Rajshekhar Basu

Rajshekhar Basu Biography

Rajshekhar Basu was a famous Bengali writer who wrote with the penname Parashuram. He was quite popular for his satire short stories and widely regarded as one of the great humorists of Bengali literature in the pre-independent period. A man of diverse achievements Basu was also known as a chemist and lexicographer. His first book of stories, Gaddalika, was published in 1924. It was well praised by great personalities like Tagore. It was Basu’s first efforts to reform and rationalize Bengali orthography. He played a major role in the history of printing in Bengal. For his efforts Indian government honoured him with Padma Bhushan in 1956.

He was born on 16 March 1880 at his maternal uncle's home at Bamunpara in Bardhaman district of West Bengal. Chandrasekhar and Lakshmimani Devi were his parents. He had 5 siblings of whom his younger brother Girindrasekhar Bose was an early 20th-century South Asian psychoanalyst, and the first president of the Indian Psychoanalytic Society. His childhood days were spent at Darbhanga, Bihar where he learnt Hindi. Since childhood days he was interested in science and set up a chemical laboratory at his home. But during his F.A studies he got interested in literature. He completed both his graduation and PG in Chemistry and joined Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy’s newly set Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals in 1903 as a chemist. He retired in 1932 after a long association of about three decades.

Though he was interested in Chemistry, he was equally drawn towards literal world as well. Using the penname Parashuram, he started writing humour columns for journals in the early 1920s. He published Gaddalika – his first book in 1924. His work Krishnakali ityadi golpo won the Rabindra Puraskar in 1955. He was honoured with a D.Litt by Jadavpur University in 1957.

Published: N/A

Updated: April 03, 2016