Famous Indian writers and poets

Famous Indian writers and poets

Andal

A Tamil poet-saint, she refused to marry saying that it was Lord Ranganath inspiring and beautiful poetry. She was also known as Godadevi. She was the only female Alvar (devotee of Lord Vishnu). Andal is an important female figure in South India and she has inspired women’s groups such as in Goda Mandal.

 

Meera Bhai

She was born in 1498. She was devoted to Lord Krishna even as a young girl. Although married to a Rajput prince,  she had no interest in palace life and spent her time composing poems to her Lord and worshiping him. Her poems explore themes of divinity, spirituality, and love. She had a profound impact on the tone of literature for centuries to come. There are originally no manuscripts of her work, although many records indicate that she was an influential figure in poetic traditions.

 

Amrita

 

She is a Punjabi poet and writer. She also won an award in Punjabi as a poet and as a writer. She published her first work at the age of 16.  Since then she has written many stories, poems, and novels.

 

Thakazi Sivasankara Pillai

He is a Malayalam writer. He writes stories based on the lives of peasants and the have-nots. He was awarded the Jhanpeeth award. Two of his famous works are Chemeen and Kayak.

 

Mirza Ghalib

(27th December 1797 15th February 1869) – Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, better known as Ghalib, is an Urdu and Persian poet who remained a great poet in many countries, especially in India and Pakistan. He was born in an aristocratic Muslim family in Agra. He was orphaned at the age of 5 years. He started to write at the age of 11. He spent his whole life writing poetry for patrons at the Mughal court. Ghazal is a literary poem, with a number of poems and repeated rhymes, usually set on the subject of love, and music in general. Although Ghalib has written in many styles, he is best known for his ghazals and is widely regarded as the greatest and the most influential poet of Urdu and Persian ghazals. His poetry is known for the intensity of the emotions it expresses, its full form, and the deeper thoughts it conveys. Although not well-known in his lifetime and not as critically acclaimed as some of the poets on this list, Mirza Ghalib is perhaps the most famous Indian poet.

Kalidas (4th – 5th century)

Kalidas was initially a common and unlearned person. When a very intelligent princess defeated the most learned men in the kingdom. Then the nobles decided to fool her by putting Kalidas in front of her and said Kalidas to be silent and to explain his answers. The princess was fooled and married but soon she realized he was a great fool. She threw him out of the palace. Then Kalidas visited a Hindu goddess Kali temple, was blessed with knowledge. The meaning of his name was “the one who serves Kali”. Kalidas is known as the greatest Indian writer of all time. The best writing of Kalidas is his play Shakuntala. His two impressive poems are Raghuvamsha and Kumarasambhavam. He has a great impact on Indian literature. Even Rabindranath Tagore was influenced by his works.

 

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Tulsidas (1532 – 1623)

His parents left him and he was brought up by a monk Narharidas who named him Tulsidas. He is a great poet. He wrote six major works and six minor works. He wrote Ramcharitmanas so that even a non-Sanskrit speaker can also read and know the story of Lord Rama. Tulsidas is one of the greatest poets in Hindi as well as world literature.

 

Kabir (15th century)

Kabir was a saint who was respected by Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs. He was a great man in the 15th century. He was fond of both Hinduism and Islam. He instead stated that True God will be with the who take always the right path. He spent his early life in a Muslim family. But his teacher Ramananda, the Hindu Bhakti saint who influenced his life as well as his works. His poems are simple that even common people can understand easily. Kabir’s poetry teaches the reader moral values and helps the reader to become a better human being. Kabir mostly writes Dohe (a poem in two lines). They still remain the most popular in India.

 Sarojini Naidu

(13th February 1879 – 2nd March 1949) – Sarojini Naidu is known as the ‘Nightingale of India’. She started her writing career when she was aged 13. The Golden Threshold was her first poetic work which was published in 1905. It combines traditional poetic forms with the lush green images of India. She included nature, love, death, and patriotism in her poems. She also wrote poems for children. She was a political leader during the Disobedience movement and the ‘Quit movement’ led by Mahatma Gandhi. She was the first woman governor of India.

Annamacharya

(22nd May 1408 – 4th April 1503) – Tallapaka Annamacharya was famously known as Annamayya. He was a Hindu saint in the 15th century. He composed songs called sankirtanas and dedicate them to Lord god Venkateshwara. He was born in a brahmin family in Kadapa district in Andhra Pradesh. Annammaya is the first known Carnatic music (Karnataka sangitam mostly used in South India). He is most famously known as Andhra Pada Kavita Pitamaha (Grandfather of songwriting in Telugu). He composed 32,000 sankirtanas on the Venkateshwara Swami but only 12,000 are available today. Later, he included morality (humanity, death), dharma, and righteousness (being right).

Rabindranath Tagore

(6th May 1861 – 7th August 1941) – He was born in Kolkata. He started to write poems at the age of eight (8). He published his first work in 1877, at the age of 16 of short stories and dramas. He wrote more than a thousand poems and two thousand songs. He was awarded the Noble Prize for literature, Gitanjali, his collection of 103 poems. He was the first Asian to get Noble Prize for literature. Some of his famous writings are Gitanjali, Gitabitan, Choker Bali, Gora, Kabuliwala, etc. Our national ‘Jana Gana Mana’ was composed by Tagore.

Tenali Ramakrishna

Tenali Ramakrishna simply known as Tenali Raman. He was an Indian poet, thinker, scholar, and advisor in the court of Sri Krishnadevaraya. He was one of the Ashtadiggajas one the poets in the court of Krishnadevaraya, the Vijayanagara Emperor. He is from Andhra Pradesh. He is a great scholar in several languages including Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, and Marathi. His great work is Panduranga Mahatmyam which is a kavyam. He had a great devotion to Vaishnavism. His two famous works are Udbhataradhya Charitam on the story of Udbhhata (story of a monk), Ghatikachala Mahatyam about the history and glory of Ghatikachalam, a place of worship for God Narasimha near Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India.

 

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