं होती। इस उम्र में हैरानियों की हवस हरामियों को ही होती है। बस अब यहीं रुक जाना चाहिये। हर जुमले की जान निकाल लेने की पुरानी लत में अब कोई लुत्फ नहीं रहा। वह कभी भी नहीं था। खैर। रुक गया।
इस पसरे हुये पिशाच में आ पड़े हुये सदियाॅ बीत चुकी होंगी क्योंकि महसूस होता है मैं कई मौतें मर चुका हॅू। लेकिन यहाॅ आने से पहले की यादें बीमार और बूढ़े कुत्तों की तरह बैठी बू छोड़ती रहती हैं। शुरु शुरु में उस बू पर कभी कभी ख़ुशबू का शुबह भी हो जाया करता था। कुत्तों की उम्र ज्यादा लंबी नहीं होती। यादों के लिये कुत्तों की उपमा अनुचित है। [12]
These words baffle and unsettle a reader, as she finds herself dislocated and defenseless and disarmed before Vaid. He is unlike any other author a reader has countered so for. What to make of an Author who uses the metaphor of sick dogs to define a nostalgic notion like memory? Which tissues of which culture speak here?
Does it mark the downright departure from the prevailing modes of reading, and hence the Barthean hypothesis, and thus necessitating a journey to take this Author on his own terms, he imposes on a reader?
To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on the text, Barthes declares, adding there is nothing original in a text. The assertion could be perfectly legitimate with certain writers, whose works, indeed, carry the burden of the past; but can there be a method to read the metaphor of sick dogs for memory without asking the fundamental question — Who on earth is this Author changing the rules so decisively?
There could be certain works, Barthes ignores, whose authors, by their sheer authorial force cannot be wished away and remain present with their entire personality within their works.
The Frenchman is rightly apprehensive that the ‘discovery’ of the author can close the text by proclaiming it as explained, but his anxiety is exaggerated, possibly misplaced, as a work need not get closed with the establishment of the author. A reader CAN still interpret the work in myriad manners, perfectly legitimate task it is, which may well be at variance with what the author intended or desired ( in fact, one has no method to discover the author’s intention); but that wouldn’t conclude the death of the author. For, an interpretation or decoding of a creative work carrying the authorial stamp obviously presumes the existence of its creator, and if the work is so closed ab initio that it shuts out external references, demanding its metaphors be read on their own terms, then one is left with no choice but to set out and locate and identify its Author. Vaid.
His metaphors if establish his restless search for the right word, they also underline the irony ingrained in his work and the consequent and conclusive chasm among action, recorded word and meaning.
If, when learning a language, speech, as it were, is connected up to action, can these connections possibly break down? If so, what means have I for comparing the original arrangement with the subsequent action? [13]
Nowhere one finds this breakdown of the connection between the action and the speech so overwhelming and the helplessness of the seeker-speaker so haunting than in Vaid’s works.
But why does a seeker indulge in wit? Aren’t we told that epistemic quests are usually dull and dour?
Precisely at this instance, Vaid marks a permanent and definitive departure from his predecessors and again refutes the Barthean reading of his works. Wit serves two purposes here. First, it establishes his narrator as a mischievous Indian monk, not a stoic or dour Christian saint, but an archetypal Indian seeker.
Second, reflecting his quirky take on the world, the sharp-shooting wit underlines the inherent irony of this cosmos. That instead of somber and melancholic phrases he chooses dark humour to establish his vision of irony is a rare feat of modern Indian literature that requires separate space and discussion. Sufficient it is here to state that not many Indian authors have been able to internalise and portray the discords and disjunctions of modernity with such finesse.
He, significantly, uses negation and irony not as mere ontological but also as narrative tools; his tales build and move as his narrator-protagonist goes on to question and then deny his observations, converting the novel into an epistemic adventure. Of An Old Monk. Located in a cave or cage. Performing imperceptible actions, uttering incomprehensible words, doodling impalpable figures.
The novel is essentially an adventure of human existence, the exploration of the final frontiers of creative imagination that conjures up plots, characters and incidents to weave a mercurial tale. Vaid does away with all the ingredients considered imperative for the form, and fills it with his artistic vision, a quintessential Indian one, of a seeker-narrator embarking on an epistemic adventure.
