1. A. Sepoy Mutiny,
1857
"A Flight of
Pigeons" is a novella by Indian English author Ruskin Bond set in 1857 and
is about Ruth Labadoor and her family (who are British) in the town of Shahjahanpur
(in present-day Uttar Pradesh) who take help of Hindus and Muslims to reach
their relatives when the family's patriarch is killed in a church by the Indian
rebels.
The novella is a mix
of fiction and non-fiction and was adapted into a film in 1978 called "Junoon"
by Shyam Benegal, starring Shashi Kapoor, his wife Jennifer Kendal, Tom Alter,
Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Naseeruddin Shah, Deepti Naval and Nafisa
Ali (debut film).
Ruskin Bond (born 19
May 1934) is an Indian author of British descent. He is considered to be an
icon among Indian writers and children's authors and a top novelist.
He wrote his first
novel, "The Room on the Roof", when he was seventeen which won "John
Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize" in 1957. Since then he has written several
novellas, over 500 short stories, as well as various essays and poems, all of
which have established him as one of the best-loved and most admired
chroniclers of contemporary India.
In 1992 he received
the Sahitya Akademi award for English writing, for his short stories
collection, "Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra", by the Sahitya Akademi.
He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 for contributions to children's
literature.
He now lives with his
adopted family in Landour near Mussoorie in Uttarakhand.
2. C. Satya Vrat
Shastri
Satya Vrat Shastri
(born 29 September 1930) is a highly decorated Sanskrit scholar, writer,
grammarian and poet from India. He has written three Mahakavyas, three
Khandakavyas, one Prabandhakavyas and one Patrakavya and five works in critical
writing in Sanskrit. His important works are "Sri Ramakirtimahakavyam",
"Brahattaram Bharatam", "Sribodhisattvacharitam", "Vaidika
Vyakarana", "Sarmanyadesah Sutram Vibhati", and "Discovery
of Sanskrit Treasures" in seven volumes.
He is currently an
honorary professor at the "Special Centre for Sanskrit Studies",
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was the Head of the Department of
Sanskrit and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Delhi, where
he was the "Pandit Manmohan Nath Dar Professor of Sanskrit"
(1970–1995).
During his career he
has won many national and international awards, including, the "Sahitya
Akademi Award for Sanskrit", given by "Sahitya Akademi" in 1968
for his poetry work, "Srigurugovindasimhacharitam", then in 2006, he
became the first (and till date the only person) recipient of the Jnanpith
award in Sanskrit language (conferred in 2009 by his former disciple and
Thailand's Princess "Maha Chakri Sirindhorn").
During his stint as a
visiting professor at the Chulalongkorn and Silpakorn Universities in Bangkok
as well as the Northeast Buddhist University, Nongkhai, Thailand, he taught
Sanskrit to Thailand's Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn [1977–1979]. Upon royal
request, he wrote "Sri Ramakirtimahakavyam", a rendition of
"Ramakien" (The Thai derivation of the Hindu epic
"Ramayana") from Royal Thai into Sanskrit, which received rave
reviews from many literary quarters.
3. A. Gurdial Singh
"Marhi Da Deeva"
(The Lamp of the Tomb) is a 1964 Punjabi novel by Gurdial Singh which
established Gurdial Singh as a novelist. The author himself described it as the
first Punjabi novel in "critical realism". It came in for high
praise, with some critics calling it a landmark equivalent to Premchand's "Godan".
It was translated as "The Last Flicker" by the Sahitya Akademi.
The novel was adapted
into a 1989 Punjabi film of the same name. Surinder Singh directed the film, which
starred Raj Babbar, Deepti Naval and Parikshit Sahni in lead roles. The film
received a National Film Award and was critically acclaimed.
His other notable novels
are "Anhoe" (1966), "Addh Chanani Raat" (1972), "Anhe
Ghore Da Daan" (1976) and "Parsa" (1991). "Anhe Ghore Da
Daan" was made into a film of the same name in 2011 by director Gurvinder
Singh. The novels "Addh Chanani Raat" and "Parsa" have been
translated into English as "Night of the Half Moon" (published by
Macmillan) and "Parsa" by the National Book Trust, respectively.
