Rebati Mohan Dutta Choudhury (1924–2008) was a noted

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

ese

litterateur An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or as ...

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 ...

winner and an

academician An academician is a full member of an artistic, literary, engineering, or scientific academy. In many countries, it is an honorific title used to denote a full member of an academy that has a strong influence on national scientific life. In syst ...

from Gauripur in

, India. Popularly he is known as ''Sheelabhadra'', his

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

Early life and education

Born in 1924 at Gauripur in

Dhubri District Dhubri District (Pron:ˈdʊbri) is an administrative district in the Indian state of Assam. The district headquarters are located at Dhubri town which is situated at ~290 km from Guwahati. This was also the headquarters of erstwhile undivid ...

, Dutta Choudhury pursued his graduation from

Carmichael College Carmichael College is an educational institution in Rangpur, Bangladesh. It was established on 10 November 1916 and was named after Thomas David Baron Carmichael of Skirling. The college is situated in Lalbag, to the south from zero point of ...

, Rangpur (now in

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

). He obtained his post-graduation in

Pure Mathematics Pure mathematics is the study of mathematical concepts independently of any application outside mathematics. These concepts may originate in real-world concerns, and the results obtained may later turn out to be useful for practical applications, ...

from

Calcutta University The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a public collegiate state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered one of best state research university all over India every year, C ...

in 1946, with a first class and silver medal.

Career

After his post-graduated studies, he joined

Cotton College Cotton College was a Roman Catholic boarding school in Cotton, Staffordshire, United Kingdom. It was also known as ''Saint Wilfrid's College''. The school buildings were centred on Cotton Hall, a country house used by religious communities fro ...

Guwahati Guwahati (, ; formerly rendered Gauhati, ) is the biggest city of the Indian state of Assam and also the largest metropolis in northeastern India. Dispur, the capital of Assam, is in the circuit city region located within Guwahati and is the ...

as a

lecturer Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...

Mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

. Subsequently, he became a contractor, a

sub-editor Copy editing (also known as copyediting and manuscript editing) is the process of revising written material ( copy) to improve readability and fitness, as well as ensuring that text is free of grammatical and factual errors. ''The Chicago Manual o ...

with 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 ...

and assistant

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

in a

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of ''Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and north ...

estate for some time and finally he restarted his teaching career in the

Assam Engineering College Assam Engineering College ( Assamese: অসম অভিযান্ত্ৰিক মহাবিদ্যালয়), established in 1955, is located in Guwahati. It is the first engineering college of Assam and is affiliated to Assam S ...

in 1957 as a

. And he retired in 1982 as a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

. He died on 29 February 2008 at a hospital in

Literary works

Dutta Choudhury's major literary works are ''Madhupur aru Tarangini'', ''Agomonir Ghat'', ''Anahatguri'', ''Abichinna'', ''Prachir'', ''Godhuli and Anusandhan'' (all

novels A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself ...

) and ''Baastab'', ''Beer Sainik'', ''Samudrateer'', ''Tarua Kadam'', ''Pratiksha'', ''Uttaran'', ''Mezaz'', ''Sheelabhadrar Kuria Galpa'', ''Nirbachita Galpa'', ''Madhupurar Madhukar'', ''Anya ek Madhupur'', ''Uttar Nai'', ''Dayitya aru Anyanya Galpa'', ''Biswas aru Anyanya Galpa'', ''Lagaria'' and several other collections of

short stories A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...

. Many of his literary works have been translated into

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

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 ...

, Punjabi,

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

and Oriya by the

National Book Trust National Book Trust (NBT) is an Indian publishing house, which was founded in 1957 as an autonomous body under the Ministry of Education of the Government of India. The activities of the Trust include publishing, promotion of books and reading, ...

, the

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 ...

and the

Bharatiya Jnanpith Bharatiya Jnanpith a literary and research organization, based in New Delhi, India, was founded on February 18, 1944Encyclopaedia of Indian literature vol. 1, p. 298 1987, Sahitya Akademi, by Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain of the Sahu Jain family and ...

. ''Smriticharan'' is his

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

Novels

Short story collections

Autobiography

Awards and honours

Dutta Choudhury was honoured with the 1994

in Assamese for his

collection, ''Madhupur Bahudur'',''enotes.com'' List of Sahitya Akademi Award winners
/ref> the

Assam Valley Literary Award The Assam Valley Literary Award ( as, অসম উপত্যকা সাহিত্য বঁটা) was conceived in the year 1990 by ''Williamson Magor Education Trust'' to honour creative writers who have enhanced Assamese literature. It ...

in 2001, the Bharatiya Bhasa Parishad award in 1990 and the Assam Publication Board

award An award, sometimes called a distinction, is something given to a recipient as a token of recognition of excellence in a certain field. When the token is a medal, ribbon or other item designed for wearing, it is known as a decoration. An awar ...

in the same year.

References

External links

Rebati Mohan Dutta Choudhury Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Choudhury, Rebati Mohan Dutta People from Dhubri district 1924 births 2008 deaths Novelists from Assam Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in Assamese Scholars from Assam Indian newspaper editors University of Calcutta alumni Indian male novelists Indian male short story writers Recipients of the Assam Valley Literary Award 20th-century Indian novelists 20th-century Indian short story writers Journalists from Assam 20th-century Indian male writers Carmichael College alumni