Tribute to Shiela Gujral

A sensitive writer and poet Shiela Gujral, 87, passed away peacefully in New Delhi on Monday, July 11, 2011 leaving behind her grief-stricken ailing husband Inder Kumar Gujral, our former Prime Minister (1997-98), brother-in-law Satish, his wife Kiran, sons Naresh and Vishal, their wives and grandchildren as well as numerous relatives, freinds, admirers across the country and beyond. She was a social worker as well but it was in the field of writing, and poetry in particular, that she excelled. She wrote in all the three languages she knew—Punjabi, Hindi, and English.
She, like her husband, was quite close to N.C. who had asked her to keep a diary during her stay in the erstwhile USSR when I.K. Gujral was the Indian ambassador in Moscow in the late seventies and early eighties. She had followed that advice and the product was her book on her experiences in the Soviet Union.

As a token of our tribute to her abiding memory we are reproducing the following reviews of her books by noted personalities that appeared in Mainstream at different times. The first one is by Bhabani Sen Gupta, the well-known strategic expert, litterateur and a good friend of the Gujrals; he himself passed away on January 18 this year. The second is by K.S. Duggal, the distinguished writer and a former nominated Member of the Rajya Sabha.

A Poet’s Glimpses of the (Late) Soviet Union

by BHABANI SEN GUPTA

My Years in the USSR by Shiela Gujral; Macmillan; 2002; pp. 179; Rs 395.

Shiela Gujral, or just Shil as Satish Gujral calls her in his autobiography, is an extra-ordinary woman. Not many Indians are versatile in talent and creative activity. Versatality is rarer among women than men. Wives of political figures are not often seen in public. Shiela Gujral combined physical beauty with intellectual versatility even as a young woman when she married Inder Kumar Gujral, students of the same college in Lahore. She started her working life as a lecturer in economics. She also became a well-known social worker, working for the welfare of women and children. Above all, she was a poet of uncommon creative calibre, writing in three languages—English, Hindi, Punjabi. In addition to all this, she was almost a model wife of a man who chose politics as his profession. I have had the pleasure of having two of my best friends in the Gujral couple and I have known her more as a poet and a political hostess than as an academic and a social worker. I enjoy her poems in English. I respect her as a woman and a sensitive observer of human affairs.

In the book I am privileged to review, Shiela Gujral is the wife of the Indian ambassador to Moscow. “IK”, as she fondly calls her husband, was “banished” to Moscow when he fell out with Sanjay Gandhi for refusing to let him vet the main newsbulletin of All-India Radio before it was broadcast. I read about this for the first time in Pupul Jayakar’s biography of Indira Gandhi and at once felt a gush of respect for IK; Satish Gujral has given more details of Gujral’s fall from the grace of Indira Gandhi. Shiela begins her “Recollections and Revelations” of five years in the Soviet Union with a terse statement: “India’s ambassador to the USSR, my husband, I.K. Gujral, considered it as his political exile.” Her friends and relatives warned her that she would have a “rough time” there, and she knew on her own that Moscow would “not be a bed of roses”. However, she braved the hard-ness of the Russian winter as well as the bleakness of the economic and social life in the USSR with a poet’s suspension of fear and jest for life.

Her memories of life in the Soviet Union is a pulsating, account of the perceptions of an extraordinary superpower of the wife of the diplomatic representative of India, a country that the Soviets had come to love from the day of its fateful tryst with freedom. She saw the USSR as a poet, an indomitable hostess whose hospitality was (land is even now) enriched with a touch of personal affection and whose activities in the relatively small Indian community and much larger community of diplomatic wives drew warmth from her total lack of vanity and her genuine gentleness.

Shiela Gujral has told a Delhi newspaper that “basically” she is a housewife. The Gujrals have been involved in politics since long. IK’s father was a Congress leader, but Inder, and later Satish, took to Marxism from their student days. Shiela was not politically active, but intellectually she could hardly remain indifferent to political affairs. “I found a lot of time to indulge in my passion (for writing) while I was in the USSR. There I had freedom, not only of time, but of the mind also.” Nikhil Chakravartty advised her to keep a diary, and she did. Her book, however, shows her to be a very busy diplomatic woman, not just hosting dinners and lunches for Indian and foreign VIPs, but attending many cultural functions and engaging in a variety of activities from gardening to promoting Indian culture in the USSR.