Sentences sans verb extending into paragraphs into pages accentuated and punctuated by endless series of epic similes complemented and cohabited by rhythm and music even in roughest of the syntax, his questions take unexpected, unexplored routes, become more baffling with each sentence as he devises seductive similes, mesmeric metaphors and addictive alliterations to phrase and paraphrase his queries — and ends up without any answer.
His irony thus becomes overwhelming, all-annihilating, Kierkegaardian swallowing of its own tail, underlining the permanent disjuncture between the visible and its meaning. The epistemic enquiries, the limitation on knowledge and the inability to tell what one knows, only get compounded by Vaid’s vision of irony, also underlining the emptiness of action.
Imagine the plight of a narrator, who knows the final frivolity and futility of all explanations and motions, but still remains in a perennial search of words.
सवाल किया जा सकता है — आह! बहुत मुद्दत बाद यह वाहियात वाक्यांश अनायास वापस लौट आया है। इसे इस वापसी की सजा दॅूगा इसे बार-बार दोहराकर। पुराने जुमले या मुहावरे जब मुझे गाफिल देख कुछ देर के लिये मेरी कलम पर काबिज हो जाते हैं तो महसूस होता है मरखप चुके दोस्त अचानक आ गलने मिलना चाह रहे हों। मैं इन वफादार मुहावरों पर मुसकराता भी हॅू और मितलाता भी हॅू और उनसे कलम छुड़ाने के लिये बार-बार उन्हें दोहराता हॅूं, झूठे जोश और तपाक का सहारा लेता हॅू। वैसे जुबान के चटखारे से इंकार नहीं। मेरी उम्र के बूढ़े आमतौर पर भगवान से चिपटने पर मजबूर हो जाते हैं। मैं भाषा से चिपटा हुआ हॅूं, या शायद चिपटा हुआ होने का अभिनय कर रहा हॅू, क्योंकि मेरी असली और अन्दरूनी ख्वाहिश यही है कि मैं हर ख्वाहिश से आजाद होकर — कम-अज़-अज़ एक बार — उड़ॅू। क्योंकि यह ख्वाहिश है इसीलिये आजाद नहीं हो सकता। मैं इस विडंबना से वाक़िफ हॅू। [14]
Note the irresistible desire to break free, to transcend, despite being aware of its impossibility. Taking the confrontation with the irony of our lives to its final frontier, Vaid stretches out his narratorial thread to the point of no return. Comparing old idioms with deceased friends, advocating जुबान का चटखारा despite being cognizant of irony, his is a standalone narrative, with unmatched style and syntax.
What further sets him apart from his predecessors is the D. Probably the most defining protein of the DNA of his oeuvre. And it seems, also of his personal DNA.
Vaid’s quest is furthered, again both on ontological and narratorial planes (He consistently and deftly employs literary tools for both purposes), by an overwhelming presence of the ‘other’ — the Doppelganger — an apparition that trails, questions and denies his narrator. A metaphysical entity asserting itself, the D is the opponent of his narrator. The D (We call his Doppelganger the D, the alphabet which, incidentally, is also the last of his name. We could have also named him K, the first alphabet of his name!) is neither the villain, nor the anti-hero, it’s the post-hero.
Who is the D? A modern equivalent of soul? The consciousness (aatm-bodh) of the hero? An inevitable recluse of a modern atheist Author, who refuses to accept all supernatural entities like god and soul, but is still haunted by their presence.
Vaid knew that to portray the irony of a modern human he needed a different narrator, who not only knows what he knows and does not know and cannot know, but also knows, and hence suffers from this knowledge, what he knows and cannot make the entire world know; who with all his secret sins and shortcomings is the only person capable to view himself in full gaze and hence the only one in a position to judge or evaluate himself.
Battling his irredeemable and irreparable incompleteness and simultaneously relishing his incurable and invincible idiosyncrasies, this narrator could have been complemented and cohabited only by the D — an apparition hovering around him, never leaving him alone for a moment.
Like Kafka’s cop in the head, the D operates as a permanently deployed sentinel, checking, curbing, censuring, condemning him, and at times cajoling him, besides examining and enquiring his every action.
The D, who figures in almost every work of Vaid, also becomes the participant in long dialogues over various aspects of life, actually monologues, with the protagonist. Even when the D is not actually conversing, the hero-narrator suffers from his invisible and perennial presence.
