Lakshminath Bezbarua

Lakshminath Bezbarua(Assamese:[lɔkʰminatʰbɛzbɔɹuwa]]; 14 October 1864 - March 26,1938) was an Assamese poet, novelist and playwright of modernAssamese literature. Commonly known as  father of AssameseShort story.He was one of the literary stalwarts of theJonaki Era, the age of romanticism inAssamese literaturewith
his essays, plays, fiction, poetry and satires, he gave a new impetus to the then stagnating Assamese literary caravan.
He responded to the prevailing social environment through his satirical works to bring and sustain positive changes to the former. His literature reflected the deeper urges of thepeople of Assam.
There is confusion regarding the date of birth of Bezbaroa and also a story behind it as told by Bezbaroa himself. In the first line of the first paragraph of the first chapter of his auto-biographyMor Jiban Xuworon, Bezbaroa confirms outright his inability to remember his exact date of birth that his parents used to tell him. But later when he grew young and required to put his date of birth for essential records, he invented a date for the purpose viz."1868 AD, November", but was born in 1864. He writes that he would like to offer this piece of information to anyone interested in knowing about his date of birth, although he is unsure whether that information would in any way affect thebalance-sheetof anyone's life. In the next line he explicitly writes that approximately translates into
In the very next paragraph, he went on describing in detail how and why theBundle ofBirth-Charts, kept religiously and secretly away from the kids by his parents, which contained his one he knew for certain during his childhood, was lost.
Bezbaroa has however confirmed in his auto-biography that he was born in the autumn on a full-moon night, on which "Lakhmi Puja" ( A Hindu festival of worship ofGoddess Lakhmi) is celebrated in India, and to mark the coincidence, he was named by his parents as "Lakshminath" ( A name forVishnu, the Hindu God and husband of Goddess Lakhmi). This autumn-festival celebrated in the full-moon ofAshvinusually falls in the month of October in any year. As per a NASA website data, there was only one full-moon day in the month of November 1868 and that was on 30thbut that was not the day of celebration ofLakshmi pujain that year. Presently, theAssam Sahitya Sabhahas settled on a date – 14 October 1864, that was a full-moon night of Lakshmi Puja in India, for his date of birth.
Bezbaroa received his early education Sibsagar Govt. High School at Sibsagar. Thereafter he studied for his F.A. from theCity Collegeand subsequently graduated withB.A.from theGeneral Assembly's InstitutioninCalcutta. Then he took his admission inM.A.andB.L.degrees from theUniversity of Calcutta, but he couldn't complete them both.
Bezbaroa marriedPragyasundari Devi, a niece of the poetRabindranath Tagore. He presided over the All Assam students conference at Guwahati in 1921.
Bezbaroa was honoured by a unique title on 29 December 1931 asRoxorajbyAsam Sahitya Sabhaat its Sibsagar session. In the felicitation letter by Asam Sahitya Sabha, the wordSahityarathiwas used for the first time for Bezbaroa.Roxorajmeaning 'The King of Humour' in Assamese literature for his ever-popular satirical writings under the pen-name "Kripaabor Borbaruah", a pseudo-personality that he created and portrayed as the lead character in such works. He is also known in Assamese literary society as theSahityarathiwhich means "Charioteer of Literature" for his expertise in all branches of literature.
He was the founding president of theAsom Chattra Sanmilan(All-Assam Students' Conference) at Latasil,Guwahatiin 1916.
He presided over the 7th annual session of Asam Sahitya Sabha held at Guwahati in 1924.
He died inDibrugarhon 26 March at the age of seventy four only a few months after he went back to live in Assam permanently. The Asam Sahitya Sabha annually observes this daySahitya Divas.
Pragya Sundari Devi was the second daughter of MaharshiDebendranath Tagore's third sonHemendranath Tagore(1845– 1885). Pragya Sundari was the first to write a cookbook in Bangla named 'Aamish O Niramish Aahar' in three volumes which became immensely popular. She also used to edit a magazine named 'Punya'. Pragya Sundari and Laxminath's granddaughter, Rita Devi is famousOdissidancer.
Bezbaroa started his literary career with a farce, "Litikai" serialised from the first issue of Jonaki magazine. He wrote 8 plays, 4 farces, 3 historical works, 1 act drama, 3 biographies and 2 autobiographies. He also wrote for the children. He collected and compiled folk tales of Assam (Xadhukotha) and added on his own to the basket, quite a few new tales to the benefit of nurturing parents and babysitters. Bezbaroa was the pioneer short story writer in Assam.His short stories covered the different features from the Assamese society but with humorous sentiment. Rasaraj Bezbaroa was earmarked as a patriotic playwright while he composed three historical plays, namely- Chakradhaj Singha, Joymoti Konwori and Belimaar.
O Mur Apunar Dekh, a patriotic song composed by him, is the state anthem of Assam.
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