Pritish Nandy

Pritish Nandy (born 15 January 1951) is an Indian poet,[1] painter, journalist, politician, media and television personality, animal activist and film producer. He was member of Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament representing Maharashtra based party Shiv Sena.[2] He has published a number of poetry books in English and translated poems by other writers from Bengali and Urdu into English.

Pritish Nandy

Early life

Pritish Nandy was born in Bhagalpur in the state of Bihar in eastern India to a Bengali Christian family.[3] He is the son of Satish Chandra Nandy and Prafulla Nalini Nandy, and brother of Ashis Nandy and Manish Nandy. He was educated at La Martiniere College and, briefly, at Presidency College in Kolkata, where he spent the first 28 years of his life.[2] Nandy's mother was a teacher at La Martiniere Calcutta and subsequently became the school's first Indian vice principal.[4]

Literary career

Pritish Nandy's first book of poems Of Gods and Olives was published in 1967. Three further volumes followed in the 1960s and a further 14 volumes were published in the 1970s.[5] During the seventies Nandy edited and published a poetry magazine called Dialogue which published many of India's finest poets in English and other languages, in translation. Dialogue also published over forty books of poems, of first time poets as well as famous poets. It became an iconic platform for contemporary Indian poetry, in English and in translation. In July 1981 Nandy was nominated as a Poet Laureate by the World Academy of Arts and Culture at the Fifth World Congress of Poets in San Francisco. [6] Nandy's poem Calcutta If You Must Exile Me is considered a pioneering classic in modern Indian literature.[7]

The Government of India conferred on him the Padma Shri in 1977 for his contribution to Indian literature. He wrote a new book of poems called Again in 2010 after a long hiatus and then, Stuck on 1/Forty in 2012. In 2014, his version of the Isha Upanishad was published.

Journalistic career

In the seventies, Pritish Nandy began to write for Sunday magazine. He was for several years Poetry Editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India and Books Editor of The Telegraph. He drew the front page cartoon called Mastermind for The Telegraph for three years.

In December 1982 Nandy left Calcutta for Bombay where he joined The Times of India Group to become, for the first time in his life, a full-time journalist and editor. He was Publishing Director of The Times of India from 1982 to 1991, and Editor in Chief of The Illustrated Weekly of India from 1983 to 1991. He was also concurrently Editor of The Independent and Filmfare. He served at the same time as Publisher of The Illustrated Weekly of India, The Independent, Filmfare, Femina, Science Today, Dharmayug and Madhuri. He was also Publisher of Indrajal Comics. It was during this period that he received many awards and distinctions, including the Shrikant Verma Award for Excellence in Journalism.

In 1991, Nandy left The Times of India Group to do television journalism and began with two shows: Fiscal Fitness, The Pritish Nandy Business Show on Zee TV and The Pritish Nandy Show, India's first signature show on Doordarshan National Network and Doordarshan Metro channels. He also covered the Indian Parliamentary elections 1998 for Doordarshan and did Face Off, a TV show he jointly hosted with noted poet Javed Akhtar. He is currently a columnist with The Times of India and Dainik Bhaskar.[2] Nandy was one of the first internet evangelists in India and opened India's first cyber café in 1996 at Hotel Leela Kempinski in Mumbai.[2]

Artistic career

Pritish Nandy has held six shows of his paintings, drawings and calligraphy. The first was a calligraphy and water colours show called Looking Within with painter Samir Mondal in Gallery Ashish Balram Nagpal, Mumbai in 1990. The second was a calligraphy and drawings show called Images: The Poet and the Painter with painter Manjit Bawa which was held at CAA, the Centre for Contemporary Art Gallery, New Delhi in 1991 and then at Gallery Ashish Balram Nagpal, Mumbai. The third was a solo exhibition by Nandy called Drawings for My Children which was shown at the Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai and at Gallery 88, Calcutta in 1991. The show was accompanied by a street play in Calcutta in which Amitabh Bachchan and Anupam Kher participated.

Then, after eight years, came another solo show called Maverick: Poems of Love and Longing at the Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai in 1999. The next show was Bored at the Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai in 2008. The sixth show was again a collaboration, this time with painter Paresh Maity, of calligraphy and water colours based on Shesh Lekha: The Last Poems of Rabindranath Tagore which Nandy had translated for the first time in 1973. This show was held with the support of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India to commemorate Tagore's 150th birth anniversary and was shown at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi and then at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai and Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai and finally at CIMA, the Centre for Indian Modern Art in Calcutta during 2011. In August 2015, to coincide with India's Independence Day, the same show opened across six Hyatt Hotels in India presented by the London-based Stellar International Art Foundation.

Political career

Pritish Nandy was elected to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament, in July 1998. He was a member of parliament for six years and was on a number of committees including the National Committee to Celebrate 50 years of Independence, the Parliamentary Committee for Defence, the Parliamentary Committee for Communications, the Parliamentary Committee for Foreign Affairs.[2] He headed the Expert Committee for upgradation of the International Film Festival of India set up by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and submitted its findings to the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting in 2011.

In December 2012, he was conferred the Liberation War Honour by Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister, Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh in Dhaka to honour his contribution to the war effort that led to the Independence of Bangladesh and the formation of the People's Republic of Bangladesh in 1971.

Humanitarian work

Pritish Nandy has worked for many causes but is best known as the founder of People for Animals, India's largest animal protection NGO that Maneka Gandhi, former Environment & Forests Minister, Government of India, heads and runs as Chairperson. He received the International Humanitarian Award at the Genesis Awards in Los Angeles in 2012, supported by the Humane Society of the United States, the largest animal protection body in the US.[8] On 28 November 2012 Pritish Nandy founded World Compassion Day, a platform for promoting the values of compassion and ahimsa, and the first lecture on the occasion was delivered in Mumbai by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama who spoke on the ethical treatment of animals. The occasion also launched the Humane Society International in India.

Film and television

Nandy founded Pritish Nandy Communications in 1993 and remains its non-executive chairman. The company's first programme was a chat show titled the The Pritish Nandy Show which aired on Doordarshan, India's public broadcasting channel. This was the first signature show on Indian television. This was followed by Fiscal Fitness: The Pritish Nandy Business Show, India's first weekly business show, on Zee TV. Nandy has presented over 500 news and current affairs shows on Doordarshan, Zee TV and Sony TV.[2]

Television content

Films

Film Year Notes
Kuch Khatti Kuch Meethi 2001 Producer
Bollywood Calling 2001 Producer
The Mystic Masseur 2001 Producer
Sur, The Melody of Life 2002 Producer
Kaante 2002 Producer
Jhankaar Beats 2003 Producer
Mumbai Matinee 2003 Producer
Chameli 2004 Producer
Popcorn Khao! Mast Ho Jao 2004 Producer
Shabd 2005 Producer
Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi 2005 Producer
Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena 2005 Producer
Ankahee 2006 Producer
Pyaar Ke Side Effects 2006 Producer
Bow Barracks Forever 2007 Producer
Just Married 2007 Producer
Ugly Aur Pagli 2008 Producer[12]
Meerabai Not Out 2008 Producer
Raat Gayi Baat Gayi? 2009 Producer
Click 2010 Producer
Fatso! 2012 Producer
Shaadi Ke Side Effects 2014 Producer
mastizaade 2015 producer

Awards

Selected works

Books of poems

Verse play

Short stories

Translations

Poetry recordings

Bengali translation

Anthologies edited

References

External links

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