Rajendra Shah

Rajendra Shah Biography

Rajendra Shah was a lyrical poet from Gujarat who wrote in Gujarati. He has written more than 20 collections of poems and songs which included beauty of nature as the main theme. They also included social life and fisher folk communities. Love, god, death, modern civilization, myths, politics and the simple beauty of rural life were beautifully sketched through his poems. He launched the poetry magazine Kavilok in 1957. He translated Tagore’s collection of poems to Gujarati titled ‘Balaaka’. He has also translated Jayadeva's Gita Govinda, Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Dante's The Divine Comedy. He was a teacher by profession. He was the third Gujarati to win Jnanpith award and he won it in the year 2001 for his contributions to Gujarati literature. Uma Shankar Joshi and Pannalal Patel were the other two recipients. He won the awards at the age of 90, one of the oldest writers to win this award at the age of 90+.

Rajendra Shah was born on 28 January 1913 in Kheda of Britsih India. He did his Bachelors in philosophy from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. Later he started his teaching career from Ahmedabad. Shah's first poem was published in 1933, in The Wilsonian, his college magazine. His first collection of poems, Dhvani, with 21 poems was published 18 years later. He has 21 collections of poems to his credit. Most noted ones are Dhvani (1951), Andolan (1952), Shruti (1957), Morpinchh (1959), Shat Kohalal (1962), Chitrana (1967), Kshan je Chirantan (1968), Vishdne Sad (1968), Madhyama (1978), Udgiti (1979), Ikshana (1979), Patralekha (1981), Prasana Saptak (1982), Panch Parva (1983), Vibhavan (1983), Dwasupama (1983), Chandan Bhini and Anamik (1987) and Aranyak (1992).

Important awards and honours achieved by him are Kumar Chandrak in 1947, Ranjitram Suvarna Chandrak in 1956, Sahitya Akademi Award in the year 1963 for Shant Kolahal, Aurobindo Suvarna Chandrak by Gujarati Sahitya Parishad in 1980, Narasinh Mehta award in 1994 and Jnanpith in the year 2001. He is considered as one of the giants of Gujarati poetry post Gandhi era. Many of his works have been inspired from Tagore’s Sanskrit metrics. He died on January 2, 2010 aged 96.

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Updated: November 20, 2013