Divya Prakash Dubey: 'We need to go beyond the traditional platforms to make Hindi cool again'

Divya Prakash Dubey, the author of three novels and two anthologies of short stories, is rewriting the rules of Hindi storytelling.

Celebrated as the poster boy of ‘nayi waali Hindi’ which is not clunky or obsessed with ghosts of what should be, he writes like you, I, and most of the young small-town India talks. This could be why he is emerging as the face and voice of an India that scoffs at  angrezipanti enough to make LinkedIn and TEDx take to Hindi.

He is doing all he can to make Hindi interesting again. His upcoming Audible audio show Postcard, in which he narrates stories by writers from across the country, is the latest in his many attempts to spread the language’s reach among newer audiences. His session ‘Is Hindi the new cool?’ was among the most fascinating in the line-up of the recently-concluded Jaipur Literature Festival.

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I sat down chatting with him after his talk about all things I could — his view on critics and whether it affects his work, how the scope of his stories has grown with him and his readers, Hindi’s revival in the last five years, work opportunities for aspirational Hindi writers, and books that you should look up if you want to start reading Hindi again.

You write in Hinglish, a fusion style that allows greater engagement, but is frowned upon by critics, purists. Do you not think about them at all when writing?

When I write, I don’t think that I’m writing in Hindi. All I do is try to connect with whoever I want to in the best possible way. For example, if I want to engage with an 18-year-old college student today, I’m more interested in what he talks about in the canteen than what he is listening to inside his classroom. That’s my way of getting into his life. Or if I’m writing the story of a corporate guy, I know that he writes his emails in English, but when he takes tea or smoke breaks or is talking to his friends, he will talk in the Hindi we use in our homes.

I don’t worry if my story is unfolding in Hindi or not. This is my main issue with the purists of yore. Their protagonists suddenly realise that they are situated in a Hindi story. A girl working in a call center in Noida’s Sector 62 will not say kapol. If she does, it will feel like someone has force-fed the language down her throat.

I try to make my characters talk like they would in real life. If one of my characters is Bengali, then he will speak the language, right? You need to retain the true form, the flavour. For me, stories exist as they are. People are coming up with new expressions every day. It’s not so much about language as it is about emotion. For instance, my book is called Ibnebatuti. Now according to Urdu, it’s wrong because Ibn Batuta means the son of Batuta. If you want to write Batuta’s daughter, it’s Binte Batuti. But the sound of Ibnebatuti is so good that the feeling goes beyond language’s rationale of right and wrong.

It’s never been the question of purity for me. Hindi was never a pure language anyway. Ganga is pure in our emotions but is its water pure for real? The issue of language is just the same. People are interested in the story, not in whether it’s in Hindi or not.

I have never really thought about what purists would say. When I entered the literary scene in 2013, I didn’t think anyone would pay attention. We were not a part of the big game at all. Ye toh dheere dheere start-up mein funding aa gayi jaisa ho gaya. Also, I feel no writer ever has written anything keeping critics in mind. The ones who did, we don’t remember their names anymore. Moreover, we are still kids. Seven or eight years of active writing is no time at all. It’s going to be a long journey.

But you are popular today. Does every creative artiste not want that nod or some sort of validation from critics, especially after they become famous? 

I don’t look from the perspective of a critic but I do think that the 18-year-old guy, who was reading me in 2013, he is 28 today. His life, his values have changed. For me, the real achievement is if I’m able to engage both a 20-year-old boy of today and the guy who started reading me in 2013 and is 28 now.

One good thing that has happened to me is that the scope of my books has grown with me. When Ibnebatuti got out, countless people called me to say that after reading it, their mothers shared with them stories of when she was 20. Something that she’d never opened up about before. So in a house where there was just one guy reading love stories from Masala Chai and talking about it with his friends, now the mother, father, and uncle are also reading me.

No one cares about critics anymore, not at least in Hindi writing. Today, people read 10 pages and message the writer on Instagram or FB, telling whether they are enjoying the book or not. No one waits for a critic’s verdict anymore. Your reader is your critic. Also, because we never waited for anyone else’s nod even we began, now when we get it, it feels fake. I think we have been able to rise or create an impact because we never really paid them any heed. Whichever writer has tried to impress those five people, they couldn’t impress the audience. You need to decide whether you want to write for five people or more.

There is a lot of talk about how Hindi is seeing a revival, how things have improved in the last five years. But has it, especially among the youth of today?

The people you are talking about, they don’t care about what’s happening in English writing either. It’s not like they are looking forward to what Arundhati Roy is going to write next. That’s a lifestyle issue. They don’t even care about what’s happening in Ukraine right now. Unless they have money invested in the share market. This is the truth of our society — we don’t care.

