A writer, a mystery, a quiet tragedy: The tortured genius of Bhuwaneshwar

This year marks the 110th birth anniversary of this radical, experimental short-story writer, poet and playwright (there are conflicting versions of his date of birth, but the most widely accepted is June 20, 2012). In her book on the author, published by Sahitya Akademi, Hindi academic and writer Girish Rastogi writes about how, in the last few years of his life, Bhuwaneshwar slipped into a permanent state of severe mental illness. He wandered through cities and towns in modern-day Uttar Pradesh, impoverished. He spent an extended period in Allahabad, roaming the streets in torn pants and a bush shirt, his feet wrapped in rags, his beard ragged and hair unkempt. Then, one day, he disappeared.

There were people who claimed they’d seen him in Bareilly; lying on a bench at Lucknow’s Charbagh station, shivering in the cold; then again in Allahabad. But his final days were spent in Varanasi, where the Hindi poet Trilochan Shastri spotted him huddled among beggars at the Dashashwamedh Ghat.

He died in a Varanasi dharamshala in 1957, during a particularly cold November. He was 45.

How did this fiercely talented writer come to such an end? Bhuwaneshwar was born and grew up in Shahjahanpur, amid severe poverty. His father Onkarbaksh tried his hand and failed at many businesses, from running a brick kiln to becoming a building contractor. He became addicted to alcohol. Bhuwaneshwar’s mother had died when he was 18 months old. Onkarbaksh remarried and had seven more children. Bhuwaneshwar was neglected, amid this new family. He grew up alone and lonely, Rastogi writes. His only source of comfort was his father’s younger brother, Mahamaya Prasad. But this uncle died of the plague when Bhuwaneshwar was just 12.

By his late teens, as his friends began to leave Shahjahanpur for higher studies in Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi and Allahabad, Bhuwaneshwar left too. It was the start of his relentless wanderings. He began writing short stories and one-act plays and, by 24, his work was being published by Premchand in the latter’s journal, Hans. Sadly, despite Premchand’s famous declaration (in 1936), the Hindi literary establishment gave Bhuwaneshwar the cold shoulder.

Was this because of envy? His unconventional personality? Was it because he was an atheist and didn’t believe in caste, class or social taboos? Was it because his writing was bleak, brutally honest and deeply uncomfortable?

In his most famous short story, the hair-raising, spine-chilling Wolves, a pack of hundreds of wolves chases a caravan being pulled by bulls. An old man, his son and three young girls are travelling in the caravan. Eventually, to make the load lighter so that the caravan can continue to outpace the pack, the girls are thrown to the wolves one by one. The last to go is the old man. Only the son survives. The next year, he kills 60 of the wolves.

Bhuwaneshwar’s best-known play, The Copper Insects, is probably Hindi literature’s first Absurd drama, with only one character, Lady Announcer, on stage. There is a range of off-stage characters with generic names: Thaka Officer (Tired Officer), Rickshawwala, Masroof Pati (Busy Husband) and so on. There is no plot. Though the dialogue appears to be random, it reflects the pain and distress of human existence.

Were these the work of a genius or a madman? The literary fraternity then either decided on the latter, or didn’t care to consider.

Bhuwaneshwar remains a shadowy figure on the fringes of the Hindi literary world. His short stories were recently translated into English by Saudamini Deo (Wolves and Other Stories; 2021). Perhaps it’s a first step in the rediscovery of Bhuwaneshwar. Hopefully it won’t be the last.