About the Book
A UNIQUELY BEAUTIFUL COLLECTION OF POEMS BY ONE OF INDIA'S GREATEST WRITERS.
As a poet, Vinod Kumar Shukla wishes to retain a meticulous record and also to create a body of knowledge. The subject of this activity is his, and other things', relationship to the universe, whichever bit of the universe preoccupies Shukla at that moment: a kitchen, a lane, a bus-stop, or a market. A persistent logic characterises the poetry, as well as a language that's mathematical-scientific in scope, never neglecting the benefits of using tautology ('The blurred tree was exactly like a tree') or reiterating the obvious ('Inside the prison is Nelson Mandela'). Throughout the work glimmers a liberating fact that lies outside the remit of mathematics: the universe and our place in it are unknowable. The poet arrives at no illumination; we do.
One can hardly think of a record in literature that possesses a comparable uniqueness, or of a body of knowledge that's as indispensable.

About the Author
Vinod Kumar Shukla was born in Rajnandgaon, in central India, in 1937. After doing his [...]. in Agricultural Extension, he taught at Indira Gandhi Agricultural University, Raipur, from where he retired in 1996. His first publication, in 1971, was a poetry chapbook Lagbhag Jai Hind (Hail India, Almost). He has since published more than a dozen books that include poetry, fiction and books for children. His first novel Naukar ki Kameez (1979, translated as The Servant's Shirt by Satti Khanna in 1999), was made into a film by Mani Kaul and won the 1999 NETPAC Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Among Shukla's many awards are the Sahitya Akademi Award and the 2023 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.

About the Translator
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra is a novelist, poet, essayist and musician.