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Mainstream, VOL L No 27, June 23, 2012

Rajkamal Choudhary

Wednesday 27 June 2012

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by BISHWAJIT SEN

Rajkamal Choudhary, a rare genius of creative writing, died on June 19, 1967, at PMCH, Patna. He died early, at the age of thirtyseven years and six months. During this short lifespan, he left, for the Hindi and Mathili readership, a great wealth of material—six short-story collections, six poetry collections and twelve novels. Alongwith this, he translated into Hindi the epoch-making Bengali novel Chowringhee by Shankar, the eminent Bengali novelist of considerable repute. He also edited the “complete short stories” of Pandit Bechan Sharma ‘Ugra’.

All this, however, does not explain in totality the phenomenon that was Rajkamal Chaudhary. He was a rebel who always found himself at odds with the existing society and fought back with pen. He questioned the values which the society propagated, his questioning always going down to the dark depths of human existence. He did not spare anything or anybody. He poked fun at the moral values, showing how it was a cover-up for economic exploitation. In his political belief, he was a Marxist. Rajkamal applied for membership of the CPI when he was quite close to death.

RAJKAMAL CHOUDHARY’S growing up took place in an India which was glittering with great hopes. Looking back, much of that hope would seem to be naivete, based on pure innocence which did not take into account the consequences. The consequences, however, revealed themselves too soon. India became independent in 1947. It took the country only 18 years to enter into a period of great turmoil. The Chinese aggression came in 1962, and it exposed the nation’s unpreparedness in face of such eventualities. The year 1965 saw the heralding of the students’ movement in Bihar against increased school fees, besides the Pakistani attack leading to the first major Indo-Pak war. In the general election held in 1967, the Congress lost power in Bihar, UP and West Bengal.

Nineteen sixtyseven also happened to be the year Rajkamal passed away. The Congress’ loss of power in populous States was the culmination of a decade or more of mishandling of national affairs. During his lifetime, Rajkamal Choudhary detected this and identified the system responsible for it. Therein lay his greatness. The web of exploitation, sexual and economic, extending from villages to cities, and therefrom to mega-cities, was etched out by him in his poems and fictions with rare finesse. Humanity was the victim, everywhere and always. There have been writers who wrote in this vein, afterwards too. But none could surpass him, as far as the breadth of vision and knowledge of the craft is concerned.

But surprisingly enough, Hindi criticism did not take notice of him in the manner it should have taken. Lately, there have been some stirrings, and a publication of his complete works is proposed to be brought out by a reputed publisher of Delhi. But that is little solace, after almost half-a-century of neglect. His texts are still not included in university courses of Hindi literature in general and Rajkamal Choudhary remains the proverbial outcaste of Hindi writing.

“Mukti Prasanga” is a long poem, written by Rajkamal on his death bed. A part of it is translated here as a token of our respect to him.

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