Big names of Hindi literature have been coming from remote villages of Uttarakhand, Mahavir Rawalta is also taking the same link forward. Forgetting his mountain of sorrows because of writing, Mahavir Ravalta is further enhancing the stature of his birthplace Himalayas through the work he has done for the Ravalti language.
Meeting Mahavir in Askot Arakot Yatra
During the Askot Arakot Yatra, while leaving Swill village, a boy asked us about our stop for the night, and we told him Mahargaon. As soon as he heard it, he said that Mahavir Ravalta, who writes in Ravalti language, lives there, I started getting impatient to meet the person who is preserving a language there. On reaching Mahargaon in the evening, Mahavir Ravalta had welcomed all the travelers in his house and he also had the idea of showing us a drama performed by children by making a stage in the courtyard of the house, but due to rain that program had to be cancelled. Fell. However, in the meantime he had got his book ‘Chal Meri Dholak Thumak Thumak’ released by the passengers of Askot Arakot.
Mahavir was fond of reading and writing since childhood.
Mahavir Rawalta was born on May 10, 1966 in Sarnaul village of Uttarkashi district, his father Tika Singh was a lawyer in the Revenue Department and mother Roopdei Devi a housewife. Mahavir, the second among three brothers and two sisters, came to Mahargaon in his childhood. Poetry was recited in the programs held on Saturdays in the village school, from there Mahavir’s interest in reading poetry began to awaken. He started reading books in the school library in the ninth class, during which he started reading Parag, Nandan, Dharmayug magazines. Mahavir’s friends used to eat food with their own pocket money, so he used to buy magazines from it. After some time, Mahavir Ravalta came to Uttarkashi with his father and there too he did not stop studying and started going to Gandhi Reading Hall. In class 12th, he was a science student but his inclination was not towards scientists but towards Hindi writers. He liked reading Premchand, Shivani, Himanshu Joshi.
First letter for ‘Himalaya and us’
After taking admission in B.Sc., Mahavir Rawalta failed in the very first year because he was too engrossed in writing in those days. He wrote the first letter for the weekly newspaper ‘Himalaya Aur Hum’ published from Tehri, its editor was Govind Prasad Gairola. In the year 1983, his first poem ‘Unemployed’ was published in the column ‘Literature, Art and Culture’ of the weekly newspaper ‘Uttaranchal’ published from Dehradun. Editor of Uttaranchal Somwari Lal Uniyal ‘Pradeep’ nowadays lives in Dehradun and he himself has been a good poet. After the publication of these two works, the young Mahavir started feeling that if he writes, it will definitely be published somewhere.
The reward of Rs 20 was not less than that of Gyanpeeth.
Meanwhile, big poets like Kunwar Baichen, Kanhaiya Lal Nandan, Keshav Anuragi, Ramanath Awasthi reached the Magh Mela in Uttarkashi for the Kavi Sammelan, which continued throughout the night. While listening to them the whole night, Mahavir used to wonder whether he would ever be able to recite his compositions from such a platform, after which he developed a passion for writing poetry. Coincidentally, the coordinator of this Kavi Sammelan, Ghanshyam Raturi, a poet of environmental planning and development, invited him to read poetry in the Kavi Sammelan. There, big poets patted Mahavir Ravalta on his back for reciting his poem, he also got an envelope of twenty rupees as a reward. Regarding those twenty rupees, Mahavir says that that envelope seemed like a Jnanpith Award to me, it was a big thing for me. After this, I again got a chance to recite poetry there and my courage kept increasing due to it.
Story writer and playwright Mahavir
After this, Mahavir Ravalta started getting attracted towards stories while reading Parag magazine. Meanwhile, he was selected for Pharmacy in Uttarkashi Polytechnic. When he went to the village and saw Ramlila, he felt like performing drama. He wrote, acted and directed the play ‘Munarbandi’, which was based on the Tiladi incident of 1930. In the year 1984-85, he formed ‘Rawai Jaunpur Vikas Yuva Manch’, in which other people of the area also participated. At the same time, he got two plays staged in the annual function of the Polytechnic, in which he directed and acted. Meanwhile, after Suvarna Rawat returned from NSD Delhi, she introduced her colleagues to Suvarna Rawat and staged the play ‘Kala Mohan’ with her in Uttarkashi. After this play, he founded ‘Kala Darpan’ along with Suvarna Rawat, through Kala Darpan he continued performing plays in Uttarkashi. There was flute playing and plays like Hamlet. During the staging of Hamlet, a professor from Punjab saw the play and he praised the entire team of Kala Darpan and said that I am surprised to see that you have staged such a wonderful play in such a remote hilly area. I have taught Hamlet all my life but never imagined such a wonderful play would be based on it.
