Someone Else’s Memory: The Home and the World in Nirmal Verma’s ‘Vey Din’

Abstract

Nirmal Verma’s Vey Din was written in Hindi during the early sixties when the author was living in Prague. This paper addresses the complexities of his narrative which, at a deeper scrutiny, moves beyond a mere story of love and loss and articulates a profound preoccupation with the larger questions of our modern civilization and the human condition. The constant reference to an idea of ‘home’, mysteriously empirical and symbolic, becomes one of the pivotal forces in the novel through which both human relationships and people’s histories are creatively negotiated.

Bibliography

Gagan, Gill (ed.) 2006. Priya Ram (Nirmal Varma Ke Patra), New Delhi: Bharatiya Jnanpith.

Verma, Nirmal. 1991. Vey Din. New Delhi: Rajkamal Paperbacks.