The readers, especially women, would be impressed with the sweat and imagination Shiela Gujral used to give a facelift to the Indian embassy building which had been ill-kept for well over a year because there was no ambassador (and his wife) to look after it. The inadequacies of the Soviet economy and incompetence and sheer laziness of the Soviet workforce come out frequently in her chapters dealing with the upkeep of the embassy. She got an abandoned dacha owned by the Indian embassy renovated into a place of rest and recreation of the embassy staff. In this dacha Napolean once spent two nights with a Russian girl during his ill-fated Russian campaign.

She became famous all over the USSR when the fascination with which Leonid Brezhnev admired the bindi on her forehead, at a reception given by the ambassador in honour of the visiting Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was televised all over the country. This won her special preference whenever she went for shopping or even stood in a line before a show repairer to mend her chappal. We do get glimpses of famous Soviet personalities like Brezhnev, Kosygin, Gromyko and others in her pages as well as their wives, but none really comes to life because she got to know very little of them. On the other hand, she brings to vivid colourful life the grandeur of the Russian sky and forests, of the riot of colours at gardens and parks in blooms, the endless vistas of snowbound Soviet landscapes and mountains. The most impressive chapters are those in which she gives poetic descriptions of the Asian republics of the USSR, of the Volga, the Balkan republics and many other beauty spots kissed by nature on the Soviet soil.

Shiela Gujral began her stay in Moscow composing a short poem in Hindi which she later translated into English:

The mellow beauty

In the mounds of snow

Stirs the still centre of my heart.

The dazzling halo of the naked ice

Arouses and tickles my every part,

How intoxicating is the sight of rays

Kissing the snow!

There are in the text several poetic flights of Shiela Gujral’s prose. However, the most striking picture is that of a huge pine tree she found standing majestically beyond the window of her sitting room at the Yalta Sanatorium when she was laid up for a whole day by a severe attack of urtecaria followed by choking of the throat. “The whole day I stayed in bed. By evening, when I went to the sitting room, I felt like opening the window on the left side of the room, There was a majestic pine tree extending its hand through the window and impulsively I held it. This hand of friendship seemed to be conveying a message to me—Look, how I face thunder, sun, storm, and rain all the time standing steadfast on my feet. Why do you get panicky at minor pinpricks? I moved to the balcony and sitting on an easy chair watched the waves leaning upwards to greet me. Soon after, the message of the pine tree seemed imprinted on my mind’s screen, I picked up a pen and copied it on my notebook.” (Italics in the text)

Before the story of the USSR takes off, Shiela treats us to a touching confession of the emptiness most wives of politicians feel if they are not political partners of their husbands. She and Inder hardly shared her personal problems. ”Most of our conversation on non-family matters like politics, social work, fine arts and literature, was confined to 90 per cent listening and hardly 5 to 10 per cent talking by me. As a matter of fact, even when he read out his manuscript of an article or speech to me, he did not appreciate it if I differed on any issue. ‘You do not understand politics’ was always his prompt reply. Later on, he often changed his mind, not at my suggestion, but on the basis of his own understanding.

“Fully devoted to his first love, politics, he never realised that I was missing anything in life. Knowing my excellent equation with the family and my keen interest in social work, he thought I was fully satisfied.”

In the icy winter of Moscow, Shiela “discovered my bitter half”. For the first time she found her husband enjoying nature. With the slowing down of diplomatic, political and social activities, the long winter evenings provided ample time to the ambassador to listen to his spouse. They became friends communicating to one another even on their personal problems, and IK began to listen with respect to her views on political and social issues.

The reader will find in this book brief accounts of many seminal changes in Indian political life—the Shah Commission’s hearings on the Emergency, the coming into power of the Janata Government, the consequences of the unexpected regime change in Delhi, the death of Sanjay Gandhi in an air accident and the stoic courage with which Mrs Gandhi bore her loss and her return to power in 1980. There are also interesting glimpses of several prominent Indian persona-lities—the President, Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers, interesting accounts of the easy irritability and change of mind of President Sanjiva Reddy.

Much more interesting and endearing are Shiela Gujral’s descriptions of the members of their large family and the ties of love and affection binding them together. Fqually endearing are her brief outlines of literary personalities like Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Sardar Jafri and Ismat Chugtai. It is also a pleasure to be introduced to a number of Soviet poets from Moscow, Leningrad, and the Central Asian republics.

The USSR is no more. It died of many illnesses most of them inflicted on its bodipolitik by its own leaders and the all-powerful Stalinist Party. However, both the leaders and the people of the USSR were not just friends of India, they loved India with their emotions and sentiments. Much of that love and affection which India has not enjoyed in any other country is captured in this well-produced and printed book of recollections and revelations. A special charm is added to it by the beautiful short introduction written by President K.R. Narayanan.

