Arun Sarma (3 November 1931 – 27 March 2017) was a writer of

Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

. Arun Sarma was one of Assam's contemporary playwrights and is particularly known for his unconventional plays with some elements of drama. Besides drama, he also authored over six novels detailing the Assamese way of life.The Assam Tribune, 26 January 2010 He was awarded the

Padma Shri The Padma Shri (IAST: ''padma śrī'', lit. 'Lotus Honour'), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest Indian honours system, civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. In ...

in 2010 in recognition of his contributions to

Assamese literature Assamese literature is the entire corpus of poetry, novels, short stories, plays, documents and other writings in the Assamese language. It also includes the literary works in the older forms of the language during its evolution to the contempor ...

. He has also been awarded the

Sahitya Akademi Award The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...

in 1998 for the novel ''Ashirbadar Rong'' (The Hues of Blessing). He has won the Asam Sahitya Sabha's Best Playwright Award for two consecutive years and also has the rare distinction of having won the

Sangeet Natak Akademi Sangeet Natak Akademi (The National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama in English language, English) is the national level academy for performing arts set up by the Government of India. It is an autonomous body of the Ministry of Culture (India) ...

award in 2003 for his contributions to drama and the Sahitya Akademi award in 1998 for literature. He was also the recipient of the

Assam Valley Literary Award The Assam Valley Literary Award () was conceived in the year 1990 by ''Williamson Magor Education Trust'' to honour creative writers who have enhanced Assamese literature. It is given to writers of Assam once a year. The award was instituted b ...

in 2005.

Early life

Arun Sarma was born in

Dibrugarh Dibrugarh () is a city in the Indian state of Assam, located 435 kms east of the state capital Dispur. It serves as the headquarters of the Dibrugarh district in Upper Assam. Dibrugarh also serves as the headquarters of the Sonowal Kach ...

where his father Tilak Chandra Sarma was the editor of ''The Times of Assam''. In 1935, the family migrated to the village of Halemguri near the tea hamlet of Halem, where the elder Sarma, inspired by Gandhian ideals, decided to take up farming and engage himself in social work. The young Arun did his schooling in Tezpur High School and completed his matriculation in 1948. Sarma completed his B.A.(Hons in Education) in 1954 from Cotton College, Guwahati. He began writing drama and poetry during this period.Sharma, Arun : (2006) ''Collected Plays of Arun Sarma'', Banalata, Dibrugarh.

Career

Sarma started his career in Guwahati in the editorial staff of ''

The Assam Tribune ''The Assam Tribune'' is an Indian English daily newspaper published from Guwahati and Dibrugarh, Assam. With over 700,000 copies of current circulation and a readership of over 3 million, it is the highest circulated English daily in northeaste ...

'' in 1954. In 1955, he moved to his native village in Halem and joined as an Assistant Headmaster in Madhya Chaiduar High School popularly known as MCD High School established in the year 1948 (Now MCD Higher Secondary School) at Barangabari. In 1960, he came back to Guwahati to join All India Radio. From then till 1986, Sarma was associated with the Guwahati Station of All India Radio, working first as a producer and later as a senior producer. He headed the Educational Broadcasting Section, and did pioneering work in using radio as a potent medium for supplementing classroom education. He had a six-month training stint on Radio Programme Production in BBC, London, in 1969. Through the 1970s and 1980s, Sarma was instrumental in shaping the Drama section of the Guwahati Station. During this period he wrote and directed 47 plays and a good number of radio documentaries for the Station as well as for All India Radio's national programme and received three international best awards for his documentaries. He served as Station Director of the Dibrugarh Station of the All India Radio (1986–89) and retired from government service as Director, AIR, North East Service from Shillong in 1990. Post retirement, he became the founder editor (1990–92) of the weekly Assamese newspaper ''Purbachal'', and served from 1992 to 1997 as the Director of the Tea Centre of the Indian Tea Association. This was a period of strife in Assam and Sarma was called in to design and execute a set of projects to bridge the local tea industry and the Assamese people. In 2005, Sarma designed, scripted and executed a ''son-et-lumiere'' (sound-and-light show) describing the history of Assam which is played daily at the Sankardeva Kalakshetra in Guwahati every evening.

