Dr. Suresh Kumar Mishra ‘Uratript’
Dr. Suresh Kumar Mishra, widely known in the world of satire by his pen name ‘Uratipt’, expresses his emotions and thoughts with profound honesty and depth. His multifaceted talent is evident in his contributions across various literary genres. He is not only a renowned satirist but also a poet and a children’s author.
His satirical writings have earned him a special place in the literary world. His satire, ‘Shikshak Ki Mout’, went massively viral on the Sahitya Aajtak channel, garnering over a million views and reads—a monumental achievement in the history of Hindi satire. His collection of satires, ‘Ek Tinka Ikyavan Aankhen’ (A Straw and Fifty-One Eyes), is also highly acclaimed and includes his timeless work, ‘Kitabon Ki Antim Yatra’ (The Last Journey of Books). Other celebrated collections include ‘Mayaan Ek, Talwar Anek’ (One Sheath, Many Swords), ‘Gapodi Adda’ (The Gossiper’s Den), and ‘Sab Rang Mein Mere Rang’ (My Colors in Every Hue). His satirical novel, ‘Idhar-Udhar Ke Beech Mein’ (In Between Here and There), is a unique and groundbreaking work focused on the third world.
His significant contributions to literature have been widely recognized. He was honored with the Best Young Creator Award, 2021 by the Telangana Hindi Academy and the Government of Telangana, an award presented by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. The Rajasthan Children’s Literature Academy also honored him for his children’s book, ‘Nanhon Ka Srijan Aasmaan’ (The Creative Sky of Little Ones). Additionally, he has received the Vyanga Yatra Ravindranath Tyagi Sopaan Samman and the Sahitya Srijan Samman from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Dr. Uratript has also played a pivotal role in writing, editing, and coordinating a total of 55 books for the Government of Telangana for primary school, college, and university levels. His work is included in university textbooks in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana, where his satirical creations are part of the curriculum. This recognition underscores that young readers can identify and appreciate quality and impactful writing.
Key Accolades and Works
- Viral Satire: ‘Teacher’s Death’ (over 1 million views)
- Satire Collections: ‘Ek Tinka Ikyavan Aankhen’, ‘Mayaan Ek, Talwar Anek’, ‘Gapodi Adda’
- Unique Satirical Novel: ‘Idhar-Udar Ke Beech Mein’
- Awards: Shreshtha Navyuva Samman (Telangana), Sahitya Srijan Samman (PM Modi), and more.
- Educational Contribution: Authored and edited 55 books for the Telangana government.
Some precious moments of life
- Honoured with ‘Shrestha Navayuvva Rachnakar Samman’ by former Chief Minister of Telangana Government, Shri K. Chandrasekhar Rao.
- Honoured with Oscar, Grammy, Jnanpith, Sahitya Akademi, Dadasaheb Phalke, Padma Bhushan and many other awards by the most revered Gulzar sahab (Sampurn Singh Kalra), the lighthouse of the world of literature and cinema, during the Sahitya Suman Samman held in Mumbai.
- Meeting the famous litterateur Shri Vinod Kumar Shukla Ji, honoured with Jnanpith Award.
- Got the privilege of meeting Mr. Perfectionist of Bollywood, actor Aamir Khan.
- Meeting the powerful actor Vicky Kaushal on the occasion of being honoured by Vishva Katha Rangmanch.
Today we present his satire The Department of Women’s Welfare.
☆ Witful Warmth# 118 ☆
☆ Satire ☆ The Department of Women’s Welfare… ☆ Dr. Suresh Kumar Mishra ‘Uratript’ ☆
Upon every recurring Wednesday, precisely as the parish clock struck the hour of ten, there was wont to appear upon the ancient stone masonry beneath the sacred fig tree fronting the Hall of Progress—a grand edifice wherein the sub-committee for the Upliftment of Womankind conducted its sublime mysteries—one Mrs. Kaushalya Devi, a matron of seventy-two winters. In her trembling lap, sustained with as much religious tenderness as if it were the relics of a canonized martyr, lay the rusty, cast-iron fly-wheel of a defunct sewing machine, accompanied by a bent needle innocent of thread.
Whenever the newly appointed menial of the precinct—a brisk lad whose official insolence had already attained to a very promising maturity—chanced to behold her perched thus in the glare of the noon-day sun, he was pleased to dash his terracotta tea-cup upon the bench, and roar with bureaucratic hilarity: “Hullo, grandmother! When the Great Man himself, the Principal Secretary, is expected this very twenty-sixth day of August—being Women’s Equality Day in the pious almanac of the Department—expressly to distribute shining new treadles and munificent drafts, what madness possesses you to exhibit this scrap of parish lumber before our eyes, hugging that tattered spoke to your bosom like a pauper at the beadle’s hatch?”
Whereupon old Kaushalya Devi, wiping the clouded lenses of her antique spectacles with the ragged hem of her cotton garment, would bestow upon the fellow a smile of mournful and patient forbearance: “Alas, my good lad, this circular iron relic is no mere scrap of the junk-shop; it is the broken axle-tree of this entire Department of Benevolence, upon which the modest honour of my poor daughter was ground to dust, and buried beneath mountains of official ink.”
