Mohan Rakesh

Mohan Rakesh
Born Madan Mohan Guglani[1]
(1925-01-08)8 January 1925
Amritsar, Undivided India
Died 3 January 1972(1972-01-03) (aged 46)
Delhi
Occupation Novelist, playwright

Mohan Rakesh (मोहन राकेश; 8 January 1925 – 3 December 1972) was one of the pioneers of the Nai Kahani ("New Story") literary movement of the Hindi literature in the 1950s. He wrote the first modern Hindi play, Ashadh Ka Ek Din (One Day in Aashad) (1958), which won a competition organised by the Sangeet Natak Akademi. He made significant contribution to novel, short story, travelogue, criticism, memoirs and drama.[1]

He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1968.[2]

Early life and education

Born as Madan Mohan Guglani on 8 January 1925 in Amritsar, Punjab. His father a lawyer died when he was sixteen.[1] He did his M.A. in English and Hindi from Punjab University, Lahore.[3][4]

Career

He started his career as a teacher, and he taught in two colleges and a school, and edited a short story magazine before deciding to write full-time.[1] His noted novels are Andhere Band Kamare (Closed Dark Rooms) and Na Aane Wala Kal(The Tomorrow That Never Comes). His plays Ashadh Ka Ek Din (One Day in Aashad) (1958), play a major role in reviving Hindi theatre in the 1960s[5] and Adhe Adhure (The Incomplete Ones or Halfway House) (1959) are highly regarded. His debut play Ashadh Ka Ek Din was first performed by Kolkata-based Hindi theatre group Anamika, under director Shyamanand Jalan (1960)[6] and subsequently by Ebrahim Alkazi at National School of Drama Delhi in 1962, which established Mohan Rakesh as the first modern Hindi playwright.[1] His plays continue to be performed and receive acclaim worldwide. One Day in the Season of Rain, Aparna Dharwadker and Vinay Dharwadker's authorised English translation of Ashadh Ka Ek Din, premiered at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA in 2010 and travelled to the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (Region 3) in 2011.

Leheron Ke Raj Hans (The Swans of the Waves), the most noted play of Mohan Rakesh, an ancient Buddhist tale on the renunciation of the Buddha, and its aftereffects on his close family, was first written as a short story and later turned into a radio play for All India Radio Jalandhar, and broadcast under the title Sundri, though his struggle over different versions of the play lasted for nearly 20 years, before creating his masterpiece.[7] Prominent Indian directors Om Shivpuri, Shyamanand Jalan, Arvind Gaur and Ram Gopal Bajaj directed this play.[8] In 2005, this very writing process of the play, and Mohan Rakesh's diary, writings, and letters about the play, were recreated in a play titled Manuscript, by a Delhi theatre group.

His story "Uski Roti" (One's Bread) was made into an eponymous film by Mani Kaul in 1971, for which he also wrote the dialogue.[9]

Literary work

Novels (Upanyas)

Plays (Natak-Ekanki)

Translation

Story anthologies (Kahani Sangrah)

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Gabrielle H. Cody; Evert Sprinchorn (2007). The Columbia encyclopedia of modern drama, Volume 2. Columbia University Press. p. 1116. ISBN 0-231-14424-5.
  2. ↑ Drama – Playwriting Awards Sangeet Natak Akademi Official listings.
  3. ↑ Mohan Rakesh Biography and Works
  4. ↑ Mohan Rakesh bio and books
  5. ↑ Mohan Rakesh
  6. ↑ Asha Kasbekar (2006). Pop culture India!: media, arts, and lifestyle. ABC-CLIO. p. 73. ISBN 1-85109-636-1.
  7. ↑ Simona Sawhney (2008). The modernity of Sanskrit. Univ. of Minnesota Press. p. 73. ISBN 0-8166-4996-0.
  8. ↑ More than just a manuscript! Romesh Chander, The Hindu, 18 November 2005.
  9. ↑ Uski Roti (1971) New York Times

Further reading

External links

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