Kaka Hathrasi
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Kaka Hathrasi is widely regarded as one of the greatest Hindi satirists. Born on 18 September 1906 in the North Indian town of Hathras as Prabhunath Garg, he wrote under his poetic alias "Kaka Hathrasi".
Kaka wrote very sharp satires on the social and political evils, double morals, greed and corruption engulfing India at that time, as indeed even today.
Kaka's unique style of satires became very popular and is copied even today by many aspiring as well as established satirists in India.
Ashok Chakradhar, another renowned Hindi poet, is his relative, married to Kaka's niece.
Here some information sourced from: Hathras Online
"His sense of humor and quickness to answer in poetry made him a successful poet. At that time comic poetry was not a serious job and comic poetry was not in a respectful status, only serious poetry enjoyed that status. But Kaka's sense of humor, which he used in his poems for the cause of a common man and his plights, made him a success on the stage. Slowly but steadily he became the want of common people on the stages and an environment for comic poetry was created."
"Other than poetry he was also had dedicated to music, He founded "Sangeet Karyalaya", which conducts many workings and researches in music and "Sangeet Press", which publishes various magazines and books on music and arts."
"In his successful life he wrote 42 books on comic poems, 4 illustrated books on music and wrote "Tukant Kosh" and "Raag Kosh". He made 150 oil paintings and wrote 150 small books on music. He was also a good singer and in his voice 4 LP records were released by HMV and many audio cassettes by T-Series and Amarnad Bombay."
"He was the founder editor of magazines namely Sangeet, Film Sangeet, Hasyarasam and Music Mirror."
"He got so many awards and honors in his life some of them are listed chronologically:" [sic]
- In 1966 honored by then Central Minister of Information and Broadcasting.
- In 1967 honored by then Governor of West Bengal and 108 institutions and art centers of Kolkata.
- In 1976 awarded "Agrashree" by "Aagrawal Samaaj", Chandigarh.
- In 1976 honored with "Thhithholi Puruskar" as Best Poet.
- In 1976 awarded by many Central Ministers of India and a book "Kaka Hathrasi Abhinandan Granth" published on him.
- In 1976 awarded "Kala Ratna" by then Vice President of India Sh B.D. Jatti.
- In 1984 awarded Honorary Citizenship by then Mayor of Baltimore (US).
- In 1985 awarded "Padma Shri" by Government of India.
"He also acted as a poet in Rajshree Production’s Kavi Sammelan and BrijBhumi Film's Jamuna Kinare."
He started Kaka Hathrasi Purushkar, an award that is given annually to a Musician and a Poet for their services. He died in 1995.