[ad_1]
Since the past few years, questions of identity and representation have taken center stage in Pop culture letters around the world. The Indian diaspora has also been swept up in these discussions – from romance novels to Marvel films to British TV shows, people of Indian descent have been clamoring not just to act for the sake of it, but a seat at the table, an energetic acknowledgment of their own. Contributions to culture.
In 1928, long before these debates took place, Dan Gopal Mukherjee became the first Indian to win the prestigious Newbery Medal—awarded annually to “the most distinguished contributions to American literature for children”—for his novel Gay Neck, Dove’s Story. The book, written in 1927, chronicles the life of a prized Indian pigeon, its training, and its relationship to the humans around it. Mukerji later said that the novel was based on his own experiences as a boy, and “the message in the book is that man and winged animals are brothers.” Literary critic and professor of English at Morgan State University, Meena G. Khorana called the book one of the few children’s novels to explore the Himalayas in a meaningful way.
Born on July 6, 1890, Mukerji wrote prolifically across genres and forms, highlighting Indian themes, especially rural life and forests, in his work. He was brought up in an orthodox Bengali Brahmin family in a village bordering present-day Calcutta. The first part of his memoirs, The caste and the outcasts (1923) focuses on his traditional upbringing, while the second part describes his disillusionment with village life, prompted in large part by the influence of his brother Jadu Gopal.
Jadu Gopal was a revolutionary fighting For the independence of India. Because of him, Mukerji decided to attend the University of Calcutta. He also later wrote a memoir based on his brother’s life, titled my brother’s face (1924).
Gay Neck: Dove’s Story (Amazon.in)
After graduating, Mukerji was sent to Japan to study textiles and industrial machinery. This would be a short while – he soon became disillusioned with what he considered the inhumane working conditions on the assembly line. He left for San Francisco in the United States, where he entered Stanford University in 1910 to study philosophy.
For Mukerji, writing became a way to pay his way through college. wrote two collections of poems, Sandhya, Twilight Songs And Rajani or Songs of the Nightbesides a play, Layla Majnu during this period. He married American artist and educator Ethel Ray Duggan, and in 1918, their son, Dan “Dan” Gopal Jr., was born.
In the 1920s Mukerji and his family moved to New York, where he found success as an author of children’s books. His popular books from this era include Elephant curry (1922), illustrated by J.E. Allen; Today: Jungle Boy (1924), illustrated by Morgan Stinemetz; And Hindu superstitions for young children (1929). Many of these books were either retellings of stories he heard as a child, or drawn from his own life in India.
In the latter half of the twenties, Mukerji moved towards writing non-fiction for adults, with an emphasis on India and spirituality. he wrote Answers Ibn Umm India In 1928, in response to Katharine May Mother of India (1927), which depicted Indian society in racial terms. as he wrote The face of silence in 1926, which was about the spiritual leader Ramakrishna Paramhansa in the nineteenth century.
Even in the United States, he retained the revolutionary fervor of his youth: he was said to have been a close associate of M N Roy, the founder of the Communist Party of India. He was also in contact with the Congress leader and future first Prime Minister of India (according to the South Asian American Digital Archive, who was also the godfather of his son), Jawaharlal Nehru. Their letters contain passages where Mukerji berates Nehru for his “bad” decisions), as well as descriptions of New York.
Mukerji died by suicide on 14 July 1936. His later years were reportedly marked by mental health and financial issues (exacerbated by the Great Depression), as well as a sense of hopelessness over his inability to do much to advance the cause of Indian independence.
[ad_2]
