Once again I found myself bound for a Dilli yatra. Iqbal has said: "Gulzar-e-hast-au-bood na baiganavar daikh, Hai daikhnai ki chiz isai bar bar daikh"

Dilli, now known as Delhi, is in its own way a gulzar-e-hast-au-bood in miniature, where the past and the present seem to be meeting in a peculiar way. Early in the morning I crossed the threshold of India International Centre and immediately found myself ushered in the Lodhi Gardens, where Lodi kings' mausoleums standing high in the sky remind us of the past, the pre-Mughal past of this city.

Everything was there as it has been for years, except one. Erected in a corner of this garden, a big signboard introduces us in brief words to the birds inhabiting this place. So my yatra in Delhi started with my morning visit to Lodhi Gardens. Soon after it, the renowned historian Mr Sudher was kind enough to lead me to the residence of Gagan Gill. I thought fit first to pay my respects to the bereaved lady before going to the Nirmal Verma Memorial Lecture. In fact, I had come to Delhi at the invitation of Nirmal Smriti, which has initiated an annual lecture series in memory of Nirmal Verma, the leading fiction writer of India writing in Hindi. He had passed away last year on October 25.

So it was the first memorial lecture delivered on October 23. A large number of his readers and his contemporaries were there to pay homage to their respected writer. Urdu writers too such as Dr Gopi Chand Narang and Shameem Hanafi were present on the occasion. Glowing tributes were paid to the departed soul. A sense of veneration marked the occasion.

In the audience I marked two souls in particular, Mr Ramo Gandhi and Ram Kumar. Mr Ramo is the grandson of Gandhiji and is a personality of his own kind. He is a regular visitor to ICC but has no taste for company. Sitting alone away from all, he gives the impression of a secluded being happy in his isolation.

Ram Kumar is the brother of Nirmal Verma and is counted among the most distinguished painters of India. But I know him more as a short story writer than as a painter. Of course I am indebted to Aloh Bhalla's English translations for knowing him in this capacity. What a fine story writer he is. But he concentrated more on paintings, leaving the field of short story for his dear brother.

Nirmal Verma is a short story writer as well as a novelist. But though excelling in both the forms, I have a feeling that his creative talent has found a more subtle expression in his short stories. Here again we should send our thanks to Aloh Bhalla, who has translated a number of his works, including his articles, in English. We have also some Urdu translations of his short stories.

Nirmal had started as a communist. But he did not remain struck for long to this ideology. The changes in his thinking have been well condensed in few works by Gagan Gill, who is a poet in her own right. She says, “He began his career as a Communist and was soon disillusioned, and remained a staunch critic of Soviet Union and Emergency rule in India. He started supporting the cause of Tibet way back in the 70s when it was still an obscure agenda, and in his later years became an earnest voice against the phenomenon of pseudo — secularism in modern India.”

His critical writings of the later period stand as a testimony to these changes in his thinking. One can clearly see his estrangement from his communist ideology when he expresses his belief in part, a part which is steeped deep in religion.

Nirmal defines Indian tradition in terms of three epics, the two being Ramayana and Mahabharata, which “along with the tales and legends contain an inexhaustible storehouse of the archetypal images and symbols.” The third, according to him, is an unwritten epic, “The third unwritten epic is Indian civilization itself.” And he expects from an Indian writer to dive deep in this third epic if he aims at being a truly modern Indian writer.

His thoughts in his later period has been defined by Gagan Gill as “an earnest voice against the phenomenon of pseudo-secularism in modern India.”

But had he himself succeeded in becoming a truly modern Indian writer in accordance to the standard set by him? That might be his ideal, but was he able to achieve it in his fiction. To be more precise, is there something in his novels Raat ka Reporter and Ek Chithra Sukh which brings them near to the standard set by him.

The fact is that we are now living in ideology-ridden times. Writers in particular are victims of this situation. But it so often happens that creative experience of the writer does not submit to the dictates of his ideological thinking. So a reader with a different thinking needs not worry while reading Nirmal's fiction. He can well appreciate this fiction without sharing his views about it. Is it not a fact that so many readers of Faiz enjoy his verse without caring to share his ideological thinking? In fact the ideological thinking of the writer comes to a stop the moment his creative experience comes into operation. Creativity is a fit reply to ideology.