Shivani

Gaura Pant (Shivani)
Gaura Pant (Shivani) (1923–2003)
Born	(1923-10-17)17 October 1923 Rajkot, Gujarat, India
Died	21 March 2003(2003-03-21) (aged 79) New Delhi, India
Pen name	Shivani
Occupation	novelist
Nationality	Indian

Gaura Pant (17 October 1923– 21 March 2003), better known as Shivani, was one of the popular Hindi magazine story writers of the 20th century and a pioneer in writing Indian women based fiction. She was awarded the Padma Shri for her contribution to Hindi literature in 1982. Almost all of her works are in print today and widely available across India.

She garnered a massive following in the pre-television 1960s and 1970s, as her literary works (like her most famous novel, 'Krishnakali'), were serialised in Hindi magazines like Dharmayug and Saptahik Hindustan, leading to her cult status as a Hindi magazine novelist. Through her writings, she also made the culture of Kumaon, somewhat known to Hindi-speaking Indians across the country. Her novel 'Kariye Chima' was made into a film, while her other novels including 'Surangma', 'Rativilaap', 'Mera Beta', and 'Teesra Beta' have been turned into Television serials

Upon her death in 2003, Government of India described her contributions to Hindi literature as, "...in the death of Shivani the Hindi literature world has lost a popular and eminent novelist and the void is difficult to fill".

Gaura Pant 'Shivani' was born on 17 October 1924, the Vijaya Dasami day in Rajkot, Gujarat, where her father, Ashwini Kumar Pande was a teacher with princely state of Rajkot. He was a Kumaoni Brahmin. Her mother was a Sanskrit scholar, and the first student of Lucknow Mahila Vidyalaya. Later her father became the Diwan with the Nawab of Rampur and the member of Viceroy's Bar Council, thereafter the family moved to the princely state of Orchha, where her father held an important position. Thus Shivani's childhood had influences of these varied places, and an insight into women of privilege, which reflected in much of her work. At Lucknow, she became the first student of the local, 'Lucknow Mahila Vidyalaya'.

As she grew older, she along with her brother and a sister, went to live with her grandfather, a Sanskrit scholar and a founding member of Banaras Hindu University.