Sobti-Vaid Samvad ushers in a novel critical genre within the domain of Hindi literary-criticism. Here two literary stalwarts of Hindi literature, Krishna Sobti and Krishna Baldev Vaid, inspired by the intellectually stimulating surroundings of IIAS Shimla, enter into a significant dialogue on the intricacies of life and literature. The dialogue begins as an introspective reminiscence echoing a life of robust fulfilment at the intersection of the personal and the public, text and the context, to gradually expand into a refreshing ‘critical-conversation’ rarely encountered in Indian literary tradition. This dialogue, while voicing disagreements respects mutual differences, and in the process ushers in an inclusive yet democratic critical interface. While acknowledging the importance of spatio-temporal and cultural commonality that makes them contemporary sojourners, the two authors, nevertheless, underline the importance of divergences and differences—and their mutual recognition—as the most vital ingredient of their creative autonomy, influence and weltanschauung, and foreground it as vital condition for understanding each other’s oeuvre.
This aspect of their aesthetic credo becomes poignantly palpable from the way their dialogue evolves. Embedded within their distinctive idiom, both of them weave a dialogue that is part nostalgia, part gossip, part reflective and aesthetic meditation and part a prospective hope and yearnings of old age.