By Ravi Ranjan*
In the landscape of contemporary Hindi poetry, few observations have resonated as deeply as Kedarnath Singh’s characterization of the verb “jana” (to go) as “Hindi ki sabse khaufnak kriya”—the most frightening verb in the language. This seemingly simple linguistic observation opened a window into the complex web of relationships, power dynamics, and existential anxieties that define human experience.
The Intertextual Dialogue
The connection between Kedarnath Singh’s “Jaana” and Shriprakash Shukla’s “Lautnā” represents more than literary influence—it constitutes a meaningful dialogue across generations. Singh’s poem captured the agony of separation within patriarchal structures: a woman’s departure from home, and the speaker’s complicity in that departure despite knowing its frightening implications. The poet’s admission that he said “go” while fully aware of the verb’s terror creates a moral tension that speaks to the inequalities embedded in intimate relationships.
Shukla’s “Lautnā” does not negate Singh’s insight but rather extends it to encompass a wider social reality. Where Singh explored the crisis of leaving home, Shukla examines the crisis of returning to it. This shift in focus reflects a changed India—one where millions of migrant laborers leave their villages for cities, only to find that the journey home has become fraught with its own dangers. The movement from departure to return as the locus of fear signals a fundamental transformation in how Indians experience displacement and belonging.
The Poem’s Central Vision
“Lautnā” opens with a striking paradox: “The hunger was great but they only had to reach.” Here, the most basic human need—food—becomes secondary to the existential imperative of reaching home. The poet establishes that in times of extreme crisis, security, belonging, and the assurance of existence take precedence over even physical sustenance. This inversion of priorities reveals the depth of the crisis facing migrant workers and displaced communities.
The poem unfolds through carefully chosen images that accumulate symbolic weight. “All the assurances delivered to them had so far proved useless” points to the failure of state mechanisms and the hollow language of political promises. The phrase “In the name of discipline” invites a Foucauldian reading, suggesting how modern power operates through control and regulation rather than direct repression. The discipline that supposedly serves collective welfare becomes an instrument of suffering for the most vulnerable.
Central to the poem is the distinction between “lautna” (returning) and “pahunchna” (reaching). The poet repeatedly emphasizes the latter, suggesting that what appears as a return is actually a forward movement toward a necessary destination. “Home is for reaching more than for returning,” the poem declares—a line that transforms the entire act of homecoming into something more dynamic and aspirational. The people in the poem are not merely going back to their past; they are striving toward a future where their existence can be meaningful and secure.
The Power of Memory and Hope
What makes “Lautnā” remarkable is its refusal to succumb to despair. Despite depicting hunger, exhaustion, and the terror of the journey, the poem celebrates human resilience. The aspiration to reach home “was flowing inside them like cold water”—a simile that captures both the life-giving quality of hope and its power to sustain people through unimaginable hardship. This inner strength, what the poem calls “the will to live,” emerges as the true protagonist.
Memory plays a crucial role in this process. The returning migrants are “caressing their old memories,” drawing sustenance from the past to fuel their present struggle. Home exists not merely as a physical destination but as a mental and emotional reality that sustains them through the journey. The poem suggests that human beings carry their homes within them, and this internal home becomes the foundation of their resistance.
Social and Civilizational Critique
At its core, “Lautnā” is a profound critique of modern development and its human costs. The poem asks why, in the new century, returning home has become more frightening than leaving it. This question indicts a development model that requires mass migration while providing no security for migrants. It exposes the irony that those who build cities through their labor are the first to be abandoned when crisis strikes.
The poem also challenges prevailing notions of modernity that equate progress with mobility and rootlessness. If modern life compels people to leave their homes and then makes returning impossible or terrifying, then something fundamental has gone wrong. The poem suggests that true development must be measured not by economic growth alone but by the security, dignity, and belonging it affords its citizens.
Comparative Perspectives
Reading “Lautnā” alongside other poetic responses to displacement deepens its significance. Leeladhar Mandloi’s “Ve Laut Nahi Rahe” presents a more directly political critique, declaring that those fleeing in fear and hunger are not truly returning at all. Where Shukla emphasizes the internal consciousness of the migrants, Mandloi focuses on the social irony of the process. Together, the poems capture both the external tragedy and the inner resilience of displaced communities.
Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry of Palestinian exile offers another illuminating comparison. For Darwish, home becomes an almost unreachable memory, a geography of loss. Shukla’s migrants, by contrast, still believe they can reach home, and this possibility fuels their journey. Both poets, however, recognize that home is not merely a physical place but the foundation of identity, memory, and human dignity.
Conclusion
The journey from Kedarnath Singh’s “jana” to Shriprakash Shukla’s “lautna” traces the evolution of fear in contemporary Indian consciousness. What began as a critique of patriarchal power has expanded into a wider critique of social and economic structures that render millions insecure. Both poets understand that seemingly simple verbs carry the weight of entire social systems and human experiences.
“Lautnā” ultimately affirms that no matter how far modernity takes people from their homes, the need for home—in all its emotional, cultural, and existential dimensions—remains fundamental. The poem’s power lies in its refusal to accept the terrors of return as inevitable, and its insistence that human beings, even in their most desperate moments, carry within them the hope and will to reach a place where their existence is meaningful. In this sense, the poem is not merely a document of crisis but a testament to the indomitable human spirit that persists in the face of displacement, insecurity, and fear.
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