Gaura Pant 'Shivani'
गौरा पंत 'शिवानी' |
|---|
Gaura Pant 'Shivani' (1923 –2003) |
| Born | October 17, 1923
Rajkot, Gujarat  India |
|---|
| Died | March 21, 2003 (aged 79)
New Delhi India |
|---|
| Pen name | Shivani |
|---|
| Occupation | novelist |
|---|
| Nationality | IndianGaura Pant 'Shivani' (October 17, 1923– 21 March 2003) (Hindi: गौरा पंत 'शिवानी'), better known as Shivani, was one of the most popular Hindi authors of the 20th century and a pioneer in writing Indian women based fiction. She was awarded the Padma Shri for her contribution toHindi literature in 1982. |
|---|
She achieved a large following in the pre-television times of the 60s and 70s, as her works like her most famous novel, 'Krishnakali', were serialised in Hindi magazines like
Dharmayug and
Saptahik Hindustan, leading to her cult status as a Hindi novelist. Through her writings, she also made the culture of
Kumaon, popular with Hindi-speaking Indians across the country. Her novel 'Kariye Chima' was made into a film, while her other novels including 'Surangma', 'Rativilaap', 'Mera Beta', and 'Teesra Beta' have been turned into Television serials
Upon her death in 2003,
Government of India released in a press note described her contributions to
Hindi literature as, "...in the death of Shivani the Hindi literature world has lost a popular and eminent novelist and the void is difficult to fill".
Gaura Pant 'Shivani' was born on October 17, 1924, the Vijaya Dasami day in Rajkot, Gujarat, where her father, Ashwini Kumar Pande was a teacher with princely state of Rajkot.He was a Kumaoni Brahmin. Her mother was a Sanskrit scholar, and the first student of Lucknow Mahila Vidyalaya. Later her father became the Diwan with the Nawab of Rampur and the member of Viceroy's Bar Council, thereafter the family moved to the princely state of Orchha, where her father held an important position. Thus Shivani's childhood had influences of these varied places, and an insight into high class women, which reflected in much of her work. At Lucknow, she became the first student of the local, 'Lucknow Mahila Vidyalaya'.Biography
As she grew older, she along with her brother and a sister, went to live with her grandfather, a Sanskrit scholar and a founding member of
Banaras Hindu University.
In 1935, Shivani's first story was published in the Hindi Children's magazine 'Natkhat', at age twelve. That was also when, the three siblings were sent to the study at
Rabindranath Tagore's
Visva-Bharati University at
Shantiniketan. Rabindranath Tagore even visited their ancestral home in
Almora several times.
Shivani remained at Shantiniketan for another 9 years, left as a graduate in 1943. It was this period that she took to writing whole-heartedly and had the most profound influence in her writing sensibilities, a period she recounts vividly in her book, 'Amader Shantiniketan'.
In 1951, her short story, 'Main Murga Hun' (I am a Chicken) was published in Dharmayug, and she became Shivani, from Gaura Pant.
Her first novel, Lal Haveli, established her reputation in the early sixties, and in the next ten years she produced several major works which were serialized in the Hindi magazine, Dharmayug. Proficient in many other languages including
Sanskrit,
Gujarati,
Bengali,
Urdu, and
English, Shivani received the
Padma Shri for her contribution to Hindi literature in 1982.
She was a prolific writer, her oeuvre consists of over 40 novels, many short stories and hundreds of articles and essays. Her most famous works include Chaudah Phere, Krishnakali, Lal Haveli, Smashan Champa, Bharavi, Rati Vilap, Vishkanya, Apradhini (a collection of interviews with women lifers); travelogues: 'Yatriki', based on her London travels and 'Chareivati', based on her travels to Russia.
Towards the end of her life, Shivani took to autobiographical writings, first sighted in her book, 'Shivani ki Sresth Kahaniyan', followed by her two-part memoir, ‘Smriti Kalash’ and ‘Sone De’, whose title she borrowed from the epitaph of a 15th Century Urdu Poet:
Thak Gaya Hoon Neend Aa Rahi Hai Sone De
Bahut Hein Zindagi Mene Diya Hai Saath Tere
(I am tired, sleep overtakes me, let me rest
I have been long enough with you in the journey of life)
Shivani continued to write till her last days, and died on 21 March 2003 in New Delhi.
In 2005, Her daughter, Hindi writer, Ira Pande, published a memoir based on Shivani's life, titled 'Diddi' My Mother's Voice. 'Diddi' in Kumaoni means elder sister, and that's what her children used to address her, as she really was a friend to them.
Thematic style
"Shivani's fiction proclaims a quiet, warm humanism. Characters who might seem pale and uninteresting in real life– an undistinguished, very orthodox Brahmin priest in a village up in the foothills of the Himalayas, his traditional wife, the village idiot, the widowed mother– take on a human glow and their lives an unexpected resonance. It is the small events, little gestures, nondescript people, that suffuse the world of Shivani's fiction with hope, and the future is something one enters with courage. Shivani's feminism is like a gentle humanism that does not stop short when it meets the female. Within the world-view of her fiction, there are few contradictions or problems that cannot be transcended with a little sympathy and a belief in the goodness of humankind."
- 'Women Writing in India', Vol II, by Susie Tharu & K. Lalitha.
Family
Shivani was married to 'Shuk Deo Pant' (S. D. Pant), a teacher who worked in the Education Department of
Uttar Pradesh, this lead to the family travelling to various places including
Allahabad,
Nainital (1958-1964 and 1966-1968) Priory Lodge at
Nainital, where Shivani stayed, 1958-1964 and 1966-1968), before settling in
Lucknow, where she stayed till her last days. She had four children, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Unforturnately her husband died at an early age, leaving her to take care of the four children, but a defiant Shivani chose to stay by her self, and raised them to be successful in their own right. Her two daughters,
Mrinal Pande, Ira Pande are established writers in themselves. Her other two children are Veena Joshi, and Muktesh (Micky) Pant, who now lives in Dallas, Texas.
_.jpg)