(Mainstream, July 6, 2002)

Making Art of Life

by K.S. DUGGAL

So Many Journeys by Shiela Gujral; Allied Publishers Private Limited, New Delhi; Rs 295.

It is maintained that a creative writer takes to biographical writing when he or she finds the creative in him or her drying up. Rajinder Singh Bedi, the renowned Urdu short story writer, once shared this fear with me: “Duggal, I dread the day when I would go dry.”

Blissfully, it is not at all true of the author of the book under review. Shiela Gujral is as active, as prolific as a many-faceted writer as ever. She continues to write both in Hindi and English as regularly and continues to be published as ever. She brought out a collection of her verses entitled Cosmic Murmurs only the other day.

Shielaji deviates from another trend in biographical writing. She seems to have aban-doned the selective in favour of the all-inclusive. She appears to subscribe to the anti-exclusive spirit of our time that insists on the equality of everything and, therefore, is rooted to the theory that all facts are of equal value and a biographical writing need not exercise judgment. In So Many Journeys, therefore, we have a section devoted to ‘Reflections and Revelation’, another to ‘Travels’, the third to ‘Personalites’ and the last one devoted to odd ‘Anecdotes’.

Biographical writing is a way of getting ouside the self; it is turning self-knowlede into art. An entirely sensitive writer, Shiela Gujral makes her experience live for her readers:

To my ear, two little doves mating near a bush, fair daffodils showing their radiant faces, a young lady standing there as if waiting for someone, all this engrossed my mind till my husband had to tap my back to remind me that it was time to leave.

The fascinating sight of two Suns, one emerging in the east and the other lingering in the lap of the western horizon intrigued me and I sat on the window settee observing the splendour of a stone-studded seascape. It seemed as if a huge canvas in front of me was continuously undergoing change with the brush strokes of the master artist, nature.

Shiela Gujral has the advantage and disad-vantage of being the spouse of not only a former Prime Minister but also a renowned intellectual. Albeit, she has built her own identity as a creative writer, a sensitive poetess and it is no less a delight to find that that is amply recognised time and again.

The trip was a great morale-booster for me personally. Though I expected that as a spouse I would get a chance to bask under reflected glory, I could not imagine that there would be laudatory ‘writer-ups’ on me as an independent identity.

Shiela Gujral makes her imagination mediate between what she experiences and what she records. It is making art of life.

(Mainstream, December 9, 2006)

Poetry of Ecstasy and Concern

by H.K. KAUL

Sparks by Shiela Gujral (with paintings by Manav Gupta); Allied Publishers, New Delhi; 2002.

Two Black Cinders by Shiela Gujral; Allied Publishers, New Delhi; Enlarged edition, 2002 (first published, 1985).

Poetry of this day and age is not always well crafted and the methods used for putting across messages to the readers through poetry are not subtle. But, the poetry of Shiela Gujral brings forth the images of compassion, the soothing touches of the nature and also the sufferings of mankind. It is not always possible to peep across the iron curtains of time in order to come closer to the realities of life in various settings. Fortunately Shiela Gujral displays her talent well in this regard.

Recently, two of her collections of poems—Sparks and Two Black Cinders—have been published. Sparks is indeed a collection of sparks, the short poems that emit messages through metaphors. These short poems cover a wide range of themes with titles that come from flora including trees and blossoms, and nature including the scenes of sunset, autumn, winter and mountain streams. The collection also includes her poems which she has written in other countries including Greece and Spain.

The poetry that emerges out of these poems is well supported by a panorama of images. For example, the images such as ‘duty-bound twigs’, ‘moonlight cuddling cacti’, ‘the sun kissing the waves in the ocean’, ‘the breath of sun’, ‘magic carpet of dreams’ among others go well with her poetry. However, the poet weaves images using simple words and tries to fit them in complex situations. For instance, in the poem entitled ‘Release’, she says:

Scorching sun-rays

pierced snow-sheet

rescued prisoners

under the soil.

All that is hidden under the sheets of snow she compares with prisoners who are unable to move out to the open until they are released. These simple images that convey a great deal of meaning are present in good measure in Sparks. Her images have life and lustre and they remain changing with the times. As such her images play different roles in different settings. For instance, ‘Saintly Sun’ in Sun; ‘Pompous Moon’ in Moon; ‘Lusty wind’ in Windstorm; ‘Raptured Sanyasin’ in Mountain Stream. These are just a few instances. In order to make a point, sometimes she uses adjectives more too often, such as we see in the poem ‘Descend’:

Writhing leaves

shaking trees

moaning wind

weeping sky

robbed me of my sleep.

