Narayan Surve : Narayan Gangaram Surve Marathi poet died today on August 16th, 2010

Narayan Surve or Narayan Gangaram Surve Marathi poet died today on August 16th, 2010 due to old age and after a brief illness. Narayan Gangaram Surve born on October 15, 1926 who was a Marathi poet from Maharashtra, India Orphaned or abandoned soon after birth, he grew up in the streets of Mumbai, sleeping on the pavement and earning a meager livelihood by doing odd jobs. He taught himself to read and write, and in 1966 published his first book of poems Majhe Vidyapeeth (My University). His poems described the world of urban population that lived in a metro like Mumbai, who did whatsoever work they could lay their hands on to eke out a living.

Surve actively worked in the workers’ union movement in Mumbai and supported himself as a schoolteacher. In the 1970s, Narayan Surve was often championed in India as well as in the Soviet Union and some Eastern bloc countries as a proletarian poet.

Narayan Surve received for his poetry Golden Lotus Award, and Kabir Sammanin 1999 from the state government of Madhya Pradesh. He was a Convener of the Marathi Advisory Board of Sahitya Akademi. Narayan Surve presided over Marathi Sahitya Sammelan at Parbhani in 1995. On the Pavemenu of Life ( 1973 ) is a compilation of English translations of Surve’s early poems. Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan said: “We have lost a legendary poet and thinker who represented the commonest of the common man.”

Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal said: “We have lost a great poet and social activist who became the voice of the depressed classes through his poetry.”  Shiv Sena MP Bharat Kumar Raut hailed Surve as a “people’s poet”. “Surve gave words to the pain of people who had no voice,” Raut said.  Union Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde praised Surve’s “unique” style of poetry. “Through his poems he vociferously proclaimed social revolution. He had created a unique style of writing poems, using colloquial language of workers in a prose-like style,” he said.

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