Adwaita Mallabarman (alternative spelling Advaita Mallabarmana; 1 January 1914 – 16 April 1951) was an Indian writer and novelist who wrote in Bengali. He is mostly known for his novel Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (A River Called Titash) published in the monthly Mohammadi five years after his death.[1]
Adwaita Mallabarman | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1 January 1914 |
| Died | 16 April 1951 (aged 37) Kolkata, West Bengal, India |
| Alma mater | Comilla Victoria College |
| Occupation(s) | Literary editor, writer |
| Works | Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (1956) |
Early life and education
edit
Mallabarman was born in a Malo family in Gokarnoghat village beside the Titash River, near Brahmanbaria town in, Comilla District of present-day Bangladesh, then in undivided Bengal in British India. He was the second of four children and lost his parents when he was a child. His two brothers died shortly after, and his sister (widowed soon after marriage) died before he went to Calcutta at the age of 20.[2] As a boy and a teenager, until he left for college, he lived in the village with his uncle. He was the first child from the Mallo community of the village and nearby area to finish school. Members of the Malo community collected subscriptions to support his school expenses (mainly books, since his school fees were either waived or covered by scholarships he received). He attended the town's elementary school and Annada High School. He matriculated from the school in 1933 and went on to Comilla Victoria College. In part because of financial difficulty, he left college in 1934 and went to Calcutta to work as a literary editor.[3]
Career
editThroughout his teen years he wrote prodigiously, mostly poetry, and published in student magazines. Those early writings were highly acclaimed, so much so that peers who aspired to be writers sought his opinion on their work before sending it to a publisher.[4]
Mallabarman's first job in Calcutta was as assistant editor of a literary and news magazine, Navashakti. After three years with the magazine, he worked as an editorial assistant for a literary monthly, Mohammadi, in which he also published a number of his poems and parts of what was evidently the first draft of Titash Ekti Nadir Naam ( It is also filmed by Ritwik Ghatak); he continued to work for Mohammadi until its Muslim publisher closed the monthly and emigrated from India. During this period he also worked for the newspaper Azad. In 1945, he joined the literary weekly Desh and the daily Ananda Bazar Patrika. From 1945 through 1950 a number of his poems, stories, essays, and translations were published in Desh and other magazines.
Death
editIn 1950, Mallabarman was diagnosed with tuberculosis. he had felt increasingly unwell for two years. Entrusting the just-finalized manuscript of Titash Ekti Nadir Naam to friends, he went for hospital treatment. Soon after his release he suffered a relapse and was readmitted. Before the second phase of his treatment was over, however, he walked out of the hospital. Two months later, on 16 April 1951, he died.[1][5]
References
edit- ^ a b "Ekhono boichhe Titas". Anandabazar Patrika (in Bengali). January 2014. Archived from the original on 25 January 2014. Retrieved 24 January 2014.
- ^ "Advaita Mallavarman and Titas ekti nadir nam -Ali Akbar". Archived from the original on 25 March 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
- ^ Selina Hossain, Nurul Islam (1997). Bangla Akademi Charitabidhan (2nd ed.). Dhaka: Bangla Akademy. p. 6.
- ^ Shantanu Qaisar (1987). Adwaita Mallabarman. Bangladesh: Bangla Academy. pp. 12, 72.
- ^ Mallabarman, Adwaita (1993). "Appendix: Background Notes". A river called Titash. Translated by Bardhan, Kalpana. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 263–264. ISBN 0-520-08050-5.
Further reading
edit- Santanu Kayasara, Advaita Mallabarmana, Jibana, Sahitya, o Anyanya (1998)