ABSTRACT
This essay, purportedly a speech that has only been written but not given, by Fikr Taunsvi, addresses an imaginary audience to speak with them about the writer Joginder Paul. The idea behind the essay is perhaps not surprising given that Fikr Taunsvi (Ram Lal Bhatia) was an Urdu poet famous for his satires. It is an illuminating piece for its tongue-in-cheek analytical look at a writer and his philosophy. At the same time, it sheds light – of course, in a roundabout manner – on Paul’s behaviour as a human being that indirectly, again, points to perhaps why his writing is what it is. In the course of the piece, Taunsvi aims a series of questions – about the concept of God, on the compulsions of silence, personal relationships, literary politics, the creative thirst of a writer – at the writer and the answers that he receives are much a part of the critical temper of this conversation as everything else in it.