The assorted clerks and scribes, young gentlemen who carried about their small persons a vast assortment of rulers, red tape, and self-consequence, were pleased to make merry at her expense, affirming with many sagacious winks that the old soul’s wits had evidently gone wandering into the wilderness, leaving her to pelt her harmless obstinacy against the noble temple of Civic Piety. Yet the dame, untroubled by their barbed tongues, did but stroke the cold, pitted rim of that cast-off wheel with shaking fingers, keeping her silent and solitary vigil for the dust and thunder of the official carriages.
In the fulness of time, the menials and pen-pushers of the department became so entirely habituated to this weekly apparition that they classified her comfortably as an incurable lunatic, and dismissed her from their thoughts with that neat dispatch characteristic of all well-ordered public establishments.
Whenever the Head Clerk—a gentleman puffed up with an enormous cargo of dockets, warrants, and importance—advanced majestically towards the Director’s inner sanctuary, Mrs. Kaushalya Devi would hitch herself up by the aid of her knotty stick, fold her withered hands, and say, in the plaintive tone of a suppliant at Chancery: “Kind sir, has the Magistrate or Director set his illustrious sign-manual unto that petition touching a poor maiden’s self-reliance grant and protection?”
At which the great scribe, dashing his files upon the counter in a paroxysm of official wrath, would snarl: “Bless my soul, old woman! Until the digital portal has satisfied its electronic hunger and verified the credentials of your identity, and until the Revenue Bailiff has vomited forth his supplemental inquisitions, not an inch shall the parchment budge; and so you may go on perambulating this porch with your rusty rubbish till the crack of doom!”
The venerable dame offered no retort; she merely crept back to her stone slab, and fell to setting the wheel spinning upon her palm—a futile exercise, for the poor broken engine invariably wobbled, groaned, and tumbled back into her lap. The townsfolk whispered among themselves that the crone was doubtless some litigious parent seeking to extort an ancient stipend from the treasury; but not a solitary soul in the parish possessed the wit to fathom the dark and monstrous riddle that bound that rusty iron circle to the majestic pageantry of Women’s Equality Day.
High noon arrived, and with it, the thunderous descent of the Principal Secretary to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, coming in immense state to sound the grand trumpet of Equality and inaugurate the annual festivities.
At the screeching of the official siren, the entire precinct was thrown into that delightful paroxysm of terror and obsequiousness which only high rank can inspire: grandiloquent banners, smelling fresh of sizing and paint, were run up with frantic haste, lest the eye of Authority should discover a crack in the plaster of the Hall of Progress. The solemn brass lamps were ignited; hymns to Female Emancipation and the sacred dignity of motherhood were recited from the platform; and when at length the Great Man emerged, hemmed in by an obsequious herd of scribblers with ready quills, his discerning eye was arrested by the figure of Kaushalya Devi, sitting like a bundle of neglected bones in the shade of the sacred tree, the rusty wheel resting upon her knees.
Perceiving here an admirable occasion to exhibit that tender, paternal sympathy which reads so delightfully in the morning gazettes, the Secretary, accompanied by his satellites, bore down upon the old woman with an air of majestic condescension: “Venerable mother,” said he, with that honeyed benevolence which costs nothing and yields great harvest, “upon this auspicious anniversary we bow before the wisdom and sanctity of womankind. Disclose your affliction without fear, that the hand of Authority may strike off your burdens. Has the bounty of the State’s Self-Reliance Scheme failed to reach your hearth?”
Kaushalya Devi raised her dim, stony eyes to that august countenance. With trembling hands, she lifted the rusty wheel and the crooked needle, laying them straight before the well-manicured palm of the Secretary: “Your Honour,” whispered she, with a quietude more terrible than thunder, “if Justice be indeed the business of your high office, look closely, I pray you, upon the serial mark stamped upon this iron rim, and know this crooked piece of steel.”
The Secretary took the iron circle into his hands, and as his eye fell upon the official seal of the Self-Reliance Scheme—bearing his own signature and date from a bygone season—the colour fled from his cheeks as water from a broken vessel.
Two great, scalding tears broke from the old woman’s rheumy eyes and splashed upon the cold, pitted metal.
“Sir,” said Kaushalya Devi, her voice cracking like dry timber under the burden of grief, “five long years ago, my educated girl came to this very portal seeking the loan of a humble sewing machine, that she might eat the bread of honest independence. But your upright officers, under the pious pretext of sanctioning her machine, dragged her from week to week through these corridors, and behind closed doors sought to barter her modest virtue for their signature. My child could not endure the heavy shame of that monstrous indignity; the dread of a cruel world choked her voice; and today she lies in a dark corner of my dwelling—a shattered, living corpse, bereft of mind and hope. I bring this scrap of iron here week after week merely to declare unto your polished assembly that to mount a gilded stage once in the year and proclaim woman a goddess is the foulest, most abominable mockery that ever made angels weep, while beneath the shadow of your chairs, the beasts of your system tear the self-respect of a helpless woman to shreds with impunity!”
The Secretary’s head drooped upon his breast, stricken with an overpowering shame; and across the vast Hall of Progress there fell a silence so awful, so profound and penetrating, that the sleeping conscience of every man present awoke, shuddered, and was afraid.
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© Dr. Suresh Kumar Mishra ‘Uratript’
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