Shanta

बिकाऊ

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Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan 'Agyeya'

1 min read 7 versesकुम्हारpotterखिलौने

7 verses · ~1 min

खोयी आँखें लौटीं: धरी मिट्टी का लोंदा रचने लगा कुम्हार खिलौने। मूर्ति पहली यह

कितनी सुन्दर! और दूसरी- अरे रूपदर्शी! यह क्या है- यह विरूप विद्रूप डरौना? “मूर्तियाँ ही हैं दोनों,

दोनों रूप: जगह दोनों की बनी हुई है। मेले में दोनों जावेंगी। यह भी बिकाऊ है, वह भी बिकाऊ है।

“टिकाऊ-हाँ, टिकाऊ यह नहीं है वह भी नहीं है, मगर टिकाऊ तो

मैं भी नहीं हूँ- तुम भी नहीं हो।” रुका वह एक क्षण आँखें फिर खोयीं, फिर लौटीं,

फिर बोला वह: “होती बड़े दुःख की कहानी यह अन्त में अगर मैं यह भी न कह सकता, कि

टिकाऊ तो जिस पैसे पर यह-वह दोनों बिकाऊ हैं (और हम-तुम भी क्या नहीं हैं?) वह भी नहीं है: बल्कि वही तो असली बिकाऊ है।”

इति

Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan 'Agyeya'

The Poet

अज्ञेय

Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan 'Agyeya'

1911 · 1987

Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan, universally known by his pen name Agyeya, completely rewired the circuitry of modern Hindi literature. Born in 1911 in a British archaeological camp in Uttar Pradesh, his life was as fiercely untraditional as his prose. Before he became the architect of the Prayogavaad (Experimentalism) movement, he was an active revolutionary who spent four years in British colonial prisons for attempting to help Bhagat Singh escape. In those prison cells, he began drafting Shekhar: Ek Jivani, a psychological novel that shocked the literary establishment with its unapologetic exploration of the individual ego. He rejected the prevailing romanticism of the era and instead assembled the Tar Saptak series, bringing together a new generation of poets who wrote in free verse about alienation, intellect, and the fractured modern psyche. He won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1964 and the Jnanpith Award in 1978. Agyeya was a novelist, a combatant officer in World War II, a journalist, and a profound existential thinker. He gave Hindi literature the vocabulary to interrogate the inner self without the comfort of traditional morality.

Paired Painting

A Vegetable Vendor

Painted in 1897 by C. Raja Raja Varma, the talented younger brother and constant artistic companion of Raja Ravi Varma, this masterwork captures the gentle beauty of everyday Indian life. While his elder brother was renowned for sweeping mythological epics, C. Raja Raja Varma brought a sensitive eye to genre subjects and quiet realistic moments. Here, a young South Indian woman stands behind a rustic table laden with humble garden produce, including pumpkins, gourds, brinjal, and okra. Her composed pose and luminous gaze imbue her routine labor with profound dignity, revealing the artistic reverence and emotional depth that defined the Travancore school of academic realism.

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