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Mangesh Padgaonkar Biography | Poet

Photo of Mangesh Padgaonkar

Mangesh Padgaonkar may be the most iconic Marathi poet. He was born on the 10th of March in 1929 and died very recently on the 30th of December in 2015. He was born in the Vengurla, Sindhudurg District, Maharashtra and died in the city of Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Mangesh Padgaonkar has his name on no less than forty publications and won multiple awards throughout his career, including the Maharashtra Bhushan Award in 2008.

The Education That Made Mangesh Padgaonkar - Who He Was

Mangesh Padgaonkar was very much the sort of poet who started very young and showed fantastic potential at an early age. He was writing poems at the age of fourteen. Still, he is not the sort of prototypical self-taught poet that some people like to lionize. Mangesh Padgaonkar was formally educated at the University of Bombay, one of the most prestigious universities in the area. His Master of Arts degree was in Sanskrit and Marathi, demonstrating his proficiency in these languages and his keen verbal ability in general.

The Work and Life of Mangesh Padgaonkar

Mangesh Padgaonkar did almost everything there is to do when it comes to the written word. He was a language teacher, an editor, and a writer. Specifically, Mangesh Padgaonkar taught the Marathi language at Matushree Mithibai College in Mumbai before serving twenty years as a U.S. Information Service editor. He also had a relatively brief stint as an assistant editor at Sadhana (weekly). Mangesh Padgaonkar was very devoted to his work his whole life.

Mangesh Padgaonkar's Record of Accomplishments

Mangesh Padgaonkar's forty different publications speak for themselves. Mangesh Padgaonkar also performed a number of important translations during the middle of his career, which included translating some of Shakespeare's plays into Marathi. He translated the works of a number of other writers, creating engaging prefaces in the process. The lyrics to some of the most famous Marathi songs were also written by Mangesh Padgaonkar. Mangesh Padgaonkar won many different awards throughout his career, including the Maharashtra Bhushan Award in 2008 and the Jeevan Sadhana Gaurav Puraskar honor in 2012.

The Legacy of Mangesh Padgaonkar

Mangesh Padgaonkar's sheer legacy as a poet and as an artist of words in general has managed to make him significant. He was able to write romantic poetry early in his career, demonstrating something that many people consider essential to someone with the soul of a poet. However, he was also able to write poetry that was riddled with social commentary, particularly with regards to the corrupt power structure that he was immersed in for most of his life or all of his life. This didn't stop Mangesh Padgaonkar from writing some classic poems for children.

Marathi poets that achieved lasting success or popularity are relatively rare, and Mangesh Padgaonkar managed to fill this category well. Through all of his translations, he managed to bridge the gap between many different cultures, and made tremendous contributions in many different fields of literature. Mangesh Padgaonkar is always going to be remembered as a very talented artist. 


Mangesh Padgaonkar: Poems | Best Poems | Short Poems | Quotes