http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harivansh_Rai_Bachchan He was born as Harivanshrai Srivastav into a Kayasth family on November 27, 1907 at a small town near Allahabad in the United Provinces (modern Uttar Pradesh). He was called "bachchan" (meaning 'child') at home. He received his formal schooling in a municipal school and followed the family tradition of attending Kayasth Paathshaalas to learn Urdu as the first step to a career in law. He later studied at the Allahabad University and Banaras Hindu University. In this period, he came under the influence of the independence movement then under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi.
From 1941 to 1952 he taught English at the Allahabad University and then spent two years at Cambridge University in St Catharine's College, Cambridge. There he studied with famous English literature don, Thomas Rice Henn and received a doctorate in English Literature for his work on the Irish poet W.B. Yeats. It was then, that he used 'Bachchan' as his last name instead of Srivastav. Bachchan was the second Indian to get his doctorate in English literature from Cambridge University.
Returning to India, he taught briefly and then worked as a producer for All India Radio, Allahabad. In 1955, Harivanshrai moved to Delhi to join the Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India and there he was closely involved with the evolution of Hindi as the official language of the nation.
In 1926, at the age of 19, Bachchan married his first wife, Shyama, who was then 14 years old. However she died ten years later in 1936 after a long spell of TB at just 24 years of age. Shortly after his first wife's death, Bachchan married Teji Suri, a Sikh, in 1941. The marriage produced two sons, Amitabh and Ajitabh.
Bachchan used to introduce himself as Mitti ka tan, masti ka man, kshan-bhar jivan — mera parichay. (A body of clay, a mind full of play, a moment’s life - that is me).
Harivanshrai Bachchan died on January 18, 2003, at the age of 95, after suffering from various respiratory ailments and his medical condition had deteriorated which resulted in his demise.
[edit]
Work
He is best known for his early lyric poem Madhushala (The House of Wine), which has been translated into English and many regional Indian languages including Bengali, Marathi and Malayalam. It forms part of a trilogy, along with Madhubala and Madhukalash. Bachchan has published about 30 volumes of poetry. He has translated Shakespeare's Macbeth and Othello, Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, the Bhagavad Gita and W B Yeats to Hindi. His works include Nisha Nimantran, Khadi Ke Phool, Ekant Sangeet and Satrangini. In November, 1984, he wrote his last poem Ek November 1984 on Indira Gandhi’s assassination. His four volume autobiography, (abridged and translated into English as In the Afternoon of Time) was chosen for the Saraswati Samman.
[edit]
Honors
Bachchan was nominated to the Rajya Sabha, The Upper House of the Indian Parliament in 1966 and received the Sahitya Akademi award three years later. In 1976, he was honoured with the Padma Bhushan for his contribution to Hindi literature. He is a recipient of the Soviet Land Nehru Award and the Lotus Award of the Afro-Asian writers conference. In 2003, an Indian postage stamp was released in his memory.
[edit]
Trivia
* His last claim to fame is that he is the father of a well known and talented Indian actor, Amitabh Bachchan. This may be Bachchan's greatest claim to fame.
* The creator of the great collection 'Madhushala' is often thought to be a great admirer of wonder solutions himself. To the surprise of many, he never drank as much as a single drop of liquor. He, however, belongs to the clan of Kayashtha which is famous for eating and drinking merrily.
[edit]
Sources
* Obituary at Rediff web portal.
* news report of Bachchan's death on BBC news.
* Biography at Poetry International website.
[edit]
External links
* Dr. Harivansh Rai Bachchan - A comprehensive resource of information about the great Hindi poet
* Madhushala (displayed as images on HTML page)
* Madhushala in PDF format
* Some poems of Harivansh Rai Bachchan at
www.geeta-kavita.com
.png)
