Indira Sant

Indira Sant Biography

Indira Sant was a popular Marathi poet and Literary of Belgaum. She was born as Indira Dikshit in the small town of Belgaum, Karnataka in 1914. Her collections of Poems include - Shele (1951), Mendi (1955), Mrugajal (1957), Ranga Bawari (1964), ”Bahulya (1972), Garbhareshami (1982), Malan Gatha, Wamsh Kusum , Marawa, Nirakar and Ghungurwala. Mrudgandha published in 1986 is a collection of her semi-autobiographical articles. In 1982 Ramesh Tendulkar published a compilation work of her selected poetry titled - Mrunmayi. In 1984 her collection of poems Garbhareshami received Sahitya academy award. Anant Kanekar Award, Sahitya Kala Academy Award, Maharashtra State Award and Janasthan Award are other major awards received by her. She passed away in year 2000.

Indira was born on January 4, 1914 in Karnataka. She studied at Rajaram College in Kolhapur, and Fergusson College in Pune. It was during her studies in Pune that she met her future husband, Narayan Sant. The couple published their collection of poems as a single book titled Sahawas. Narayan Sant met a premature death in 1946 and heartbroken Indira expressed her love and longings through her poetry later. Through her works she also showed new dimensions of a woman’s soul and she also expressed the pain of loss of her husband through her poetic works.  In some works, she also described nature’s beauty to perfection.

India published 25 books in total and worked as a teacher throughout her life. She had three children of whom Prakash is a writer. She is the sister-in-law of acclaimed Marathi writer, N. S. Phadke. Nissim Ezekiel translated her selected poems to English and published it titled, "Snake-skin and other poems of Indira Sant" in 1975.

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Updated: June 19, 2014