Remarkably, the D is not a product of his later works. As early as Mera Dushman, his earliest of the stories, Vaid has been confronting with his Double, whose magnitude only grows with time. The monstrous enormity of the D keeps one unsettled, gaping for clues as one plods through Vaid’s labyrinth.
वह इस समय दूसरे कमरे में बेहोश पड़ा है। आज मैंने उसकी शराब में कुछ मिला दिया था … आज मैं उसे बेहोश करने में कामयाब हो गया हॅू। अब मेरे सामने दो ही रास्ते हैं। एक यह कि होश आने से पहले उसे जान से मार डालूॅ और दूसरा यह कि अपना जरूरी सामान बाॅधकर तैयार हो जाउॅ, और ज्यॅंू ही उसे होश आये, हम दोनो फिर उसी रास्ते पर चल दें जिससे भागकर कुछ बरस पहले मैंने माला की गोद में पनाह ली थी। [15]
Another puzzle, even bigger, that grips the reader is the pulsating life in his works with all its obsessions and cravings. How can there be a narrator, living in desolation, meditating, who is in search of knowledge but does not renounce the world? His concerns are metaphysical, but metaphors to mark these musings musical and deliciously corporeal.
Idiosyncratic insistence on certain organs, for instance. Why is a monk in a quest often seen playing with his organs, manipulating a matrix of mercurial and mischievous metaphors for his motions?
कभी कभी किसी उलझी हुई उपमा को कंघा करना या किसी रूठे हुये रंग को मनाना या किसी जिद्दी जंग को दूर करना — कमोबेश एक ही बात को कम-अज़-कम तीन नाक़िस तरीकों से कहने की पुरानी आदत भी अभी नहीं छूटी, कब छूटेगी, अब क्या छूटेगी — जब ज़रूरी हो जाता है तो खोपड़ी खुरचने या पांव घसीटने के बजाय एक हाथ को रानों के बीच के उस जंगल में ले जाता हॅू जो बेशक अब काफी उजड़ चुका है और जहाॅ घूमने से अब न हाथ को कोई खुशी हासिल होती है न हथियार को। लेकिन फिर भी उन चान्दी के तारों को अंगुलियों पर लपेटते लपेटते अगर अचानक उस इलाक़े में किसी धीमी सी हरकत या हैरानी का आभास मिल जाये तो आॅखों में एक मरियल सी मचल आ जाती है और अंगुलियों में कसाव और ज़रा सा भी जोर लगाने से एक गुच्छा उखड़ आता है और मैं सोचने लगता हूॅ कि किसी दिन हाथ लगाते ही वह सारा जंगल उखड़ आयेगा और सर की तरह मेरा सरदार भी गंजा हो जायेगा। इस खयाल से होंठों में एक हरामी सी हरकत आ जाती है।
अगर आगाही के लिये दर्द की जरूरत है तो क्यों नहीं अपने उस सुराख में अंगुली या अंगूठा घुसेड़ कर चिचिला लेता? जवाब है कि यह सवाल वही साला कर सकता है जो यह न जानता हो कि एक हद के बाद अंगुली या अंगूठा तो एक तरफ उसमें कोई कील ठोकने से भी कुछ महसूस नहीं होता। और तो और बवासीर के बेर भी एक हद के बाद झड़ जाते हैं और किसी कौंच से नहीं झनझनाते। [16]
Ignorantly, Vaid is accused of being vulgar. He, in fact and in effect, subverts sexuality and creates a post-sexual universe, wherein the protagonist mocks at and parodies his and others’ sexual inclinations. Compare his escapades with Mahatma Gandhi’s experiments with truth, also termed eccentric by the uninitiated, and one finds a mischievous monk in a quest, who plays and teases with his body and sexual desires only to overcome the overpowering ennui (another of his major thematic occupation) — with all his alliterations, pun, similes intact.