The important question is — are we creating the right kind of space for the people who do care? It’s the same and as difficult for readers and writers of English and other languages too. We think that more people used to read earlier. But if you look at it, the percentage of readers in 1960 and in 2022 is more or less the same. There is just more awareness today because of social media. Today, a lot of people know that I’m a Hindi writer. But all of them are not my readers. It’s because I’m feeding them content through a lot of other ways too, apart from my books. I’m making videos, doing audio stories. A lot of people listen to just them, they don’t read my books. So we also need to see how we are reinventing ourselves along with the changing media.

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When my first book got published in 2013, the climate wasn’t this positive for newcomers wanting to write in Hindi. This is the yardstick that we should compare by — have we made it easier for those wanting to establish themselves as Hindi writers? Are we reducing the barriers restricting entry, making it easier? In 2013, you couldn’t publish directly on Kindle. Soon, you will be able to in five other languages apart from English. Every field is looking for its heroes, its Tendulkar. The question is have we made the atmosphere conducive enough to prep 14-15 Tendulkars? Because if there is no Tendulkar, there will be no Sehwag or Kohli either.

What, according to you, are the employment avenues for someone wanting to make a career writing in Hindi?

No matter where you start from, you need to see what it is that you enjoy doing. If you live in a small town then you should first see what you can do on the radio. You may not get a lot of money, but you’ll get a feel of how corporates work and you’ll learn how to write on briefs.

If you can’t write on a brief, then there’s no place for you on this earth. You need to write briefs for books too. For editors, publishers. No one becomes a Tolstoy on the first day of work.

There’s TV, films, news, and audio. I feel audio is going to explode in India. People have started to experience screen fatigue. You can work on audiobooks, do commercial writing. Advertising is another interesting field. It can take you to places within five years.

Songwriting is another great option. But you need to know that first music gets made and then the words follow. Try and see if you can write on the meter of old songs. For this, you don’t need to relocate to Mumbai. Look up five videos of Prasoon Joshi and Gulzaar sahab on YouTube and you’ll know. You need to do the basic legwork. If you want to write for a newspaper, start practicing by sending articles.

There is a lot of money in Hindi if you get into commercial and TV writing, and if you are able to exploit it well. But you can’t be seduced by glamour. Enter the field only if you’re prepared for hard work. The problem is whenever we look at a big writer, we judge them after they have become successful. For example, do you remember any of Gulzar sahab’s photos in which his hair is not grey? Unhone baal safed kar liye na likhte likhte. Kab se likh rahe hain. But all we see is Gulzar sahab as he is today. We don’t realise that it has taken a lifetime for his hair to turn grey. Bohot mushkil se hue hain. Usme bohot zor laga hai. We should always look at where we are coming from. Baat ye nahi ki hum pohoche kaha hai. Ye hai ki kitni dur se chale the hum. Aap apni puri life de paoge kya? Can you hold the peg? If not, there is nothing for you in any field.

What can we do to draw more people to Hindi?

We need to go beyond the traditional platforms to make Hindi cool again. For example, the first time I gave a  TEDx talk in 2015, they told me that I can’t speak Hindi. But I insisted that I will talk in Hindi, and after that, Hindi TEDx started in India. LinkedIn has followed suit. They are now promoting Hindi through influencers. I’ll share another instance. In 2013, we wrote to Flipkart asking them to start pre-booking for Hindi books. They refused. Then Amazon came to India and did it. We started selling 4,000-5,000 copies in pre-booking alone.

Some people need to take it to a point where it looks illogical, emotional or even whacky. Only then do things happen. For instance, Kumar Vishwas contributed in a big way in making poetry popular among the general public. When a Kapil Sharma says that his English is bad and still becomes successful, he opens the doors for countless other people who have been trying to do comedy in Hindi on TV. If you look at it, the stand-up scene in India 10 years ago was dominated by English-speaking comics. But if you look at the five big names in that space today, four are Hindi speaking. If a Shashi Tharoor or a Chetan Bhagat writes their next book in Hindi, imagine the number of new readers they’d attract.

A few easy-to-read, relatable Hindi books that you would like to suggest for today’s youth who want to start reading in the language?

If you want to start or get back to reading Hindi, you should begin with Surendra Verma’s Mujhe Chand Chahiye. It’s a beautiful book. It came out in the 1990s but holds even today. Or you can read anything by Mahohar Shyam Joshi or Rahi Masoom Raza.

Then there are Nilotpal Mrinal’s books — Dark Horse, Aughad. Nikhil Sachan’s books. There’s Humankind, which got very popular. Its Hindi translation is really good. Vinod Kumar Shukla’s Deewar Me Ek Khidki Rehti Thi is also a lovely book. Though he is an old writer, you should read Kunwar Narayan too. It’s a rabbit hole. Once you enter it, you’ll keep on discovering new worlds.

When not reading books or watching films, Sneha Bengani writes about them. She tweets at @benganiwrites. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.