Krishna Sobti

Biography

Sobti was born in Gujrat, Pakistan, and was educated in India, in Delhi and Shimla. She attended school along with her three siblings, and her family worked for the colonial British government. She initially began her higher education in at Fatehchand College in Lahore, Pakistan, but returned to India when the Partition took place. She worked for two years as a governess to Tej Singh, who was the grandson of the then-Maharaja of Sirohi, in Rajasthan, India. She currently lives in Delhi, with her husband, the Dogri writer Shivnath, whom she married at the age of seventy.

Writing

Sobti's use of idiomatic Punjabi and Urdu while writing in Hindi has expanded over time to include Rajasthani as well. Her ability to adapt dialect and language specifically to the region is she writing about has been praised by critics for lending authenticity to her characters. It has also been cited as a reason for the difficulty in translating her works to other languages. Although Sobti's works deal closely with issues of female identity and sexuality, she has resisted being labelled as a 'woman writer' and has spoken of the importance of occupying both, masculine and feminine viewpoints, as a writer.

Fiction

Sobti initially established herself as a writer of short stories, with her stories Lama (about a Tibetan Buddhist priest), and Nafisa being published in 1944. In the same year, she also published her famous story about the Partition of India, called Sikka Badal Gaya, which she sent to Sachchidananda Vatsyayan, a fellow writer and the editor of the journal, Prateek, who accepted it for publication without any changes. Sobti has cited this incident as confirming her choice to write professionally.

Zindaginama and Litigation Against Amrita Pritam

Sobti submitted the manuscript of her first novel, titled Channa, to the Leader Press in Allahabad in 1952. The manuscript was accepted and printed, however, Sobti found on receiving proofs that the Press had made textual alterations, and consequently sent them a telegram asking them to cease printing copies of the book. Sobti has said that the alterations included linguistic changes that altered her use of Punjabi and Urdu words to Sanskrit words.

She withdrew the book from publication, and paid to have the printed copies destroyed. She was subsequently persuaded by Sheela Sandhu, publisher at Rajkamal Prakashan, to revisit the manuscript, and it was published by Rajkamal Prakashan as Zindaginama: Zinda Rukh in 1979 after extensive rewriting. Sobti went on to win the Sahitya Akademi Award for Zindaginama in 1980. Zindaginama: Zinda Rukh is nominally an account of rural life in a village in Punjab, in the early 1900s, but addresses political and social concerns of the time. It has been described by the writer and critic Trisha Gupta as a "universally acclaimed part of the Hindi literary canon."

Soon after Zindaginama was republished, the poet, novelist and essayist Amrita Pritam published a book titled Hardatt Ka Zindaginama. Sobti filed a suit in 1984 for damages against Pritam, claiming that Pritam had violated her copyright through the use of a similar title. The suit was litigated for 26 years and was ultimately decided in favour of Pritam, six years after Pritam's death, in 2011. Part of the delay was caused by the disappearance of a box of evidence containing original manuscripts of both, Pritam and Sobti's novels, from the court. Sobti has since expressed disappointment at the outcome of the suit, noting that her original plan of writing Zindaginama as part of a trilogy was interrupted by the litigation.

Other Works

Sobti published several other novels to acclaim. Dar Se Bicchudi (Separated from the Flock), published in 1958, was set in pre-Partition India, and concerned a child born from a marriage that crossed religious and social boundaries. This was followed by Mitro Marjani (To Hell with you Mitro!), in 1966, a novel set in rural Punjab that concerned a young married woman's exploration and assertion of her sexuality. Mitro Marjani was translated to English by Gita Rajan and Raji Narasimha as To Hell with You, Mitro and propelled Sobti to fame. Scholar and critic Nikhil Govind has said that Mitro Marjani "allowed the Hindi novel to break out of the straitjacket of social realism, or the more stereotyped notions of ‘women’s fiction’." Her next novel, Surajmukhi Andhere Ke (Sunflowers of the Dark) was published in 1972 and dealt with a woman's struggle to come to terms with childhood abuse, and was preceded by two novellas in 1968, Yaaron Ke Yaar (Friends of Friends) and Tin Pahar. Ai Ladki, (Hey Girl) a more recent novel, narrates the relationship between an old woman on her deathbed and her daughter, who acts as her companion and nurse. Sobti has also written a novel that is a fictionalised autobiography, titled Gujrat Pakistan Se Gujarat Hindustan Taq (From Gujrat, Pakistan, to Gujarat, India). Her most recent novel is Dil-o-Danish (Heart and Mind).

Works published under her pseudonym, 'Hashmat'

Beginning in the 1960s, Sobti has also published a series of short profiles and columns under masculine pseudonym, 'Hashmat'. These were compiled and published as Ham Hashmat in 1977, and included profiles of Bhisham Sahni, Nirmal Verma, and Namwar Singh. She has said, concerning her pseudonym that, "We both have different identities. I protect, and he reveals; I am ancient, he is new and fresh; we operate from opposite directions." Her columns, written as Hashmat, have won praise from authors and critics, including the writer Ashok Vajpeyi, who said of them that "Nobody has written so endearingly of writers." as well as from Sukrita Paul Kumar, who has suggested that the use of a male pseudonym enabled Sobti to write without inhibition about her peers.

Translations

Novels

Short stories

Honours and awards

Sobti won the Sahitya Akademi Award for Zindaginama in 1980. Sobti was also appointed as a Fellow of the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, in 1996. In the citation given to her following her appointment, the Akademi praised her oeuvre and writing, saying that, "Renewing at every step her five-decade long creativity with fresh insights and dimensions, Krishna Sobti has regarded literature as the true play-field of life, and she has held a formidable mirror to this life." In 2015, she returned both, the Award, and her Fellowship, citing governmental inaction following riots in Dadri, concerns regarding freedom of speech, as well as comments made by a government minister concerning Hindi writers.

She was offered the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 2010, which she declined, stating that, "As a writer, I have to keep a distance from the establishment. I think I did the right thing."

Works online