Indianness, Absurdism, Existentialism, and the Work of Imagination: Vinod Kumar Shukla’s Naukar kī kamīz

Abstract

Martin Christof-Fuechsle discusses “Indianness” in the novel Naukar kı̄ kamıı̄z (1979) by Vinod Kumar Shukla. The novel was highly acclaimed by Indian critics. Vishnu Khare, in his preface to the Marathi translation of the novel, praises it as an authentic portrait of lower middle-class life in a small town in Madhya Pradesh. At the same time, he highlights the fact that it does not contain traces of Western models and that there is also no display of “-isms” such as existentialism, structuralism, and so on. Khare emphatically designates it as a thoroughly Indian novel by a thoroughly Indian narrator. Christof-Fuechsle asserts the status of Naukar kı̄ kamı̄z in Hindi literature since independence and proceeds to analyse the cultural context for this enthusiastic review of the novel.