Binod Bihari Verma (1937–2003) was a Maithili writer and military doctor. He is known for ''

Maithili Karna Kayasthak Panjik Sarvekshan ''Maithil Karna Kayasthak Panjik Sarvekshan'' (''A Survey of the Panji of the Karan Kayasthas of Mithila'') is a book written by Binod Bihari Verma in Maithili language, Maithili. It is a research study on the available ancient manuscripts in t ...

'', his work on ancient genealogical charts known as

Panjis Panjis or Panji Prabandh are extensive genealogical records maintained among the Maithil Kayasthas and Maithil Brahmins of the Mithila (region), Mithila region similar to the Hindu genealogy registers at Haridwar. Utility The Panjis have enormous v ...

, as well as his depiction of rural poor of the

Mithila Mithila may refer to: Places * Mithilā, a synonym for the ancient Videha state ** Mithilā (ancient city), the ancient capital city of Videha * Mithila (region), a cultural region (historical and contemporary), now divided between India and Nepal ...

region. He worked as a medical officer in the Indian Army, as a lecturer in a Dental College, and as a private medical practitioner. He simultaneously carried on his literary career via independent publishing and in the magazines ''Mithila Mihir'' and ''Karnamrit''.

Early life and education

Binod Bihari Vema was born in Baur,

Darbhanga district Darbhanga district is one of the thirty-eight districts of Bihar state in eastern India, and Darbhanga city is the administrative headquarters of this district and 5th largest city of Bihar as well. Darbhanga district is a part of Darbhanga D ...

, Bihar on 3 December 1937 to Rameshwar Lal Das and Yogmaya Devi. Verma attended primary school in the village of Rasiyari. He travelled with his father and uncle as they campaigned in favour of

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

's ideas in the remote tribal areas of

Chaibasa Chaibasa is a town and a municipality in West Singhbhum district in the state of Jharkhand, India. Chaibasa is the district headquarters of West Singhbhum district. It is also the headquarter of Singhbhum Kolhan division headed by the Divisiona ...

Ranchi Ranchi (, ) is the capital of the Indian state of Jharkhand. Ranchi was the centre of the Jharkhand movement, which called for a separate state for the tribal regions of South Bihar, northern Odisha, western West Bengal and the eastern area ...

, and

Singhbhum Singhbhum was a district of India during the British Raj, part of the Chota Nagpur Division of the Bengal Presidency. It was located in the present-day Indian state of Jharkhand. Chaibasa was the district headquarters. Located in the southern l ...

in South Bihar. Verma's education continued at the District School in Chaibasa, the missionary school of St. John's at Ranchi, and at

Langat Singh College Langat Singh College, commonly known as L. S. College, is a college in Muzaffarpur, in the Indian state of Bihar. It was established on 3 July 1899, and is one of the city's oldest colleges. It is named after its founder Langat Singh. It is affi ...

Muzaffarpur Muzaffarpur () is a city located in Muzaffarpur district in the Tirhut region of the Indian state of Bihar. It serves as the headquarters of the Tirhut division, the Muzaffarpur district and the Muzaffarpur Railway District. It is the fourth m ...

. He subsequently attended the Darbhanga Medical College, graduating in 1962.

Military service

In 1962, during the

Sino-Indian War The Sino-Indian War took place between China and India from October to November 1962, as a major flare-up of the Sino-Indian border dispute. There had been a series of violent border skirmishes between the two countries after the 1959 Tib ...

, Verma joined the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...

. He was commissioned into the Army Medical Corps in 1963 and served in areas including

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...

, Sikkim,

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

, Assam and

Goa Goa () is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is located between the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to the ...

. Verma fought in the

Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 or the Second Kashmir War was a culmination of skirmishes that took place between April 1965 and September 1965 between Pakistan and India. The conflict began following Pakistan's Operation Gibraltar, which was d ...

, and in 1984 took a permanent commission in the army. He was involved in

Operation Bluestar Operation Blue Star was the codename of a military operation which was carried out by Indian security forces between 1 and 10 June 1984 in order to remove Damdami Taksal leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers from the buildings ...

in 1984 and the

IPKF Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was the Indian military contingent performing a peacekeeping operation in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1990. It was formed under the mandate of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan Accord that aimed to end the Sri Lankan ...

operations in

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

in 1988–1990, where he commanded the 404 Field Ambulance at

Vavuniya Vavuniya (, romanized: ''Vavuṉiyā'', , romanized: ''Vavuniyāva''). Vavuniya City is the capital of Vavuniya District in the Northern Province, Sri Lanka, Northern Province of Sri Lanka and the largest city in the Northern Province. The municip ...

. He took early retirement from active army service in 1990.

Later life and death

After his retirement, Verma settled in

Bhubaneswar Bhubaneswar (; ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Odisha. The region, especially the old town, was historically often depicted as ''Ekamra Kshetra'' (area (''kshetra'') adorned with mango trees (''ekamra'')). Bhubaneswar is ...

