Sumitranandan Pant
Sumitranandan Pant | |
---|---|
Born | (1900-05-20)20 May 1900 Kausani, North-Western Provinces, British India |
Died | 28 December 1977(1977-12-28) (aged 77) Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, India |
Occupation | Writer, poet |
Nationality | Indian |
Education | Hindi Literature |
Subject | Sanskrit |
Notable awards | Padma Bhushan (1961) Jnanpith Award (1968) |
Literature portal |
Sumitranandan Pant (20 May 1900 – 28 December 1977)[1] was an Indian poet. He was one of the most celebrated 20th century poets of the Hindi language and was known for romanticism in his poems which were inspired by nature, people and beauty within.[2]
Early life
His father served as the manager of a local tea garden, and was also a landholder, so Pant was never in want financially growing up. He grew up in the same village and always cherished a love for the beauty and flavor of rural India, which is evident in all his major works.
Pant enrolled in Queens College in Banaras in 1918. There he began reading the works of Sarojini Naidu and Rabindranath Tagore, as well as English Romantic poets. These figures would all have a powerful influence on his writing.[2] In 1919 he moved to Allahabad to study at Muir College. As an anti-British gesture he only attended for two years. He then focused more on poetry, publishing Pallav in 1926. This collection established him as a literary giant of the Hindi renaissance that had begun with Jaishankar Prasad. In the introduction to the book, Pant expressed dissatisfaction that Hindi speakers "think in one language and express themselves in another."[2] He felt that Braj was out of date and sought to help usher in a new national language.
Pant moved to Kalakankar in 1931. For nine years he lived a secluded life close to nature. Simultaneously he grew enamored with the works and thinking of Karl Marx and Mahatma Gandhi, dedicating several verses to them in the poetry he produced during this time.[1] Pant returned to Almora in 1941 where he attended drama classes at the Uday Shankar Cultural Centre. He also read Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine, which heavily influenced him. Three years later he moved to Madras and then to Pondicherry, attending Aurobindo's ashram. In 1946 he returned to Allahabad to resume his role among the country's other leading writers.
Literary career
He is considered one of the major poets of the Chhayavaadi school of Hindi literature.[1] Pant mostly wrote in Sanskritized Hindi. Pant authored twenty-eight published works including poetry, verse plays and essays.
Apart from Chhayavaadi poems, Pant also wrote progressive, socialist, humanist poems and[3] philosophical (influenced by Sri Aurobindo) poems. Pant eventually moved beyond this style. As the late scholar and translator of Pant, David Rubin, writes, "In the early forties the new psychological and experimental "schools" were emerging. It was typical of both Nirala and Pant that they themselves anticipated these trends and, by the time the new approaches were in vogue, they had already moved on to newer areas of experimentation."[2]
Mahapran Nirala once remarked:
The most powerful thing in Pant Ji is that, like Shelley, he makes his composition mellifluous and tender by enriching it with numerous similes and metaphors.
— Mahapran Nirala, [1]
Awards
In 1960, Pant received the Sahitya Academy award, given by India's Academy of Letters, for Kala Aur Budhdha Chand.[1]
In 1968, Pant became the first Hindi poet to receive the Jnanpith Award, considered to be India's highest accolade for literature. This was awarded to him for a collection of his most famous poems titled Chidambara.[1][4]
The Indian Government honored him with Padma Bhushan in 1961.[5][1]
Sumitra Nandan Pant composed the Kulgeet of the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee " -Jayati Vidya Sansthan".
Death
Pant died on 28 December 1977, at Allahabad (Prayagraj), Uttar Pradesh, India. His childhood house in Kausani has been converted into a museum. This museum displays his daily use articles, drafts of his poems, letters, his awards,books,stories etc.
References
- ^ a b c d e f g "पर्वत प्रदेश में पावास" (PDF). स्पर्श भाग 2 (in Hindi). NCERT. p. 25. ISBN 81-7450-647-0. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 October 2020. Retrieved 19 October 2020.
