NewDelhi:
So today we’ll discuss an author whose heart held magic too. He was a remarkable writer who lived an unassuming life – Vinod Kumar Shukla. Vinod Kumar Shukla was born in Rajnandgaon on Jan. 1, 1937, in Chhattisgarh, then a state. He studied agriculture and held a position as an agricultural teacher in an agricultural college for a while. However literature was the world. He commenced his writing career in 1971. He wrote in a very innovative, easy, simple, balanced style and in depth wrote on deep down areas of everyday life of mundane society, and a very beautiful representation of the more subtle feeling, thoughts and emotions of everyday person.
He died on 23 December 2025. He was a serious loss to Hindi literature. He passed away at AIIMS Raipur on 23 December. His death is emblematic of a great turning point in the history of Hindi literature. But his works still survive, and this year, he was named a recipient of the Jnanpith Award, the highest honor in Hindi literature. He was the first Chhattisgarh writer to be awarded this honor.
Vinod Kumar Shukla
The death of this great warrior is such a major loss, but do you think that that depth and wisdom he had, the magic in mundane life, and the sensitivity of the human mind that he showed will always be the inspiration for future generations? Vinod Kumar Shukla doesn’t always talk loudly; sometimes he just comes up to you, says a lot, no verbalizing at all. Vinod Kumar Shukla was a gifted writer of Hindi literature.
. He did not put himself in the spotlight and never marketed himself; he was an early observer of life. He wrote in very simple language, but to the depths of the heart. Vinod Kumar Shukla was born in Chhattisgarh on January 1, 1937 in a small town. There was no great literary legacy, no writers in his family and no childhood dream of becoming a great writer. Life came in ordinary form: studies, home, family, job. He was an agricultural major and was employed to teach at an agricultural college when everything began to show from a fresh horizon. “Look, everything here is simple and beautiful.” Vinod Shukla wasn’t a writer: He just started writing.
. He did not put himself in the spotlight and never marketed himself; he was an early observer of life. He wrote in very simple language, but to the depths of the heart. Vinod Kumar Shukla was born in Chhattisgarh on January 1, 1937 in a small town. There was no great literary legacy, no writers in his family and no childhood dream of becoming a great writer. Life came in ordinary form: studies, home, family, job. He was an agricultural major and was employed to teach at an agricultural college when everything began to show from a fresh horizon. “Look, everything here is simple and beautiful.” Vinod Shukla wasn’t a writer: He just started writing.
Vinod Kumar Shukla The house, the walls, the windows, the hide-and-seek of a lonely man, the hesitation, the subtle melancholy — he avoided grand pronouncements, refused to embellish, and yet each page reaches our hearts. Let’s discuss his best-known work “The Work of a Servant.” It’s not a hero’s story nor a heroine’s; it’s the story of a common man of ordinary aspirations whose primary worry is that his work needs to get done right every day.
It lights up and is making you smile but what you find in this mundane activity is an entire life: fear of losing his job, the loneliness of pauper and poverty, want of respect, delicate flute of self-esteem and so on. This is not a movie of great tragedy, yet so much emotion comes through every page, turning the humble tale into an extraordinary experience. This is why it was made into a movie, and even today, it is a movie of value.
His most famous novel was “A Window on the Wall,” a novel about the mind of a man userness who looks plain from the outward. The further an interior labyrinth of ours is built, the clearer this window becomes not just a window to the heart, but a window to see/feel/connect/discover all that it has to offer life. This novel earned him the Sahitya Akademi Award, but more than the award itself it forces one to peer into oneself.
The more complex we become internally, the more this window becomes not just a window to the heart, but a window to see, feel, and connect with life. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award for this novel, but more than the award itself, it compels one to look within oneself. Every page is a mirror in which we see our own lives. Vinod Kumar Shukla’s poems are not very long, but they linger in the mind for a long time. Remember the lines of a famous poem.
The reflection becomes our life in the pages. For Vinod Kumar Shukla, the poems are not particularly long, but they linger for a long time in the mind. Remember the lines of a well-known poem. Stays away from big events, away from glamour. He lived among simplicity. The job of the writer is to tell the truth not merely to show. His simplicity was his strength, and as a writer, it was the heart.
Vinod Kumar Shukla
that the individual was accustomed to the joys and sorrows of ignorance. Many did not know the joys and sorrows of knowledge, yet knowledge was boundless. His poems often express profound thoughts in short but powerful lines, such as: A person was sitting in despair. I didn’t know that person, but I knew despair. So I went to him. I extended my hand. He took my hand and he stood up. He didn’t know me, but he knew how to hold my hand. We both walked together. We both didn’t know each other, but we knew how to walk together.
Vinod Kumar Shukla left this world on the 23rd of December, 2025, whether he really left us? Probably not. He’s still there in a window, on a wall, in an old room and everyone who went ahead to live every day these days. His writing teaches us that sensitivity is more than words alone, and must be maintained.