Note this amazing parody of Hindi novelists’ desire of an ideal woman that overturns sexual politics and exposes hypocrisy by inverting the language:
इसी स्थिति को हमारे होनहार उपन्यासकार ने यूॅ बयान किया हैः लड़की सुशी ल होनी चाहिये। और असली। मूतों फले दूधों फले। आज्ञाकार ऐसी कि अगर आदेश हो भरी सभा में सिर के बल खड़ी हो तो मूतो धार बहा दे। बवासीरहीन। चाल से चालाकी टपके, ढाल से ढीलापन। गुढ़ी से ज्यादा गठी हुई। हिंदी कहानी की तरह। भाभी की तरह भड़कीली। खुजली भी करे तो खिलकर। भोगे हुये यथार्थ से भागे नहीं। भावबोध में भीगी हुई हो। नीचे लंगोट पहने उपर ओवरकोट। जिसकी जीभ की एक जुंबिश से जोंक में जान। जो नोकेनश्तर पर नौका टिकाकर नृत्य कर सके। [17]
His details don’t tickle or titillate, and instead suggest that his narrator uses Kama for liberation, follows the Pravritti Marga of Indian tradition, wherein a person elevates himself and transcends to the post-sexual world.
Interestingly, in most of the sexual references of Vaid’s work, the hero is seen amusing himself alone and rarely in a copulation, except in a few instances like Nasreen.
Why does he convert an essentially copulatory act into a one-person’s game? It cannot be deduced that he is afraid of women, considering their lots of mercurial references not just in his fiction but diaries too. ( His diaries are crucial also to counter Barthes’ another proposition who speaks through a character in a work — the author, the character or someone else.)
In remarkably candid moments of his diaries he almost betrays jealousy towards many women of Picasso — इतनी सारी औरतें! [18], and the newly-wed wife of a friend — नई बीवियाॅ अक्सर सुंदर होती हैं। [19]
कुछ औरतों को मुझसे इतना तेज प्यार और मेरे काम से इतनी तुन्द अदावत रही है कि हैरान होता हॅू कि उनके साथ मैं कैसे इतनी-इतनी देर के लिये निभा ले गया।
यह बात नहीं कि किसी ताजा तन्दरुस्त लड़की को देख उसे अपनी औरत में बदल देने की कभी-कभी काम से उकता जाने पर अपने तमाम बुतों की बाजी किसी बेनजीर औरत के लिये न लगा देने की ललक अब बिल्कुल न उठती हो या यह पश्चाताप न होता हो कि अगर मैंने अपनी तमाम औरतों को किसी न किसी तरीके से अपने काम में इस्तेमाल कर उनसे किसी न किसी हद तक निजात न हासिल कर ली होती तो इस वक्त ऐसी तन्हाई और तुर्शी न होती।
कई बार किसी एक ही औरत में दुनिया भर की औरतों को और दुनिया भर की औरतों में एक ही औरत को पा लेने की कोषिष में कट-फट चुका हूूॅं और इस नतीजे पर पहुॅचा हॅू कि ये दोनो कोशिशें भी दूसरी बेशुमार कोशिशों की मानिन्द बेकार हैं। [20]
A diary entry when he was in twenties and staying in Ranikhet for writing Uska Bachpan, refers to his wife — अगर चंपा साथ होती तो इस जंगल के हर कोने में मंगल होता। [21]
Clearly, he is not shy or apprehensive of women. Then why this over-emphasis on amusing himself? Does it relate with his attempts to remove the ‘other’ from his work, considering the D, his sole companion, does not let him remain alone or with any other person even for a second? We have greater reason to believe that the self-appeasing acts of the narrator aim at the search of a self-contained existence. Even as he describes ‘his women’, he is not blinded by the final futility of copulation. Not for a moment his irony takes leave of him.
Returning to where we begin, two opposing forces, centripetal and centrifugal, simultaneously operate on a work. In Vaid’s oeuvre, as we observed, one encounters the almost absence of the centrifugal force due to the inability of a reader to locate her past references; and even in those instances he takes leads from his predecessor like first-person narrative, monologues, irony, epistemic enquiry, he lends them an unalloyed and untainted touch by the sheer halo of his Authorial bodh.
The reader, consequently, is pulled with a formidable gravitational force towards the black hole of Vaid’s universe — an all-devouring space of no return.
In a distant comparison though, marking an ‘opening into his texts’, it can be said that Joyce, Dostoyvesky and Beckett, not to forget the Hamlet, also develop their narrative through monologues, the Irish-Frenchman has dark humour too, and these have been among the favourites of Vaid too, besides the master Henry James, from whom he learnt the craft of inculcating point of view in a narrative. And that they did constitute the tissues of quotations drawn from innumerable centres of culture.
