Portrait of a marriage

Poonam Saxena’s translations from the original Hindi of the memoirs of Mannu Bhandari and Rajendra Yadav provide fresh insight into the lives of an eminent literary couple

- Mayank Jain Parichha

The Nayi Kahani movement in Hindi literature, which emerged in the 1950s and ‘60s, focused on interpersonal relationships, urban life, and the dilemmas of the middle class.

One literary couple, Mannu Bhandari and Rajendra Yadav, was an intrinsic part of the scene. While Yadav wore many hats as a writer, journalist, editor and publisher, and lived a colourful life that ended in biting loneliness, Bhandari remained, in her effortlessly natural way, a writer, professor and a rebel of sorts. Both examined their own lives in remarkable memoirs that writer and journalist Poonam Saxena has now translated: Bhandari’s Ek Kahani Yah Bhi (2007) as This Too Is a Story, and Yadav's Mud-Mudke Dekhta Hu (2001) as Echoes of My Past.

Bhandari and Yadav, through their craft and their public personas, left a huge imprint on the Hindi literary space. Yadav, one of the finest short-story writers of his time, later became editor of the reputed literary magazine Hans.

From its helm, he could both foresee literary directions and help shape them. He offered a start to many new writers, including International Booker Prize winner Geetanjali Shree, and expressed his strong opinions about literature and society through the magazine.

His personal life, however, was a struggle. An absent husband and father, he struggled to form long-term friendships and bonds. He had many affairs and did little to hide them. By his own admission, he took his family and wife for granted.