G.K.Shaani May 16, 1933- February 10, 1995

These  few words are written about a man who was my dearest friend in India and one of two or three of my closest friends in the entire world. Born Gulsher Khan in Jagdalpur, then the capital of Bastar, a small princely state in central India, he later took the nickname Shaani, given to him by his mother, as his nom de plume and everyday term of address among his friends. (only those who did not know him well addressed him as ”My Shaani” and he was never known as ”Gulsher” by anyone.)Shaani was the son of an ex-malguzar, as the petty feudal landlords of Chhattisgarh and Bastar were known in those days. The family was by no means wealthy, however, and when I met Shaani in 1958 they lived in a small a small house in Jagdalpur, devoid of most of their former landholdings. Shaani’s father worked as head clerk in the palace of the Maharaja of Bastar, and Shaani had a job in the local Madhya Pradesh Department of Publicity.Shaani’s passion was writing, and it was our mutual interest in the adivasis of Bastar that brought us together initially. He had already written, and published several short stories about tribal life, and was anxious to learn more about these people who formed the majority population of Bastar, by then converted administratively from princely state into a district of Madhya Pradesh. He was introduced to me by S.K. Kalia, an anthropologist I chanced to meet at the Jagdalpur rest house when I first arrived in India in October,1958. At the time I had no knowledge of any Indian language, and when Shaani offered to accompany me and my wife on a tour of various tribal areas in the district, I was delighted.  

For two weeks the three of us drove around the district in our newly acquired Jeep, visiting people in various towns and villages, trying to assess the most appropriate location for my research project. Shaani was 25 years old then and I was a 27 year old graduate student at the University of Chicago, seeking to undertake my dissertation research. From the beginning he and I hit it off well. He seemed to understand, intuitively my goals and interests, 

and with great sensitivity helped me establish rapport and communicate with the people we met in various tribal communities. Ultimately I decided to study the Hill Maria Gonds of the Abhujhmar Hills. Shaani was instrumental in helping me get established in the village of Orcha and later, in conducting the study. This period of our association is well documented  in his book Shaal Vanon ka Dweep (An Island of Sal). 

Shaani is best known as a writer and man of letters, but I will leave to others an appraisal of his work as I am not a literary specialist but a social anthropologist. What I remember best  about Shaani is his warmth and intensity of personality, his integrity and frankness, his good humor, intelligence and loyalty. He was a man of great moral conviction not in any doctrinaire or conventional sense, but in a pure and almost naïve sense. He also possessed a sharp sense of curiosity, particularly about the people he encountered in daily life. He was always eager to hear their stories, and was convinced that everyone’s life was unique and interesting. 

I believe it was these qualities-his desire to expose the immorality and injustice causing the suffering of others, and his genuine interest in essential nature of the people he met that made him such an excellent writer. 

Over the years we kept in touch. In December 1965, after a divorce from my first wife, I took a detour from an India trip I was making with some California State University college professors to visit Shaani and his wife in Gwalior where they lived for a short time. He and I toured the Gwalior fort and made a brief visit to the temples of Khajuraho. In 1967-68 I received a fellowship from the American  Institute of Indian Studies to conduct research in a Chhatisgarhi peasant village. I asked Shaani to be my interpreter and research assistant for the year. He agreed, and in the fall of 1967 we set up a household in Raipur, Madhya Pradesh, where his family lived while we studied the village of Paragaon, 25 miles to the southeast, on the banks of the Mahanadi. We stayed in the village on weekdays and on weekends drove up to Raipur in an old Fiat which I had purchased, unless an event such as a wedding or festival was being held. It was during this year that our friendship was strengthened  to the point of feeling like brothers. We enjoyed long conversations sitting on the outside platform of the village baithak on many warm starry nights. We drove together to Bhopal when the year was over. I left him and his family with the Fiat and a few rupees in the bank. I worried about how they would get on, since he  had no salaried position at the time. Soon, however he was working as a Hindi Editor in the Madhya Pradesh Directorate of Languages, Bhopal, and later as the Secretary, Madhya Pradesh Shasan Sahitya Parishad. I remarried in 1969, and with my new wife, Sharon, went back to India on a sabbatical leave of absence in 1970 to spend some time reading and writing at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla and to explore parts of the country where I had never been. Shaani and his wife Salma visited us in Shimla and together we took a trip to Kashmir. We also spent time with them in Bhopal during that year. It was during that period that both Sharon and I came to feel as though we were part of the family, taking an active interest in Shaani’s children and sharing their concerns about the future.