Of greater significance, however, is not the question that whether these tools can be seen in other writers or not, but how does Vaid employ them, and a realization that in Vaid they appear virgin and pristine. Vaid does look up to the past masters but charts his own path, his work is not contaminated or alloyed by outside influences, does not evoke memories and past references, and he, with his wit, irony and subverted syntax, remains the sole Author of his universe.
After settling that intertexuality doesn’t hold water in majority of Vaid’s oeuvre (except in a few like Badchalan Biviyon Ka Dweep written with a clear intention to emulate the Kathasaritsagar) and a reader has to negotiate her way afresh, we now move onto Barthes’ another contention — the authorial voice. That since it is impossible to ascertain who speaks in a text — the narrator, the hero, the reader or the culture, and least of all the author, the author cannot be credited with the work.
We shall now see that in Vaid’s works, it’s only he, the Author, who speaks and there are two clear evidence to establish his Authorship. The uncannily uniform and unvarying narratorial voice through his work and the striking similarity between his diaries and fiction.
First the narratorial voice. The tone and tenor, cadence and countenance of his narrator remains almost the same from Mera Dushman to Pita Ki Parchhaiyaan, Uska Bachpan to Maya Lok. The doggedly fixed gaze, cruelly focussed viewpoint, epistemic concerns, use of irony as a tool, the presence of the D, supremely inverted syntax — all these elements irrefutably suggest the working of a single mind, a sole personality. An inherent strand runs through the entire oeuvre, presuming the existence of an unshared and unalloyed voice behind these works.
If Vaid wrote a single novel, say Maya Lok, identifying his voice could be nearly impossible; if he spoke in many tones through many characters like Dostoyvesky, locating his personal voice could have been extremely difficult; but if there is only one voice, clear and loud, affirming and asserting the Authorship word after word, sentence after sentence, Barthes stands no chance and one would do well to accept that this uniform voice emerging and emanating from all his works must be of the same person —- Vaid the Author.
Barthean proposition that writing is a neutral space where all identity is all lost could hold true in cases where an author doesn’t want to assert his identity, maintains an absolute distance from the narrator, takes all possible steps to obliterate his traces from the work, keeps the narratorial voice distinct from his own; Nirmal Verma for instance, in whose novels and essays lies a distinct gap, in the former he comes across as an inventive story teller, in the latter a profound civilizational critic; or the God-like Joycean narrator paring nails in a corner; but certainly not with Vaid, who not only seeps and peeps through his words be it his tales or journals, but a major element of whose craft lies in making the narrator his own self and the D his own D. [22]
Also, Barthean assertion that an author takes birth with a text/work and does not precede its existence holds no relevance for an Author, who in his journals writes extensively about the struggle he underwent to achieve the point of view while writing his first novel in his twenties. To claim that Vaid took birth with the penning down/publication of Uska Bachpan is to refuse his preparation and the formal achievement — a precondition of publication.
The struggle preceding this first novel, when he was confronting with formidable novels of Henry James and striving to move away from an omnipresent narratorial voice, further confirms and affirms his Authorship of this work and the subsequent ones.
अंतिम रूप लेने से पहला उसका बचपन मेरी दूसरी रचनाओं की ही तरह कुछ एक गलत या झूठी शुरुआत का शिकार हुआ था। सबसे ज्यादा दिक्कत और परेषानी मुझे दृष्टिकोण चुनने और उसे निबाहने में हुई थी। सबसे पहले अधूरे ड््राफ्ट में कोई निष्चित दृष्टिकोण नहीं था और मैं यानी मेरा सर्वव्यापी नैरेटर बेराकटोक सभी पात्रों के अन्दर बाहर घूम रहा था और जो उसके मुॅंह में आता बोल रहा था और जो उसका जी चाहता दिखा रहा था।
ज़िन्दगी में पहली बार मैंने रमकर काम रानीखेत में ही किया था और वहीं मुझे सहसा यह ‘‘इलहाम‘‘ भी हुआ था कि उसका बचपन का नेरेटर न सर्वव्यापी ‘‘मैं‘‘ होना चाहिये और न नौजवान वीरू, बल्कि वही बच्चा वीरू जो शायद मेरे उपन्यास की जान बने।
उसका बचपन में मेरे बाद के काम के कई बीज बिखरे पड़े हैं। [23]
An Author in his twenties struggling with his narratorial voice, at an age when many possibly are not even aware of the concept, let alone its significance or attempts to develop it.
