Story writer Shaani

“There was neither any social purpose before me nor any kind of commitment. I was not familiar with the contemporary social or political movements either. Nor did any form of social injustice inspired me to write. For me, writing was a medium to grapple with entirely personal, private and inner anguish and irritating questions.”

This admission by Shaani helps us to understand the worldview as well as ideology that he held as a writer. He is one of those rare creative writers who was not groomed by any organisation or platform. His creativity was solely dependent on his life experiences. Shaani’s short stories are living examples of the truth that literature with progressive content can be created without making tall claims or pronouncements.

Shaani embarked upon his literary journey when the Nai Kahani (New Story) movement was quite strong in Hindi literature. However, completely oblivious of literary ‘isms’ or slogans but armed with his fresh and firsthand experiences, he entered the world of Hindi fiction and
explored a new path for himself. This was a path that had many twists and turns but we feel the warmth of life at each one of them. And herein lies the uniqueness of Shaani. The short stories of his first collection “Babool ki Chhanv” (1958) to the last collection “Jahanpanah
Jangal” (1984) bear a testimony to this.

Shaani’s creativity is inextricably and naturally associated with the Muslim cultural identity. It goes to his credit that he placed Muslim culture at the centre of the Hindi short story. However, one must make this clear that exposition of Muslim culture never became a limiting factor for his creative work. His experiences had a wide range and enabled him to not only pen stories such as “Yuddh” and “Biradari” but also “Ek Naav ke Yatri” and “Imaarat Girane Wale” too.