Personal life

In 1959, Sarma married Arati, granddaughter of Assamese Freedom Fighter, Karmaveer Chandranath Sarma. They have two children – Nandinee and Ochintya. He died on 27 March 2017 at the

Medanta Global Health Limited, d/b/a Medanta, is an Indian for-profit private hospital network based in Gurgaon. The chain was started in 2009 by cardiac surgeon Naresh Trehan and Sunil Sachdeva. History In 2004, cardiac surgeon Naresh Trehan bega ...

medical institute.

Awards

For literature * Asam Sahitya Sabha (Drama) Award – 1967 * Asom Natya Sanmilan Award – 2001 *

– 1998 for the Novel 'Aashirbador Rong' (translated into English titled as 'On a Wing and a Prayer') *

Award – 2003 * Assam Valley Literary Award – 2005 *

– 2010 * Sankaracharyya Avatar Award Literature – 2010 For radio broadcasting * Japan Prize (1980) International for the radio documentary "All Buds to bloom". * ABU (Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union) Award (1982) for the radio documentary "Caution : Danger Ahead". * Prix Futura Berlin Commendation certificate (1983) for the radio documentary "All Lips to Smile". * Akashvani Award (Second best radio play in India) for the play titled "Kukurnechia Manuh".

Works

Plays

* ''Urukha Paja'' (The Leaky Hut): 1954 * ''Jinti'': 1955 * ''Sthawor'': 1956 * ''Sri Nibaran Bhattacharyya'': 1964 * ''Parashuram'': 1962 * ''Purush! (The Man)'': 1965 * ''Kukurnechia Manuh (The Wolf Man)'': 1968 * ''Ahar (Food)'': 1970 * ''Chinyor (The Scream)'': 1972 * ''Buranji Path (The History Lesson)'': 1978 * ''Padma, Kunti Ityadi (Padma, Kunti, et al.)'': 1976 * ''Anya Ek Adhyay (Yet Another Chapter)'': 1994 * ''Poster '': 1982 * ''Agnigarh (The Fortress of Fire)'': 1996 * ''Napoleon Aru Deserie'': 1985 * ''Baghjaal (The Tiger Trap)'': 1983 * ''Chakrabyuha (The Labyrinth)'': 2003 * ''Aditir Atma Katha (Aditi's Autobiography)'': 2000 * ''Chitralekha'': 2006 * ''Robes of Destiny (A Trilogy in English and some more plays)'': 2014 * ''Anupam Andhar (Dark is Beautiful)'': 2013 * ''Arun Sarma Nirbachito Natok (Collected Plays of Arun Sarma)'': 2014

Novels

* ''Ubhala Shipa (The Root Upturned: Also known as Nixi Ujagor'': 1979 * ''Niriha Ashroy (Innocent Shelter)'' * ''Aashirbador Rong (The Hues of Blessings), translated into English titled as 'On a Wing and a Prayer: 1996 * ''Sankalpa (The Pledge)'': 2008 * ''Baghjaal (The Tiger Trap - a short novel)'': 2014 * ''Nepothyo Chandranath'': 2014

Poems

* ''Arun Sarmar Kabyanurag'' : 2012

Essays

* ''Arun Sarmar Natyoproxongo aaru Ononnyo Rosona (Theatre Critiques and other Essays)'' : 2012

References

External links

Arun Sarma, The Pride of Assam

Padma Awards 2010 Press Information Bureau
*
The Telegraph profile, 5 January 2004 The Assam Tribune, 26 January 2010
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarma, Arun 1931 births 2017 deaths People from Dibrugarh district Indian male novelists Novelists from Assam Assamese-language dramatists and playwrights Recipients of the Assam Valley Literary Award Indian male dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Indian novelists 20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights Dramatists and playwrights from Assam 20th-century Indian male writers Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in Assamese Recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award Recipients of the Padma Shri in literature and education