To deny him the Authorship is to deny the word its fundamental right to exist.
Cruel economy, mischievous metaphors, addictive alliterations, instinctive irony, ability to locate humour amid darkest situations, ruthless concentration on point of view —- the defining features of his writings can be traced in the meandering gaze of Beeru, which he acquired with formidable labour.
His diaries, obviously then, are full of ontological moorings on writing and life — the text and texture, concerns and concepts of his journals echo through his novels. At many instances, difficult it would be to distinguish between a novel extract and a journal entry.
मुझे असली सहारा शायद इस विश्वास से मिलेगा, मिलता है, कि मेरी सब कोशिशें कमोबेश नाकाम रहेंगीं, सब ख्वाहिशें कमोबेश खाम रहेंगी, कि सब कोशिशें कमोबेश बेकार होती हैं, कि मुझे किसी भी सफलता से कोई तसल्ली नहीं मिलेगी, कि तसल्ली के बग़ैर ही जीते चले जाना ही शायद मेरी नियति है। [24]
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जब तक खामोश रहता हूॅं, निष्बतन खालिस रहता हॅूं। जैसे ही मुॅंह खोलता हॅूं, खोखला होना शुरु हो जाता हॅूं। मुझे लोगों से मिलना ही नहीं चाहिये। मुझे किसी में कोई खास दिलचस्पी ही नहीं। मुझे अपने आप में भी कोई खास दिलचस्पी नहीं। काम के अलावा मुझे उब और औरत ही लुभाती हैे। औरत का बदन और बातन; उब में से जन्म लेने वाले वे तमाम सवाल जिनकी सलीब मैं उठाये फिरता हॅूं — मौत, ज़िन्दगी, भगवान, अभाव, दुख! बातनवाली औरतें ज्यादा बची नहीं, बदनवालियों के पीछे भागना मुष्किल। इसलिये काम और उब बाकी बचे, मेरे लिये। [25]
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मेरा आदर्श लेखक — जो वही लिखे, जिसके बगै़र उससे रहा न जाये, जो बोले बिल्कुल नहीं, जो भाषा को विषय पर तरजीह दे, जो अपने हर वाक्य पर मर मिटने के लिये तैयार रहे, जो अपनी औक़ात पर निरंतर शक करे, जो हलीम तो हो लेकिन दुनियादार न हो, जो मौत से हमेशा बाखबर रहे। [26]
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सवाल किया जा सकता है — और यह सवाल या इसी किस्म का कोई सवाल पहले भी किया जा चुका होगा — कि मैं इन बखानों को अब बन्द क्यों नहीं कर देता कि मैं ये बखान करता क्यों हॅूं, किसके लिये करता हॅूं? जवाब दिया जा सकता है — और यह जवाब या इसी किस्म का कोई जवाब पहले भी दिया जा चुका होगा।
एक कारण तो यही है कि ऐसा करने से वक्त कटता है, उसे काटने में कष्ट कम होता है, या कम-अज़-कम महसूस यही होता है कि कम महसूस हो रहा है, कि कम हो रहा है। हर वाक्य को लिखने में तो जो कटता है कटता ही है, उससे कहीं ज्यादा हर वाक्य को बांचने में, हर शब्द को शाप समझ उससे सहमने में, कटता है। इस सारी प्रक्रिया को चाहॅूं तो लगन कह लूॅं, चाहॅूं तो निष्काम काम, चाहॅूं तो किसी चट्टान को किसी पहाड़ की चोटी तक बार-बार धकेल ले जाने की वह बदनाम मजबूरी, चाहॅूं तो अकथ पर अकारथ एक प्रहार।
इस ऐब की और एक जड़ मेरे शब्दबाजी के शौक में है। यह शौक शायद मेरे बुनियादी मामूलीपन की अलामत भी है और उससे उपर उड़ने का एकमात्र उपाय भी।
सवाल किया जा सकता है कि क्या मैं यह मानता हॅंू कि हर जलावतन बूढ़े के लिये लिखना ज़रूरी है अगर इसे लिखना कहा जा सके तो। जवाब है कि ज़रूरी तो शायद कुछ भी नहीं लेकिन हद से गुजर कर ज़िन्दगी गुजारने के लिये कोई न कोई लटका ज़रूरी समझ लिया जाये तो आसानी रहती है। मुझे उलजुलूल लिखने का लटका है, औरों को और कोई हो सकता है। [27]
Note the similarity among the above extracts from his diaries and a novel. He comes across as the Author-Monk at both instances, his writings Metafiction-Meditation, carrying an unflinching, unflappable and unassailable faith in the word, that the word alone can take him to salvation.
