Rebati Mohan Dutta Choudhury

Rebati Mohan Dutta Choudhury (1924-2008) was a noted Assamese litterateur, Sahitya Akademi awardee and an academician basically from Gauripur in Assam. Popularly he is known as "Sheelabhadra", his pen name.

Life, Education and Academic career

Born in 1924 at Gauripur in Dhubri District, Dutta Choudhury pursued his graduation from Carmichael College, Rangpur (now in Bangladesh). He obtained his post-graduation in Pure Mathematics from Calcutta University in 1946. After finishing post-graduation with first class and silver medal, he joined Cotton College, Guwahati as a lecturer in Mathematics. Subsequently, he became a contractor, a sub-editor with the Assam Tribune and assistant manager in a tea estate for some time and finally he restarted his teaching career in the Assam Engineering College, Guwahati in 1957 as a lecturer. And he retired in 1982 as a professor in mathematics. He died on February 29, 2008 at a hospital in Guwahati.

Literary works

Dutta Choudhury started writing at the age of 40 and actually his literary journey begun based on some provocative comments and ridicules that he faced at his early years as a lecturer at the Assam Engineering College for his Bengali pronunciation and later he proved that he was not apart from what is regarded as "Assamese", and virtually he placed Dhubri in the literary map of Assam. Dutta Choudhury’s major literary works are "Madhupur aru Tarangini", "Agomonir Ghat", "Anahatguri", "Abichinna", "Prachir", "Godhuli and Anusandhan" (all novels) and "Baastab", "Beer Sainik", "Samudrateer", "Tarua Kadam", "Pratiksha", "Uttaran", "Mezaz", "Sheelabhadrar Kuria Galpa", "Nirbachita Galpa", "Madhupurar Madhukar", "Anya ek Madhupur", "Uttar Nai", "Dayitya aru Anyanya Galpa", "Biswas aru Anyanya Galpa", "Lagaria" and several other collections of short stories. Many of his literary works have been translated into Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Telugu and Oriya by the National Book Trust, the Sahitya Akademi and the Bharatiya Jnanpith. "Smriticharan" is his autobiography which is full of fascinating aspects of his life.

Awards and Honours

Dutta Choudhury was honoured with the Sahitya Akademi award in 1994 for his short stories "Madhupur Bahudur", the Assam Valley literary award in 2001, the Bharatiya Bhasa Parishad award in 1990 and the Assam Publication Board award in the same year.

References

1. http://www.sahitya-akademi.org/sahitya-akademi/awa10301.htm
2. Master narrator – Personality, The Telegraph, Kolkata, June 30, 2003.
3. The Assam Tribune, Guwahati, March 1, 2008.