Pramatha Chowdhury

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Pramatha Chowdhury (Bengali: প্রমথ চৌধুরী) (1868-1946) Bengali literature analyst and essayist. He was once the head of the Vangiya Sahitya Parishad. A great scholar in English and French, he was famous as satirist Birbal and was editor of Sabuj Patra.

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[edit] Life

Son of Durgadas Chowdhury, he was born in Jessore on 7 August 1868. He belonged to the zemidar family of Haripur village in Pabna district, now in Bangladesh. When he was only five years old, was living in Krishnanagar.

He was educated in Hare School, Kolkata. He secured a first class in philosophy for his BA from Presidency College, Kolkata, in 1889 and a first class in English Literature for his MA from Calcutta University in 1890. Eventually, he came in touch with law and became a barrister in England.

He was linked to the Tagore family as a result of his marriage to Indira Debi Chaudhurani, daughter of Satyendranath Tagore. the first Indian ICS and elder brother of Rabindranath Tagore.

[edit] Works On Language

Although Peary Chand Mitra and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee started using the spoken word for Bengali prose, Pramatha Chaudhuri lent strong support to the ‘Cholito Bangla Movement’ and built up a group of writers using the spoken language around Sabuj Patra. Rabindranath Tagore was initially drawn towards the more lyrical Sanskritised language used by maedival poets but later switched to the spoken language for his prose.

[edit] Works

He wrote many essays and short stories in ‘Basumati’, ‘Bichitra’, ‘Sabujpatra’ etc.

His writing style was very sharp. A frequent target was the Bengali society. Pramatha Chaudhuri’s literary works were included in the curriculum of school level, secondary, higher secondary and graduation level Bengali Literature in Bangladesh.

[edit] Short Stories

  • Char Yeari Kotha
  • Ahuti
  • Neellohito
  • Golposongroho

[edit] References

  • Golpo Songroho (Collected Stories), the national text book of B.A. (pass and subsidiary) course of Bangladesh, published by University of Dhaka in 1979 (reprint in 1986).
  • Bangla Sahitya (Bengali Literature), the national text book of intermediate (college) level of Bangladesh published in 1996 by all educational boards.
  • Sansad Bangali Charitabhidhan (Biographical dictionary) in Bengali edited by Subodh Chandra Sengupta and Anjali Bose.