On our next visit extended visit was in 1977-78 when I studied the small sub-regional temple towns of Rajim, near Paragaon, the village of the 1967-68 study. This provided another opportunity for us to visit the family in Bhopal and once again Shaani graciously accompanied us to Rajim and helped us get established. Moreover, without his aid in introducing us to Madhya Pradesh Government officials, we might not have been able to conduct this study, since Chhattisgarh was now considered a ”sensitive” area for research by foreign scholars. In November 1978 Shaani accepted a position editing the Magazine section of the Nav Bharat Times, a leading Hindi Newspaper in Delhi. We left the country in December of that year, saying our goodbyes in Delhi rather than Bhopal this time, and in March 1980, Shaani was appointed Hindi Editor of the Sahitya Akademi in New Delhi.I believe that some of the happiest years of his life were spent in this post, and it was with great reluctance that he retired in 1988. 

During the1980 I was unable to go to India for any extended time but in the summer of 1981 Shaani managed and invitation for me from the Government of India to attend a seminar on ”Prem Chand and the concept of Indianness” in Varanasi. So once again we were able to renew our friendship, though the visit was brief. In April 1982 I was saddened and quite worried to learn that he had suffered a heart attack. He recovered however, and in the years which followed he took some time off from his editorship and went to Bombay for the production of the serialized version of Kala Jal (Dark Waters)which was Telecast on National Television and was a great success. 

In September, 1985 he was finally able to visit us at our home in Oakland, California, something we had been urging him to do for many years. He gave a talk on Indian literature at my university and we were able to show him some of the sights around northern California.

Our next visit to India was in1989-90, when I did a study of middle class life in Bhopal. Again we spent some time together at his home in Delhi, and my wife and I renewed our ties with ”our family.” In the fall of 1991 Sharon took a position teaching at the American EmbassySchool in New Delhi and for the last four years has been living in an apartment adjacent to Shaani’s residence in Mayur Vihar Extension. During this period I was able to visit several, especially after my retirement from the university in1992. So at least I was able to see Shaani fairly often during this period. On my last visit, in December-January 1994-95, it was evident that his health was declining, but his death from a massive heart attack on February 10,1995 was still a devastating shock. Nevertheless, we were able to be together during a time that proved to be close to the end of his life, though we did not know that when I left on January 24th. 

Finally, what can I say about a man who was so close to me emotionally for most of his life though so far away geographically? It is hard to convey my feelings adequately, I know that I enjoyed with him his triumphs- major Literary prizes from Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, respectively, the success of his premier novel Kala Jal, its translation into several foreign languages including English and its serialization for television, his successful appointment at the Sahitya Akademi, the warm friendship and aid extended to him by a number of prominent people in Indian society including writers, journalists and high government officials, and of course his personal joy in the birth of his children and grandchildren. I suffered with him also his disappointment with the circumstances of his employment at the Madhya Pradesh Shasan Sahitya Parishad, his pain from the discrimination he and his family  suffered at various periods in their life because of their minority status, his several illnesses, including Hodgkin’s disease, diabetes, heart attack and kidney failure. But whatever his hardships, he suffered them with a quiet dignity, without bitterness, and with determination to face the future with hope and optimism. His love of Life was contagious, and through him I learned to appreciate all of life, including its joys and sorrows. And also through him I learned much about India as a society and a culture. He not only opened doors for me and helped me “set up shop,” so to speak; as my guru he helped me understand and appreciate the variegated complex whole that constitutes the Indian reality. We were able, through our unusual friendship, to bridge an enormous cultural gap and prove to each other that an intense and enduring human bond can be forged between men of different worlds. In his death, India has lost an illustrious son and I have lost a cherished brother. 

Dr. Edward J. Jay 

Professor Emeritus 

California State 

University, Hayward, U.S.A.