Vinod Kumar Shukla
(Rajnandgaon, 1937). Poeta y narrador de la India. Escribe en Hindi. Ha publicado tres novelas y varios libros de poesía; el primero de ellos Lagbhag (1971). Su novela, Naukar Ki Kameez fue llevada al cine, con el mismo título. Actualmente es profesor asociado de la Indira Gandhi Agricultural University en Raipur.
He was born on 1 January 1937 in Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh (then Madhya Pradesh). His first collection of poems Lagbhag Jai Hind was published in 1971. Vah Aadmi Chala Gaya Naya Garam Coat Pehankar Vichar Ki Tarah was his second collection of poems, published in 1981 by Sambhavna Prakashan. Naukar Ki Kameez[1](The Servant's Shirt) was his first novel, brought out in 1979 by the same publisher. Per Par Kamra (Room on the Tree), a collection of short stories, was brought out in 1988, and another collection of poems in 1992, Sab Kuch Hona Bacha Rahega.
Vinod Kumar Shukla was a guest littérateur at the Nirala Srijanpeeth in AGRA from 1994 to 1996 during which he wrote two novels Khilega To Dekhenge and the refreshing Deewar Mein Ek Khirkee Rahati Thi. The latter has been translated into English by Prof. Satti Khanna of Duke University as A Window Lived in a Wall[2](Publisher : Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 2005).
He did his M.Sc. in agriculture from JNKVV Jabalpur wherafter he joined as lecturer in Agriculture College Raipur. He was inspired considerably by the poet Muktibodh who was then a lecturer in Hindi at Digvijay College Rajnandgaon where Padumlal Punnalal Buxy was also working. Baldeo Prasad Mishra was also at Rajnandgaon at the same period.
Las presentes traducciones del hindi al inglés son de Arvind Krishna Mehrotra y, las versiones al español son de Aureliano Carvajal (1984).
http://circulodepoesia.com/2016/04/poesia-hindu-vinod-kumar-shukla/
Una calle en el bazar,
un ajetreado cliente,
cargando una mugrienta
ligeramente desgarrada bolsa
en cada mano,
una vacía, una llena.
Adentro, patatas, frondosas
verduras, un pequeño paquete
de garam masala[1], y chiles
rojos o verdes.
Cómo deseo haber podido ser
una nota de diez rupias
y encontrado refugio
en esa bolsa.
Pero estaba escondido
adentro de la mía.
(1960)
A Street in the bazaar
A Street in the bazaar,
A busy shopper,
Carrying a soiled
Slightly torn bag
In each hand,
One empty, one full.
Inside it, potatoes, leafy
Vegetables, a small packet
Of garam masala, and chillies,
Red or Green.
How I wish I could’ve been
A ten-rupee note
And found shelter
In his bag.
But I was holed up
Inside my own.
(1960)
El hombre aquel se puso un abrigo de lana
nuevo y se largó como un pensamiento
El hombre aquel se puso un abrigo de lana nuevo y se largó como un pensamiento.
En sandalias de plástico me complicaba detrás.
La hora era seis de la mañana, la hora de segunda mano, y un terrible frío.
Seis de la mañana eran como las seis de la mañana.
Había un hombre parado bajo un árbol.
En la neblina parecía de pie dentro de su propia figura nebulosa.
El árbol nebuloso lucía exactamente como un árbol.
A su derecha había un borroso caballo de raza inferior,
luce como un caballo de raza inferior.
El caballo estaba hambriento, la niebla como un prado para él.
Había otras casas, árboles, caminos, pero no otro caballo.
Había solamente un caballo. Yo no era aquel caballo.
Pero mi aliento, al jadear, era indistinguible de la niebla.
Si el hombre parado en ese punto bajo el árbol fuera el maestro,
entonces para él yo era un caballo galopando, herraduras clavadas en la suela de mis botas.
(1964)
That man put on a new woollen coat
and went away like a thought
That man put on a new woollen coat and went away like a thought.
In rubber flip-flops I struggled behind.
The time was six in the morning, the time of hand-me-downs, and it was freezing cold.
Six in the morning was like six in the morning.
There was a man standing under a tree.
In the mist it looked like he was standing inside his own blurred shape.
The blurred tree looked exactly like a tree.
To its right was a blurred horse of inferior stock,
Looking like a horse of inferior stock.
The horse was hungry, the mist like a grassy field to him.
There were other houses, tres, roads, but no other horse.
There was only one horse. I wasn’t that horse.
But my breath when I panted was indistinguishable from the mist.
If the man standing at that one spot under the tree was the master,
Then to him I was a horse at a gallop, horseshoes nailed to my boot soles.
(1964)
THOSE THAT WILL NEVER COME TO MY HOME
Those that will never come to my home
I shall go to meet.
A river in flood will never come to my home.
To meet a river-like people,
I shall go to the river, swim a little and drown.
Dunes, rocks, a mountain, a pond, endless trees, fields
Will never come to my home.
I shall search high and low
for dunes, mountains, rock-like people.
People who work all the time,
I shall meet, not during my leisure hours,
but as if it was an important job.
This first wish of mine I’ll hold on to,
like the very last one.
ONE SHOULD SEE ONE'S OWN HOME
FROM FAR OFF
One should see one’s own home from far off.
One should cross the seven oceans
to see one’s home,
in the helplessness of the unbridgeable distance,
fully hoping to return some day.
One should turn around, while journeying,
to see one’s own country from another.
One’s Earth, from space.
Then the memory of
what the children are doing at home
will be the memory of what children are doing on Earth.
Concern about food and drink at home
will be concern about food and drink on Earth.
Anyone hungry on Earth
will be like someone hungry at home.
And returning to Earth
will be like returning home.
Things back home are in such a mess
that after walking a few steps from home,
I return homewards as if it were Earth.
IT AFFIRMS THAT THERE IS A CHILD
It affirms that there is a child
It affirms that a smattering of flowers is blooming
It affirms that there is happiness
And that the water in the jug is drinkable
And that breath can be drawn from the air
It affirms that the world is
That in the world that remains I remain
Survivor of the war that is to come
I want to die, the person I am
So that in the last moment before death
I shall wish to live forever
For there is a smattering of flowers
And the world is.
A MAN HAD SAT DOWN IN DESPERATION
A man had sat down in desperation
I did not know the man
But I knew the desperation
So I went to him
And extended my hand
Holding my hand, he rose
He did not know me
But he knew the extending of my hand
We walked together
We did not know each other
But we knew walking together.
Translation: 2008, Kumar Vikram
.