In the year 1987-88, Mahavir Rawalta conducted a new experiment and organized a three-four day drama camp in Mahargaon, in which about forty children of the village participated. He wrote plays on the problems of the village, so that the message could reach the people. These plays were related to mythological, contemporary and folk tales.
Initially, in the plays shown during Ramlila, the roles of women were played by men, but Mahavir Ravalta started giving women roles to village girls only. In the meanwhile he also got married.
Referring to an incident of those days, Mahavir Ravalta says that during the elections in 1988, the opposition got angry with him because of giving electoral support to someone. They protested against our play during the village fair saying that it was causing disruption in the village fair. After this, I started staging plays in the courtyard of my house and asked them that now there will be no disruption in your fair.
Jamte Mahavir as a writer
When the job appointment letter came, Mahavir Rawalta had to go to Moradabad, then he was sent to Ascot. Due to the sadness of leaving the theatre, he started writing again. ‘Pagdandiyan Ke Sahaare’ was his first novel in the year 1992, the idea of this novel came to him while staying at home during the days of unemployment. With the help of footpaths, it was published by Takshila Prakashan and sold a lot of copies. Talking about this novel, Mahavir says that even today after so many years, people tell me that they have read your novel ‘Pagdandiyan Ke Sahaare’. Harimohan wrote a review of his novel on 8 August 1992 under the title ‘The desire to go far with the help of trails’. Then his second novel ‘Ek Aur Ladai Lad’ was also published by Takshashila Prakashan.
After this, Mahavir started writing stories, which kept getting published in different magazines like Amar Ujala, Vagarth, Uttarardha. ‘Time does not stop’ was his first story collection. Meanwhile, he was transferred to Bulandshahr. In the year 2003, his novel ‘Apna Apna Aakash’ and story collection ‘Tukda Tukda Yatharth’ were published. Right now he is working on a novel.
Mahavir himself became taller than the mountain after facing the mountain of sorrow.
In the year 2004, Mahavir Rawalta’s only daughter died, Mahavir says that the grief of his daughter’s loss was such that I felt my world had ended, but writing gave me the courage to live. Shortly after his death, my short story collection ‘Trishanku’ was published, because of Rachna Dharmita I got the courage to bear my grief.
In the grief of his daughter’s death, Mahavir wrote the poetry collection ‘Sapno Se Chehre’. After reading this poetry collection, Bharat Bhardwaj and others told him that these poems are as restless as Nirala’s ‘Saroj Smriti’.
He received the first award for editing the magazine ‘Seema Prahari’. A notification came out for writing a story on the subject of soldiers and their environment in ‘Akshar Bharat’ newspaper, whose literary editor was Amar Goswami. Mahavir Singh wrote the story ‘Avarohan’ for it and for this he received the second prize in the presence of famous commentator Padmashree awardee Jasdev Singh and Param Vir Chakra winner Lieutenant Colonel Dhan Singh Thapa at a function organized in Kanpur. After this, he has been honored in many other places till date. On respect, Mahavir Rawalta says that respect received at the right age is a lifesaver for writers and gives courage to write.
Mahavir giving recognition to his language and youth taking inspiration from him
At that time the people of Rawani used to hesitate in speaking their language Rawalti. After becoming an established writer in Hindi, Mahavir Ravalta felt that he had to do something to save and popularize his language. He wrote a poem for the first time in 1995 while trying to write in poetry. This poem was published with Hindi translation in the newspaper ‘Jan Lahar’ published from Dehradun. After this, between 2003 and 2005, B. Mohan Negi made poetry posters of Mahavir’s two contemporary poetry collections, B. Mohan Negi’s poetry posters are world famous.
In the year 2010, ‘Language Research and Publication Centre, Vadodara’ contacted Dr. Shekhar Pathak and Uma Bhatt to work on their project ‘Indian Language Public Survey’. Work was done on thirteen languages of Uttarakhand under this project, Shekhar Pathak handed over the responsibility to Mahavir Ravalta to work on Ravalti language.
After this, work started on the languages of Uttarakhand under the direction of Professor DD Sharma on behalf of Uttarakhand Language Institute under the name ‘Cultural and Linguistic Analysis of Languages’, for that also Mahavir Rawalta worked diligently and that work is yet to be published. Is.
‘Pahad’ organization has also made a dictionary of thirteen languages of Uttarakhand, in this also Mahavir Ravalta worked on the words of Ravalti language. Recently his book titled ‘Chal Meri Dholak Thumak Thumak’ has been published, in which Rawalti folk tales have been written in Hindi language. Mahavir is now writing these folk tales in Ravantali language. His creative work continues uninterrupted with four novels, fifteen story collections, five poetry collections and many other Hindi and Bengali language works.
(Himanshu Joshi is from Uttarakhand and is a recipient of the prestigious Umesh Doval Memorial Journalism Award. He has been writing for many newspapers, magazines and web portals.)
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author.
