Chandravadan Mehta

Chandravadan Mehta Biography

Chandravadan Mehta was a prolific writer of Gujarati language who authored the famous Guajarati play, Aag Garhi, which is marked as an outstanding contribution to and a revolutionary arise of Gujarati amateur theater. He is best known for plays apart from works for children and teens. His quotes are very popular. A versatile writer, he published books on plays, poetry, critic, travelogue and biographies. He has authored 25 plays including radio plays and one-act plays. His proses are also equally popular till now. Indian government honoured him with Padma Shri, for his contributions to Gujarati literature.

In 1970, he translated his celebrated work Aag Garhi to English. In 1971, he won both Gujarati Sahitya Academy Award (for the travelogue Natya Gathariyan) and Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Playwriting in Gujarati. He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship in 1984. He also received ‘Kumar Chandrak’ award for his outstanding contributions to Guajarati literature apart from Narmad and Ranjitram Gold Medal. Raghuveer Chaudhari has authored a play based on his life titled - Trijo Purush. Mehta was born on April 6, 1901 in Surat, Gujarat of British India. His primary education was completed in Vadodara and secondary education in Surat.

There were many admirers of his prose works. He has thrilled prose readers by many of his Gathariyans. He was not one who fit into contemplative proses like Govardhanram, Manilal Dwivedi, Anand Shankar and Gandhi. But he belonged to the group of writers who gave importance of ‘Style’ – like Narmad, Munshi, Nhanalal, Meghani etc. His plays were meant for theatre and they have been successfully staged and performed. He had a flavour of mimicry and also had an insight of theatric art. He wrote as per theatre necessities which made his plays successful. He passed away in 1992, aged 91.

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Updated: January 19, 2016