Shiela Gujral’s short haiku-like poems cover a variety of subjects. It is a delight to read them, for, we often give our own meanings to them in our worlds of imagination. Sparks is very well illustrated by the paintings of Manav Gupta, the well-known artist. These paintings add more colour and meaning to the poems.

Shiela Gujral’s Two Black Cinders, unlike the short haiku-like poems in Sparks, is a collection of 56 poems that reflect in depth her intense feelings and views on human, political and social issues. In this collection also her love for nature is seen in abundance. She picks up more images from nature to portray her ideas than from any other source. The poems ‘Fast on its way’, ‘Spring’, ‘Spring (Indian)’, ‘Summer’, Mid-day Scene’, ‘Autumn’, ‘Winter Scene’ and many more reflected her closeness with nature as if she speaks all the time to flowers and trees, seasons and the stars, finding answers to the ills of mankind. Her concerns for the promotion of values and social deprivation are well depicted in her poetry.

Her poetry is simple but sensitive in nature. It is descriptive at times but more symbolic in essence. An example of her style may be represented in the following lines from ‘Mid-Night Scene’.

Lunar light

cuddled around the cliff

like an infant

suking at mother’s breast.

Galaxy of stars

bending on her lake

like a lover

gazing reflections in the beloved’s eye

falling on the fields

like the downpour of mercy

from Mother Teresa’s eye.

I am sure that Shiela Gujral is going to give us more good poetry in the years to come.

(Courtesy: Poet)

(Mainstream, June 18, 2003)

The Rhetoric of Nature

by MANOHAR BANDOPADHYAY

Cosmic Murmur (Poems) by Shiela Gujral; Allied Publishers Pvt. Limited, New Delhi; 2004; pp. 48; Rs 95.

This is the seventh book of poems in English by Shiela Gujral, a versatile poetess in English, Hindi and Punjabi who has been widely translated in India and abroad. Containing twentytwo poems originally written both in Hindi and English, the book has been superbly brought out by Allied Publishers with a fascinating cover design from a painting by the celebrated artist, Anjolie Ela Menon.

These poems need to be read in the light of the prolific contribution of the poetess who has published earlier eleven volumes of poems in Hindi, six in English and four in Punjabi in addition to scores of books of short stories, essays, biography and memoirs. Among these must be mentioned her earlier poetry collection, the Canvas of Life, quite an enduring work in English. “These poems,” says Dr Karan Singh in his foreword to the volume, “cover many different scenes and emotions, including several written in the wintry clime of Moscow, expressed in sincere and uncluttered language.” Dr Karan Singh’s observation is amply attested by Shiela Gujral’s lines drawing on a vanguard tapestry of scenes and emotions, poems after poems like the galvanised waves of the fathomless sea. The chastened state of mind from which these zesty lines emerge is decipherable in the poem sequence, Magic Cure I:

Liberated from all the material ties

I kept on watching

the boundless bounty of darkness

and all the tension evaporated from my loaded mind.

Meditative and transcending, the poems of the volume reveal a remarkable fidelity to emotion and compassion of the poetess. In the ecstasy of her kinship with numerous aspects of nature; the clouds, the stars, the sky, the trees and the renewal of season, she hums her lines in spontaneous flow. Her preference is to deal with the very source of inspiration without tampering with peripheral debate. Eventually her poems are tautly short, crisp and also aphoristic. The images fall almost in a flourish:”The sun jumped into the sea/to kiss the waves.”

Quite as the poetess seeks refuge in the lap of nature, she doesn’t profess any alienation from the life of the world. She would instead wish to see a deep bond of love forging between man and nature. For her a retreat in nature is an overbearing necessity. She is pained to see man’s cruelty to nature. Time and again she insists on maintaining the sanctity of nature. She abhors to witness.” (“The Sting of Modernity”). Even when the nature is violated by its own oppressive forces, she doesn’t hesitate to condemn it in fiercest terms: “The wayward storm/raped the pregnant trees.” (“The Mass Murder”)

Nature thus leaves its mark on Shiela Gujral’s poems in more ways than one. Her’s is verily the rhetoric of nature. It is not merely the inspiration of her poetry, but also the object. Nature for her is a spiritual anchorage, an alternative to the ruthless rapacity of the urban world. Her work calls to mind the poems of Robinson Jeffers who likewise decried the disgust of city life and asserted, “When the cities lie at the monstrous feet/there are left the mountains.” Shiela Gujral too, denouncing the urban profanity, states:

We, three nature lovers

seeking respite from

the din of city life

reached a desolate valley

nestled in the lap of hills…

and the mute rocks…

all provided soothing balm

to cure our tension.

(“The Sting of Modernity”)

(Mainstream, November 6, 2004)