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 Thumbprint.
☆ Witful Warmth# 120 ☆
☆ Satire ☆ The Thumbprint… ☆ Dr. Suresh Kumar Mishra ‘Uratript’ ☆
Upon every recurring Thursday, precisely as the town clock chimed the stroke of ten, there was wont to appear upon the raised masonry beneath the shade of the ancient neem tree—fronting the divisional chambers of the Department of Food and Civil Supplies, a stately warehouse dedicated to the magnificent distribution of imperial breadstuffs—one Jagdev Baba, a venerable soul of some seventy-five winters. In his trembling hands, as though it were the ark of some forgotten covenant, he bore a limp, soiled sack of coarse jute, upon whose flank the vermilion device of the Public Granary had long since faded into a dismal smear.
Whenever the newest porter of the establishment—a spruce, noisy stripling whose respect for human misery had been thoroughly refined away by three weeks of parish authority—beheld him posted upon the flags, he was pleased to dash his terracotta cup upon the board and roar with bureaucratic hilarity: “Hark ye, grandfather! When the village shambles are overflowing with the State’s gratuitous barley, what midsummer madness drives you to parade this tattered rag before our betters, hugging an empty bag to your breast like a beadle with a lean collection-plate?”
Whereupon old Jagdev Baba, adjusting the clouded lenses of his antique spectacles, would return an answer in accents as gentle as a tolling bell: “Alas, my son, this hollow piece of sackcloth is no mere scrap of hemp; it is the blind, stony heart of your high department, which hath locked up an old man’s hunger within the glowing glass of an electronic engine.”
The assembled clerks and small-beer attorneys who loitered about the portico, carrying reams of foolscap under their arms, made it their business to laugh the dotard to scorn, declaring that his wits had gone a-woolgathering, that he should imagine an empty sack could serve as a shield against the mighty machinery of Civic Provision. Yet the patriarch, heedless of their mocking tongues, did but pass his shaking fingers across the coarse twine of the seams, keeping his solitary and unwearied watch for the rumbling carriages of the high commissioners.
In process of time, the menials and pen-pushers of the department became so entirely habituated to this weekly apparition that they accounted him a harmless, pig-headed nuisance, and brushed him aside with that admirable dispatch for which all public offices are justly celebrated.
Whenever the Senior Clerk—a gentleman of majestic girth, bearing an enormous portfolio of licensed victuallers towards the inner sanctum of the District Purveyor—swept through the passage, Jagdev Baba would hoist himself upon his crutch, bring his trembling palms together, and sigh: “Honoured master, hath his worship set his hand unto that humble plea touching the identity papers and the thumbprint?”
At which the great scribe, flinging his files upon the cedar table with a crash, would snarl: “Bless my soul, old fellow! Until your antique skin agrees with the electronic mechanism of the Point-of-Sale apparatus, and until the celestial server at the capital deigns to flash its green illumination, not a grain of chaff shall you receive; and so you may go on perambulating this threshold with your greasy sack till the day of doom!”
The old man offered no retort; he merely crept back to his seat upon the stone, and fell to scrubbing the worn whorls of his thumbs against the rough folds of his cotton skirt—a mournful, hopeless endeavor to restore what half a century of labour had obliterated. The parish gossips whispered that the old soul was doubtless pursuing some shadowy, ancestral allotment; but not a man among them possessed the imagination to suspect the dark and terrifying secret that bound that empty bag of hemp to the grand proclamations of the National Granary.
High noon arrived, and with it, the sudden, majestic visitation of the Minister of Food and Civil Supplies himself, arrived in immense state to inspect the Fortnight of National Food Security.
At the screeching of the ministerial horns, the entire precinct was thrown into that delightful paroxysm of terror and obsequiousness which only high rank can inspire: grandiloquent banners were run up with frantic haste, lest the official eye should encounter an unpainted wall, and fresh sand was strewn across the yard. The sacred lamps were ignited; an eloquent homily was delivered from the dais upon the imperial duty of pouring corn into the lap of the poor; and when at length the Great Dignitary emerged, hemmed in by an obsequious herd of journalists with ready tablets, his discerning glance was arrested by the figure of Jagdev Baba, sitting motionless upon the bench, the withered sack upon his knees.
Perceiving here an admirable occasion to exhibit that tender, paternal sympathy which looks so charming in the morning gazettes, the Minister, attended by his scribes, bore down upon the old man with an air of sublime condescension: “Venerable father,” said he, with that honeyed benevolence which costs nothing and yields great harvest, “upon this jubilee of universal nourishment we salute the aged and the poor. Unfold your grievance without fear, that the hand of Authority may strike off your afflictions. Hath the State’s bounty of free corn failed to reach your dwelling?”
Jagdev Baba raised his dim, stony eyes to that august countenance. With trembling hands, he drew forth the hollow sack and extended it straight towards the minister: “Sir,” whispered he, with a quietude more terrible than thunder, “if Justice be indeed the business of your high calling, reach into this void, touch this poor slip of paper, and read the sentence inscribed upon my flesh.”
The Minister took the crumpled docket from the sack. It was the fatal red chit cast forth by the digital engine, whereon was inscribed, in the cold, unfeeling copperplate of the mechanism, the monstrous decree: Biometric Authentication Refused: Ridges Indistinct.
Two great, scalding tears broke from the old man’s rheumy eyes and splashed upon the cold jute.
“Sir,” said Jagdev Baba, his voice cracking like dry timber under the burden of grief, “for fifty long years these hands turned the heavy sod and guided the plough, wringing wheat from the stubborn earth to feed this nation, until the very skin upon my thumbs was ground away upon the soil. And today, when I crave but two mouthfuls of crust to keep life in an old frame, your miraculous engine declares that because my prints are erased, my very existence as a living man is a lie! For eight weary months my household hath kept vigil with starvation, quenching the belly with water under the cold night sky. I bring this empty sack to your portal week after week merely to show unto your grand electronic empire that the very laborer whose worn hands baked your bread has been struck off by your machines, and declared dead upon the register while his breath yet burns within him!”
The Minister’s head drooped upon his breast, stricken with an overpowering shame; and through all the corridors of the great Department 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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