Singh received
various awards over the course of his life, including the Sahitya Akademi Award
in Punjabi in 1975 for the novel "Adh Chanani Raat", the Soviet Land
Nehru Award in 1986, the Jnanpith Award in 1999 and the Padma Shri in 1998.
4. A. Qurratulain
Hyder
"Aag Ka Darya"
(River of Fire) is a landmark historical novel written by Qurratulain Hyder
providing context to the traumatic partition of the Indian subcontinent into
two nation-states. It has been described as "one of the Indian Subcontinent’s
best known novels". The novel timelines spanned over two thousand years
starting from the time of Chandargupta Maurya in fourth century BC to the
post-Independence period in India and Pakistan. It was published in Urdu in
1959 and translated by the author into English in 1998.
Born in Aligarh in
1927, Hyder migrated to Pakistan in 1947. Her debut novel, "Mere Bhi Sanam
Khaane" (My Temples), examined the causes of Hindu-Muslim violence that
led to the partition of India. "Ainee Apa" – as she was endearingly
referred to by her readers – dealt with the aftermath of such communal discord
in her next novel "Safina-e-Gham-e-Dil" (Boat of Sorrow).
When the military and
religious fundamentalists tightened their grip on Pakistan, in 1959, Ainee Apa
gifted her third novel, "Aag Ka Darya" (many considered her first
three novels as a trilogy on partition of Indian Subcontinent), to the Urdu
literary world. This was at a time when the Pakistani establishment was
systematically cleansing the country’s ethos of any traces of Hindu (thereby
Indian) traditions, which earlier existed alongside the Islamic ones and Hyder's
"Aag Ka Darya" immediately
caused
severe controversy in Pakistan and forced Hyder to return India permanently where
she was welcomed with open arms by none other than Jawaharlal Nehru and Maulana
Azad. In Bombay she served as managing editor for Imprint and co-edited The
Illustrated Weekly of India with Khushwant Singh. She moved to Delhi in 1984.
Her later novellas, "Sita
Haran", "Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Na Kijo", "Housing Society"
and "Chai Ke Bagh", like her longer fiction, are centred around
politics and culture.
(Hyder's short-stories collection
"Patjhar Ki Awaz")
(Qurratulain Hyder's
graveyard in Jamia Nagar, Delhi)
She received
the 1967 Sahitya Akademi Award in Urdu for "Patjhar Ki Awaz" ("The
Sound of Falling Leaves" - Short stories), 1989 Jnanpith Award for "Aakhir-e-Shab ke Hamsafar" and the highest award of the Sahitya Akademi, the "Sahitya
Akademi Fellowship" in 1994. She also received the Padma Bhushan from the
Government of India in 2005 before her death in 2007.
5. B. Jayanta
Mahapatra
Jayanta Mahapatra
(born 22 October 1928) is a major Indian English poet and has authored popular
poems such as "Indian Summer" and "Hunger", which are
regarded as classics in modern Indian English literature. He is the first Indian poet to win Sahitya
Akademi award for English poetry and also the first English poet to be
conferred with "Sahitya Akademi Fellowship". Jayanta Mahapatra was
awarded Padma Shri in 2009. However, he returned the Padma award in 2015 to
protest against the rising intolerance in India.
Born into a prominent
Odia Christian family in Cuttack, Odisha, Mahapatra completed his M. Sc. in
Physics from Patna University, Bihar and began his teaching career as a
lecturer in Physics in 1949. During his professional life, he taught Physics at
various government colleges in Odisha and superannuated at the Ravenshaw
College, Cuttack as the Reader in Physics in 1986. He began his writing career
very late in his forties and has already authored 27 books of poems, of which
seven are in Odia and the rest in English. His poetry volumes include "Relationship",
"Bare Face" (2001) and "Shadow Space" (1992). Besides
poetry, he has experimented widely with myriad forms of prose. His published
books of prose include "Green Gardener", an anthology of short
stories and "Door of Paper: Essay and Memoirs".
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