Kaka Hathrasi

Kaka Hathrasi Biography

Kaka Hathrasi is a noted satirist and humorist poet of Hindi. Kaka Hathrasi is his pen name. His real name was Prabhu Lal Garg. He played a play with his character name, Kakka. This character became so popular that he decided to use it as his pen name. "Hathrasi" is derived from the name of his hometown Hathras. Kaka is also known as a musician, musicologist, actor and a fine painter. He has 42 works in his credit including a vast collection of humorous and satirical poems, playwrights as well as prose work. He has also written three books on Indian classical music under the pen name "Vasant". In 1932 he started a publishing house, Sangeet Karyalaya to publish books based on Indian classical music and dance. Sangeet – a monthly magazine started in 1935 became so popular. He received Padmashree in 1935 from Government of India. ‘Kaka Hathrasi Award’ is being awarded every year by Hindi Academy for writers for their outstanding contributions to literature.

Kaka Hathrasi was born on 18 September 1906 in Hathras, UP. He used his pen to write words against greed, injustice, social, religious and political evils in satire way that every reader wished to read. He has also participated in the longest running radio programme in India, Meethi Meethi Hasaiyan. This entertaining program ran for 786 episodes over an eleven-year period.

In 1932, Hathrasi established Sangeet Karyalaya to revive and breathe new life in Indian classical music that was once easily accessible to rich and royal people only. Hathrasi gathered works of great artists and rulers belonging to different languages and rewrote those classics as well. Through his music magazine ‘Sangeet’ he published intricacies of dhrupad, dhamaar, thumri, and taraanaa and folk and film music as well. Hathrasi died on his birthday, September 18, 1995 at the age of 89. In his memory, September 18 has been declared as “Hasya Divas”. A few of his works include - Kaka Tarang, Mera Jeevan : A-One, Jai Bolo Baiman Ki and Kaka Ki Chaupal.

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Updated: January 27, 2014