Pramatha Chaudhuri

Pamathanath Chaudhuri (Bengali: প্রমথনাথ চৌধুরী) (7 August 1868 — 2 September 1946, known as Pramatha Chaudhuri, alias Birbal is an exceptionally illuminating persona in modern Bengali literature. It is astounding how he kept hold of his uniqueness in all-pervasive era of Rabindranath Tagore. As the editor of Sabuj Patra ("Green Leaves",1914) and the mentor of the group that gathered around this journal, Chaudhuri left a lasting legacy to the literature of Bengal.

Profoundly patriotic and a stated cosmopolitan, aficionado of Sanskrit, Pramatha Chaudhuri had immense faith in the native genius of the Bengali. “Today if the traditional high Bengali with its stilted Sanskritic elements makes place, more and more, for a form of spoken Bengali, if ‘current’ Bengali is considered an effective medium of literature of Bengal (including the part that is now Bangladesh)- much of the credit must go to Pramatha Chaudhuri and his magazine Sabuj Patra,” says Arun Kumar Mukhopadhyay. Rabindranath Tagore evoked, “He (Chaudhuri) gave this magazine (Sabuj Patra) its distinctive character and paved the way for my literary activities to brunch out in new directions.”

Pramatha Chaudhuri was not only a pioneer; he was also a creative author of exceptional abilities in writing essays and fiction in specific. According to Arun Kumar Mukhopadhyay, “He is undoubtedly one of the most influential makers of the Bengali language and literature in the...
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