My father-in-law had often mentioned that his father (Baba ji) had prevented him from going to the US for further studies. Born in a village in western UP named Fazalpur (later changed to Sundar Nagar) in pre-Independence India, he worked hard and eventually graduated from IIT Roorkee and became the first engineer from the village. When he secured acceptance in a university in the US, his excitement turned to dust because Baba ji would not hear of him leaving the village to never return just like another person who had left the village some years ago to study in the US. Babaji tore up the acceptance letter and asked my father-in-law to focus on making a career in India.
I knew this story, but only recently did I ask Daddy who this other person was that went to the US never to return. Daddy said he was a Brahmin boy who came from a very poor family. He was so poor that he had to go from door to door in the district asking for financial help to buy a ticket to go to the US. Daddy said his name was Ved Prakash Sharma but he removed the last name and added ‘Vatuk’ to it. He eventually did come back to visit his village but was married to a white American lady and went to Harvard. I was curious. What was his story? While we were discussing all this in our family Whatsapp group, my sister-in-law googled him and said he had taught at the University of California, Berkeley. Daddy looked at his photo and said yes, this was him. He was described as a Hindi poet, essayist, linguist, folklorist, and author of over thirty internationally recognized volumes of poetry as well as hundreds of political essays and academic articles.
I bugged Daddy until he called his old friends to find out where Vatuk ji was living these days. To our astonishment, we discovered that he was living in Meerut in Bharat now and was 91 years old! So, I asked Daddy to fix an appointment with him in February 2023 when I was planning to visit Bharat.
The visit to Dr Ved Prakash Vatuk ji’s house was a much-awaited one. I was dying of curiosity to know why he had decided to move back to India and why he was alone. Unfortunately, Vatuk ji is hard-of-hearing, and I could not have a real conversation with him. However, he gave me a set of 4 autobiographical books written in Hindi that he said would answer all my questions. I wondered how long I would take to read the books given my slow reading speed in Hindi. I could gather that he was divorced from his American wife and had four children. It was good to see Daddy bonding with Vatuk ji after so many decades. I also presented my book on India’s educational heritage to him. His daughter from his American wife was visiting him and I conversed with her. She seemed to be struggling with life in India even though she had come for just a few weeks. I was surprised to find that even at this advanced age, Vatuk ji cooks for himself and lives independently.
For the past few months, every now and then I have been reading Vatuk ji’s books. What a fantastic chronicler he is! It was very interesting to know how an Indian from a Hindi-speaking village navigated his way in London in the 50s and then America in the 60s. In four volumes, Vatuk ji has first described every little detail about growing up in a UP village mainly filled with Arya Samajis, then going to London to study while working at different menial jobs including dishwashing and farming, meeting the woman he eventually married and then moving to Boston, studying at Harvard, teaching at University of Chicago and finally Berkeley. It was unbelievable to read such an honest account right down to the detail of how he learned to use a western-style toilet, how ill-equipped he felt when western girls flirted so openly and what he observed when he visited a supermarket for the first time. He even cooked food for guests on the day of his wedding in London because of a shoestring budget. Memorable personal experiences, political happenings in America as well as India (such as the Vietnam War and Indira Gandhi – imposed Emergency), differences between American and Indian cultures, social injustices and racism have all been described vividly. I had to frequently refer to the Hindi-English dictionary. Vatuk ji met many important personalities during the course of his life. He helped so many Indians who went to study in the UK and the US.
He helped his American wife to do her PhD at Harvard with field studies in India. When she suddenly asked for a divorce after 19 years of marriage and 4 children, he was devastated. Not only did she get a divorce, but she also stealthily transferred all his assets to herself. After some years, when he married an Indian, he did not fare any better because she too left him over a property conflict.
The most remarkable thing about Vatuk ji is that despite all the years in America, he remained wedded to the Hindi language. He thinks in Hindi and his heart beats for the poor and unsupported. The bitter experiences he has gone through in his personal life make his tone rather melancholic. He is as critical about inequalities in India as he is about America. The subaltern framework of social studies is very evident in his writings. I often wished that he had a better idea of India’s true social history from the framework of Sanatana Dharma. But I understand how a western education would have led to mental colonization despite his activism against racist policies throughout his academic life.
After a string of personal setbacks, Vatuk ji returned to India when his nephews pleaded with him to come back and promised to take care of him in his old age. However, even this proved to be a detrimental move because the nephews betrayed him and fought over property. Hurt and disappointed, the poet lives like a recluse in the dusty town of Meerut. His life feels like an art film.
I do hope that Vatuk ji’s family will rally around him in the evening of his life. He made so many sacrifices for them. But even if that does not happen, I hope he will find bliss in Krishna.
PS: After reading my book, Vatuk ji messaged me saying he loved it. Also, he said Dharampal ji whom I referred to in my book was a good friend of his! The great Dharampal ji!