Kalam Writes Fresh History of Hindi Authors in the UK

By Amit Roy

After years in England, I feel I have more or less lost the ability to read and write fluently in Hindi which I was once able to do since I grew up as a small boy in Patna, the capital of Bihar, a Hindi-speaking state.

I remember only too well that prefects at St Xavier’s had the freedom to beat us if ever they caught us lapsing into the local lingo outside of the vernacular class. That was to improve our spoken English and this admittedly helped greatly when I switched to a school in England.

“Just read a few books in Hindi,” Sundeep Bhutoria assures me.

Sundeep is doing signal service to the cause of literature in India by promoting authors across the length and breadth of a huge country - Hindi-language authors under the brand name Kalam (which means pen in Hindi); English-language writers under The Write Circle; Lafz (word) for works in Arabic, Urdu and Farsi; and Aakhar for those in India’s many other regional languages.

“Kalam began two years with two cities,” says Sundeep, who is currently on one of his regular visits to the UK. “It has now gone to 25 - Patna, Kolkata, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Agra, Ranchi, Chandigarh and other cities.”

What will be interest to Eastern Eye readers is Sundeep has brought Kalam to London, initially with three writers- the poet Leeladhar Jagoori, Rajesh Reddy, and Neelima Dalmia Adhar.

Two of Neelima’s books -Father Dearest: The Life and Times of RK Dalmia and The Secret Diary of Kas-turba have proved controversial bestsellers, both in the original and in Hindi translation.

The first is “the gripping biography of RK Dalmia, the last century’s most flamboyant Indian industrialist, writ-ten by his daughter, who loved and loathed him equally”.

The second is “a fictional diary of Kasturba Gandhi”.

“My endeavour was to portray Gan-dhi the husband and father, not Gandhi the Mahatma,” Neelima has said.

Sundeep, whose efforts to bring Kalam to the UK are getting publicity backing from the British Council, is currently touring Birmingham, Edinburgh, Oxford and Nottingham. He expects to extend Kalam to other cities here.

The fourth Kalam event in London, with author Geetashree, is due on September 23. All guests at the events receive a free copy of the book being discussed.