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| Babu GulabRai | |
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| BabuGulabRaistamp.gif Postal Stamp issued in honour of Babu Gulabrai by the government of India. |
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| Place of birth: | Etawah, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Place of death: | Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India |
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This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (October 2007) |
Babu Gulabrai (January 17, 1888-April 13, 1963) (pen name: Gulabrai MA) was one of the greatest literary figures of modern Hindi literature.
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Biography
Babu Gulabrai was born in Etawah where his father 'Babu Bhawani Prasad' was a munsarif in the judicial court. His father was an extremely honest and upright man while his mother 'Smt. Gomati Devi' was an extremely religious lady.He had a brother and a sister.His brother Shri. R.C.Gupta retired from Cenral Government Services and was a Yoga teacher, practicer and author of national repute.
He completed MA in Philosophy and LLB from Agra university. He started writing in English and that too philosophical essays. Then he switched to Hindi for the upliftment of the national language. His first two works 'shanti dharma' and 'maitri dharma' reflected his ideology and interest. He then worked for the Maharaja of Chhatarpur as private secretary, prime minister and chief justice. After the death of Maharaja, he came back to agra and resumed writing work. He taught in the historical St Johns College, Agra and was highly revered for his teaching skills as well as student friendly attitude. Out of all the contemporary writers, probably he is the one who can boast of producing best students who later became great writers themselves.
Babu Gulabrai was married to 'Smt. Bhagwati Devi' of Meerut. He had three sons and five daughters. None of his sons took writing as a profession as one of them retired as Supt. Central excise, the middle one as Principal, medical college Bhopal and the youngest as engineer in ASI.
He was never financially very rich but still didn't take a fixed salary for teaching. He was conferred with an honorary doctorate from Agra University in the year 1957 by V V Giri. He continued writing till his death. He died on 13th April 1963
In June 2002, Government of India issued a 5 Rs stamp to commemorate his contribution to Hindi literature. 1
Literary works
His work on the history of Hindi literature 'Hindi ka subodh itihaas' is one of the finest of its kind. He developed a unique style of self satire which is very prominent in his biography 'Meri Asafaltaein' and 'Thalua Club'. He also started a literary magazine called 'sahitya sandesh'
His works can be broadly divided into three categories.
- 1.Philosophical -most of his early work comes into this category.As he was a philosopher by education as well as profession (he worked in the court of maharaja of chhatarpur in various capacities, one of them being 'philosophical companion' of the king.)He was greatly inspired by the Gandhian philosophy and many of his works provide an analytical as well as scientific defence to Gandhism.Rashtriyata which is a compilation of essays on nationalism is one of the most mature and rationalistic description of nationalism.He advocates the principle of harmony between internationalism, nationalism and regionalism, giving priority to them in this order.
- 2.Literary Essays -he is one of the most prominent Hindi critic of dwivedi and shukla yuga. The early half of the 20th century was the golden age of Hindi literature.He along with the likes of 'Mahaveer Prasad Dwivedi', 'Acharya Ramchandra Shukla' etc. gave literature much needed philosophical and analytical impetus.
- 3.Humorous Satire -these include most famous of his works which came in the later part of his life.His autobiography is one of the finest example of self satire in any language.He makes himself the object of humour and entertains the reader with an account of failures of his life. meri asafaltain in Hindi means 'my failures'.
Babu Gulab Rai is a highly reputed writer, who enriched Hindi literature by his contributions, in the field of philosophy, poetics, criticism, introductory science, valuable personal essays and other knowledge oriented subjects, in those days, when it needed them.
Language
The language used by him was sanskritized version of Hindi.His initial works were in English and as he himself admits that he started writing in Hindi due to patriotic reasons and his knowledge of Sanskrit helped him in that.Hence we find heavy usage of Sanskrit words and shlokas.He used extremely witty statements (probably due to his philosophical background) which make his work all the more interesting. Unlike other essayist and critics of his time ,he always tried to make his work simple (but analytical) and accessible to all which gained him much of the popularity.
Complete List of Books Written by him
- Written by him
- Shanti Dharma -1913,
- Matree Dharm-1913,
- Kartavya Shastra -1915,
- Tarka Shasta -1916,
- Pashchaatya Darshano Ka Itihaas-1917,
- Fir Niraashaa Kyon-1918,
- Navras-1933,
- Prabandha Prabhaakar-1933,
- Nibandha Ratnaakar- 1934,
- Vigyaan Vinod- 1937,
- Hindi Sahitya Ka Subodh Itihaas-1940,
- Hindi Sahitya Ka Sankshhipta Itihaas-1943,
- Meree Asfaltaayein-1946,
- Siddhhant Aur Adhyayan-1946,
- Kaavya Ke Roop-1947,
- Hindi Kaavya Vimarsha-1947,
- Saahitya Sameekshhaa-1947,
- Hindi Naatya vimarsha-1947,
- Bhaarteeya Sanskriti Kee Roop –Rekhaa,1952,
- Gaandheeya Marg-1953, Man Kee Baatein-1954,
- Abhinav Bharat Ke Prakash stambha- 1955,
- Satya Aur Swatantrtaa ke Upaasak- 1955,
- Kuchh Uthale Kuchh Gahrei-1955,
- Mere Nibandha-1955,
- Jeevan Path-1954,
- Adhyayan Aur Aswaad-1956,
- Vidyaarthi Jeevan-1956,
- Hindi Kavitaa Aur Rahsyavaad-1956 etc.
References
[List of Books]
External links
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