, Orissa, where he started a clinical practice. During this period that he regularly published novels, biographies, and contributions to Maithili magazines, as well as teaching

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

in a

dental college A dental school (school of dental medicine, school of dentistry, dental college) is a tertiary educational institution—or part of such an institution—that teaches dental medicine to prospective dentists and potentially other dental auxiliari ...

in Bhubaneswar. In 1999 he was diagnosed as suffering from

prostate cancer Prostate cancer is cancer of the prostate. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancerous tumor worldwide and is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related mortality among men. The prostate is a gland in the male reproductive system that sur ...

. He died on 9 November 2003 in

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

Personal life

Verma married Pratibha Verma on 4 July 1965. The couple had three daughters and two sons. Verma was able to speak a number of languages including

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

Odia Odia, also spelled Oriya or Odiya, may refer to: * Odia people in Odisha, India * Odia language, an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family * Odia alphabet, a writing system used for the Odia languag ...

, Assamese and

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

, and knew the

scripts Script may refer to: Writing systems * Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire * Script (styles of handwriting) ** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of handw ...

of various Indian languages, such as old Maithili, Assamese,

Gurmukhi Gurmukhī ( pa, ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ, , Shahmukhi: ) is an abugida developed from the Laṇḍā scripts, standardized and used by the second Sikh guru, Guru Angad (1504–1552). It is used by Punjabi Sikhs to write the language, commonly r ...

and Nepali.

Writing

Verma began writing autobiographical and observational stories and poems while at school. He also wrote patriotic and motivational poems, published in various school magazines and occasionally in ''Mithila Mihir'', a magazine whose audience was the

Kayastha Kayastha (also referred to as Kayasth) denotes a cluster of disparate Indian communities broadly categorised by the regions of the Indian subcontinent in which they were traditionally locatedthe Chitraguptavanshi Kayasthas of North India, the C ...

community. He began contributing regularly to various other Maithili magazines. His depictions of rural life were published as a short story collection entitled '' Balanak Bonihar O Pallavi''. He also wrote a

social novel The social novel, also known as the social problem (or social protest) novel, is a "work of fiction in which a prevailing social problem, such as gender, race, or class prejudice, is dramatized through its effect on the characters of a novel". More ...

, ''Nayanmani'', which was initially published in serial format in ''Mithila Mihir''. Pen names used by Verma included

Vinod Vinod ( hi, विनोद , mr, विनोद , gu, વિનોદ) is a male given name used in India and Nepal, meaning "delight", "enjoyment", or "pleasure". People *Vinod Agarwal, Indian-American businessman and scientist * Vinod Agg ...

and Vinod Gopal. In 1973, he published his magnum opus, ''Maithili Karna Kayasthak Panjik Sarvekshan'', the result of months of extensive research on the fast disappearing ancient genealogical charts. The book is now the only surviving record of certain groups of

which have now disappeared. ''Maithili Karna Kayasthak Panjik Sarvekshan'' was followed by a long writing hiatus, until after his retirement from the Army. He published his previous works as collections. He also started contributing frequently to ''Karnamrit'', a new Maithili magazine, writing articles on folks songs of Mithila, the life and contribution of

George Abraham Grierson Sir George Abraham Grierson (7 January 1851 – 9 March 1941) was an Irish administrator and linguist in British India. He worked in the Indian Civil Service but an interest in philology and linguistics led him to pursue studies in the languag ...

, the biography of Radha Krishna Choudhary, and the literary history of Maithili.

Selected works

*''

'' – a survey of the

of the Karan Kayasthas of Mithila. 1973, Madhubani. *''Nayanmani'', a novel describing the rural scene in Post Independence

bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...

.Initially published in parts in "Mithila Mihir" from February 1968 to April 1968. 1997, Bhubaneswar. *'' Balanak Bonihar O Pallavi'' – a short story collection on the village life of Mithila on the banks of the

Kosi River The Kosi or Koshi ( ne, कोशी, , hi, कोसी, ) is a transboundary river which flows through China, Nepal and India. It drains the northern slopes of the Himalayas in Tibet and the southern slopes in Nepal. From a major confluence o ...

and its tributaries. 1994. Bhubaneswar.Loc.gov
/ref> *'' Tapasa vai Ganga'' – biography of Radha Krishna Choudhary. 1995,

. *''Adim Purkha'' – translation of Sahitya Akademi award-winning Oriya novelist

Gopinath Mohanty Gopinath Mohanty (1914–1991), winner of the Jnanpith award, and the first winner of the National Sahitya Akademi Award in 1955 – for his novel, ''Amrutara Santana'' – was a prolific Odia writer of the mid-twentieth century. Satya Pra ...

's work "Dadi Burha". 2001,

Sahitya Akademi The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of, the Indian government. Its of ...

, New Delhi. *''Vedmurti Taponishth SriRam Sharma Acharya'' – biography of

Shriram Sharma Acharya Ram Sharma (1837–1918) was a nineteenth-century Indo-Anglian poet who alternately criticized and praised the government in his poems and newspaper articles. He began his literary career in the 1860s but pursued steady writing only after his ...

. 2005,

References

External links

Maithili Language:An Introduction
{{DEFAULTSORT:Verma, Binod Bihari 1937 births 2003 deaths Indian male novelists Indian book publishers (people) Novelists from Bihar 20th-century Indian novelists People from Darbhanga district 20th-century Indian male writers