Linguistically, Barthes would stop us, the author is never more than the instance writing, just as I is nothing more than the instance saying I: language knows a ‘subject’ not a ‘person’.
Precisely here, as observed so far, accompanied by his stylistic struggle and existential endeavour, Vaid, indeed, can be read as the ‘subject’ of his many works and his assertive personal presence in his phrases a topic of a separate analysis.
Not without a danger though.
Of failing to add anything else beyond what he has already concluded.
There is literally nothing we can say about the hero of Bimal or Dusra Na Koi that he does not already know himself…he eavesdrops on every word someone else says about him, he looks at himself, as it were, in all the mirrors of other people’s consciousness, he knows all the possible refractions of his image in those mirrors. [28]
Performing at the pinnacle of self-consciousness, an Author like Vaid who repeatedly asserts his presence and existence through his works, who speaks through his words, has almost written the first and the final word about himself, whose writings are often metafictions, pondering over and at times parodying the writing process; any attempt to understand him, the present piece for instance, is hardly likely to decode or discover anything more about him than that he has already stated, and in fact carries the danger of becoming redundant by saying absolutely nothing the Author has not said earlier.
By no hyper-stretch of literary imagination can such an Author be considered ‘dead’ or existing ‘not preceding his works’. He remains enshrined in his works, his narrator in his cave, seemingly still and motionless, only to become alive and animated as you approach him. Pouncing on you with the formidable force of his work at first, like the Fasting Artist of Kafka, but, if you have patience, soon settling down to narrate you his adventures with his art.
Patience. The only eligibility the Author imposes on a reader before unraveling his mystical and mythical and musical world.
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1. This piece also employs both ‘A’ and ‘a’ for the author. But as can be seen, ‘A’ surfaces to denote the specific author, Vaid, and ‘a’ used as a common noun. This distinction, however, was not possible in Barthes — he did not build his case around a particular author, and was not expected to show reverence for this homo sapiens species either.
2. The impact of replacing the potent and pregnant ‘literary creation’ by the neutered and neutralized nomenclature ‘text’ can be a separate topic of enquiry, especially considering the growing tendency to deploy the Barthean terminology by Indian writers.
3. Images, Music and Text by Roland Barthes. Subsequent quotes are from the same work.
4. It can be asked why this piece about an Indian Author begins with a Western reference. Considering that Barthes and post-modernity have stormed the contemporary imagination, and are increasingly being quoted, it was only appropriate to test the claims of an Indian Author against this hypothesis.
5. Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics by Mikhail Bakhtin.
6. The Kristeva Reader.
7. Dard La Dava.
8. Bimal Urf Jayen To Jayen Kahan.
9. Dard La Dava.
10. The Tacit Dimension by Michael Polanyi
11. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein.
12. From Dusra Na Koi. This extract is not in continuity, the sequence has been changed.
13. Philosophical Remarks by Ludwig Wittgenstein.
14. From Dusra Na Koi. This extract is not in continuity, the sequence has been changed.
15. Mera Dushman.
16. Dusra Na Koi.
17. Bimal Urf Jayen To Jayen Kahan. This extract is not in continuity, the sequence has been changed.
18. Khwab Hai Deewane Ka.
19. Khwab Hai Deewane Ka.
20. From Uske Bayan. This extract is not in continuity, the sequence has been changed.
21. Shikast Ki Awaaj.
22. This could be an interesting propostion to explore that whether the D is a fictional tool or an actual phenomenon which Vaid experiences day and night, and all his writings are, in effect, an attempt to express or expose this overbearing and overwhelming entity.
23. Shikast Ki Awaaj.
24. Khwab Hai Deewane Ka.
25. Sham’A Har Rang Mein.
26. Khwab Hai Deewane Ka.
27. From Dusra Na Koi. This extract is not in continuity, the sequence has been changed.
28. We have gratefully used this expression from Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics by Mikhail Bakhtin, which originally referred to the Russian master.
