Bharatendu Harishchandra
| Bharatendu Harishchandra | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
9 September 1850 Varanasi, India |
| Died | 6 January 1885 (aged 34) Varanasi, India |
| Pen name | Rasa |
| Occupation | Novelist, poet, playwright |
Bhartendu Harishchandra (9 September 1850 – 6 January 1885) is known as the father of modern Hindi literature as well as Hindi theatre. He is considered one of the greatest Hindi writers of modern India. A recognised poet, he was a trendsetter in Hindi prose-writing. He was an author of several dramas, life sketches and travel accounts; he used new media like reports, publications, letters to the editor, translations and literary works to shape public opinion.
Writing under the pen name "Rasa", Harishchandra represented the agonies of the people, country's poverty, dependency, inhuman exploitation, the unrest of the middle class and the urge for the progress of the country. He was an influential Hindu "traditionalist", using Vaishnava devotionalism to define a coherent Hindu religion .
Born in Banaras, Bharatendu Harishchandra's father Gopal Chandra was a poet. He wrote under the pseudonym Girdhar Das. Bharatendu's parents died when he was young but they seem to have had an influence on him. Acharya Ramchandra Shukla has described how Bharatendu went to the Jagannath temple in Puri, Orissa with his family in 1865, when he was merely 15 years of age. During this trip he was influenced by the Bengal Renaissance and decided to bring the genres of social, historical, and Puranic plays and novels into Hindi. This influence reflected in his Hindi translation of the Bengali drama Vidyasundar, three years later, in 1868.
Bharatendu devoted his life to the development of Hindi literature. In recognition of his services as a writer, patron and moderniser, the title of "Bharatendu" was conferred on him at a public meeting by scholars of Kashi in 1880. Reputed literary critic Ram Vilas Sharma refers to the "great literary awakening ushered in under Bharatendu's leadership" as the "second storey of the edifice of renascent Hindi", the first being the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Bharatendu Harishchandra made major contributions in the fields of journalism, drama, and poetry. He edited the magazines Kavi Vachan Sudha in 1868 into this magazine he requested Indian people first to use Indian made products or Swadeshi Apnao in March 1874, in 1873 Harishchandra Magazine , Harishchandra Patrika and Bal Vodhini. He was a member of the Chowdhury family of Varanasi belonging to the Agrawal community and his home there is still in use. His ancestors were landlords in Bengal. He had one daughter. He wrote the widely mentioned history of the Agrawal community.
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