Indian Writers: Vidyasagar to Sudha Murty| Essay by Shivansh,9, Belur

There are many interesting Indian writers who have written the best Indian literature of all time. To name a few – Khushwant Singh, Satyajit Ray, Sudha Murty, Sohanlal Dwivedi and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. 

Khushwant Singh was born on 2 February 1915 as Khushal Singh in Lahore, Pakistan. He was an Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician. His experience in the 1947 Partition of India inspired him to write Train to Pakistan in 1956 (made into film in 1998), which became his most well-known novel.[His early education was in Modern High School. Later, he went to his hometown to study in Government College, Lahore, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts (B.A) degree. He then traveled abroad to the UK to study law in the University of London, where he obtained a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) degree.

His notable works are the History of Sikhs, Train to Pakistan, Company of Women and Truth, Love & a Little Malice. Khushwant Singh died on 20 March 2014 at the age of 99. He was the recipient of many national awards like Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, Sahitya Academy Fellowship.

Satyajit Ray was born on 2 May 1921 in Kolkata.  His father, Late Sukumar Ray was an eminent poet and writer in the history of Bengali literature.His alma mater was Presidency College (B.A) and Visva-Bharati(M.A) University. We wore many creative hats – was a director, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and composer. Widely considered one of the greatest film-makers of all time. Popular characters created by Ray inc. Popular characters created by Ray include Feluda the sleuth, Professor Shonku the scientist, Tarini Khuro the storyteller, and Lalmohan Ganguly the novelist.

Ray received many major awards in his career, including thirty-six Indian National Film Awards, awards at international film festivals and even an Academy Honorary Award in 1992. In 1978, he was awarded an honorary degree by Oxford University. The Government of India honored him with the Bharat Ratna, its highest civilian award, in 1992.

Sudha Murty is a writer, educator and philanthropist, chairing the Infosys Foundation. She was born on 19 August 1951 in Shiggaon, Karnataka. She is married to the co-founder of Infosys, N. R. Narayana Murthy. Her vision of a library for each school has resulted in the setting up of 50,000 libraries so far. Murty was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in India, for social work by the Government of India in 2006. the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award in India.

A prolific writer in English and Kannada, Sudha Murty has authored over 30 books – written novels, technical books, travelogues, collections of short stories and non- fictional pieces, and books for children.

Her books include How the Sea Became Salty, How the Onion got its Layers, Magic of the Lost Temple, Grandma’s Bag of Stories ,  How I Taught My Grandmother to Read and Other Stories Gently falls the Bakula, Wise And Otherwise etc. 

Sohanlal Dwivedi was an Indian poet, Gandhian , freedom fighter and a Hindi writer whose poems include Himalaya, Theek Samay Par, etc. He was born on 22 February 1906 in Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh. He died on 1 March 1988, in Kanpur. He published several anthologies like Bhairavi, Pooja Geet, Prabhati, Yugadhar, Kunal, Chetna and Basuri. Hum Balveer and Andheri Raath are two of his other notable works. Considered as a national poet, he was honoured by the Government of India in 1970 with Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award.

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was born on 26 September 1820 in Birsingha, West Bengal. He so excelled in his undergraduate studies of Sanskrit and philosophy that Sanskrit College in Calcutta, where he studied, gave him the honorific title Vidyasagar (‘Ocean of Knowledge’; from Sanskrit vidya ‘knowledge’ and sagar ‘ocean’.

An educator and social reformer of the nineteenth century, his efforts to simplify and  modernise Bengali prose were significant.He is credited for creating the Bengali-Assamese script. One of his famed stories is Bhor Holo. He died on 29 July 1891 in Kolkata.

In 2004, Vidyasagar was ranked number 9 in BBC’s poll of the Greatest Bengali of all time. Indian Post issued stamps featuring Vidyasagar in 1970 and 1998

These Indian writers have written books that have had an impact on literature, in multiple languages including English, Hindi, Bengali and Kannada. I hope you will find their books in the library and enjoy reading them as I have been.