- ^ a b c d Rubin, David (1993). The Return of Sarasvati: Four Hindi Poets. Oxford University Press. pp. 105–106. ISBN 978-0195643695
- ^ "Chhayavaadi Poet Sumitranandan Pant". Youtube.
- ^ "Jnanpith Laureates Official listings". Jnanpith Website. Archived from the original on 13 October 2007.
- ^ "Padma Awards" (PDF). Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. 2015. Retrieved 21 July 2015.
- v
- t
- e
- Ramchandra Narayan Dandekar
- Prem Chandra Dhanda
- Asaf Ali Asghar Fyzee
- Bade Ghulam Ali Khan
- Daulat Singh Kothari
- Mithan Jamshed Lam
- Sudhansu Sobhan Maitra
- Sisir Kumar Mitra
- Tarabai Modak
- Niaz Fatehpuri
- Jal Ratanji Patel
- Narayan Sitaram Phadke
- V. Raghavan
- Dukhan Ram
- T. S. Soundram
- Mahankali Seetharama Rao
- Moturi Satyanarayana
- Sitaram Seksaria
- Santosh Kumar Sen
- Tarlok Singh
- Raja Radhika Raman Sinha
- Sheikh Abdullah
- Nuruddin Ahmed
- Rafiuddin Ahmed
- Jacob Chandy
- Kunji Lal Dubey
- Tushar Kanti Ghosh
- Dara Nusserwanji Khurody
- Anukul Chandra Mukherjee
- Jnanendra Nath Mukherjee
- Bhola Nath Mullik
- R. K. Narayan
- Chintaman Govind Pandit
- Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel
- Bal Gandharva
- T. N. Ramachandran
- Khushwant Lal Wig
- Joginder Singh Dhillon
- Bhalchandra Babaji Dikshit
- Narasinh Narayan Godbole
- Nawang Gombu
- Sonam Gyatso
- Akbar Ali Khan
- S. L. Kirloskar
- Mohan Singh Kohli
- Harbaksh Singh
- P. O. Dunn
- Kashmir Singh Katoch
- Pratap Chandra Lal
- Ramaswamy Rajaram
- Mohammad Mujeeb
- Jayant Narlikar
- K. R. Ramanathan
- Satyajit Ray
- Triguna Sen
- Vrindavan Lal Verma
- Manikya Lal Verma
- Acharya Vishva Bandhu
- Prabhu Lal Bhatnagar
- Mary Clubwala Jadhav
- K. Shivaram Karanth
- Bismillah Khan
- Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar
- Sam Manekshaw
- Mansukhlal Atmaram Master
- M. G. K. Menon
- Waman Bapuji Metre
- Gujarmal Modi
- Murugappa Channaveerappa Modi
- Benjamin Peary Pal
- Brahm Prakash
- Manikonda Chalapathi Rau
- C. R. Rao
- Radhanath Rath
- Mariadas Ruthnaswamy
- Firaq Gorakhpuri
- Shripad Damodar Satwalekar
- G. Sankara Kurup
- Periyasaamy Thooran
- Mamidipudi Venkatarangayya
- Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay
- Rahim-ud-in Khan Dagar
- Mohanlal Lallubhai Dantwala
- Keshavrao Krishnarao Datey
- Keshav Prasad Goenka
- Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer
- Vithalbhai Jhaveri
- Prithviraj Kapoor
- Kesarbai Kerkar
- Krishna Kripalani
- Adinath Lahiri
- Gobind Behari Lal
- Kasturbhai Lalbhai
- Lata Mangeshkar
- V. K. Narayana Menon
- Saghar Nizami
- Nanasaheb Parulekar
- Yashwant Dinkar Pendharkar
- Vitthal Laxman Phadke
- Raja Rao
- Niharranjan Ray
- Prafulla Kumar Sen
- Haroon Khan Sherwani
- Naval Tata
- S. S. Vasan
- 1954–1959
- 1960–1969
- 1970–1979
- 1980–1989
- 1990–1999
- 2000–2009
- 2010–2019
- 2020–2029