Discoveries Across Six Fields, Their Benefits for Humanity, and Important Questions About Pakistan’s Scientific Future

By Ramesh Raja

The eagerly awaited week of scientific and intellectual celebration in October has finally come to an end. Throughout the year, scientists, writers, economists and advocates of peace across the world look forward to the announcement of the Nobel Prizes. As the laureates are announced, newspapers, magazines, television channels and social media platforms are filled with accounts of extraordinary individuals whose knowledge, research, creativity and humanitarian contributions have brought something new to the world.

The true greatness of these awards lies neither in the gold medals, international fame nor the millions of rupees awarded to the winners. Rather, it lies in the discoveries and contributions that make human life safer, healthier, more enlightened and prosperous.

On 27 November 1895, the renowned Swedish inventor, industrialist and chemist Alfred Nobel dedicated a substantial portion of his fortune, through his will, to recognizing individuals whose contributions had brought the greatest benefit to humanity. He died on 10 December 1896, and the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901 in five original categories: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace. The Prize in Economic Sciences was established in 1968 by Sweden’s central bank and has been awarded in memory of Alfred Nobel since 1969. Today, these prestigious international honours are presented across six fields.

In 2025, the monetary value of a full Nobel Prize was 11 million Swedish kronor. A figure of 12 million kronor, equivalent to approximately PKR 333.7 million, has also been reported for 2026. This amount is not awarded separately to each laureate. It represents the total prize money for a particular category and is shared when there are multiple recipients. In addition to the cash award, each laureate receives a gold Nobel medal and an individually designed artistic diploma.

Medicine: Controlling Brain Cells Through Light

Among the names associated with the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine are Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel. Deisseroth is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Stanford University in the United States, while Hegemann is associated with Humboldt University in Germany and Nagel with the University of Würzburg. The three researchers have played important roles in developing the revolutionary technology known as optogenetics, which enables scientists to control the activity of specific nerve cells in the brain using light.

The human brain contains billions of nerve cells that communicate with one another to produce thoughts, memories, emotions, movements and behaviour. Understanding the functions of specific neurons has opened new avenues for investigating epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, depression and other neurological disorders.

Although treatments based on this technology are not yet widely available to ordinary patients, its potential for developing more precise and effective therapies in the future is considerable.

Physics: Exploring the Universe Through Mysterious Particles

In Physics, Belgian-born American scientist Francis Halzen, approximately 82 years old, is internationally recognised for his extraordinary research into some of the universe’s most mysterious particles.

He is a professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and has played a fundamental role in developing the IceCube Neutrino Observatory beneath the Antarctic ice. Thousands of highly sensitive instruments have been installed deep within the ice to detect neutrinos arriving from distant regions of the universe.

Neutrinos are extremely small particles capable of passing through ordinary matter almost without obstruction. By studying them, scientists are gaining valuable insights into black holes, exploding stars and some of the most energetic phenomena in the cosmos, information that conventional telescopes cannot easily obtain.

Halzen’s research is not primarily directed towards an immediate commercial invention. Its fundamental objective is to understand the laws governing the universe.

History demonstrates that many discoveries in fundamental science initially emerge from intellectual curiosity rather than practical necessity. Over time, however, such discoveries often become the foundations of new technologies and transformative inventions.

Chemistry: Understanding the Molecular Structures of Life

In Chemistry, the research of distinguished French chemist Henri B. Kagan, approximately 96 years old, and Japanese scientist Kenso Soai, approximately 76, concerns the precise three-dimensional structures of molecules.

Kagan is a retired professor at Paris-Sud University, while Soai has been associated with the Tokyo University of Science.

Their research helps explain how chemical reactions produce molecules in two different forms that resemble mirror images of each other, and how chemists can selectively produce one form in greater quantities.

This phenomenon, known as chirality, is extremely important to human life.

Just as our right and left hands are mirror images but cannot be perfectly superimposed, many molecules exist in two distinct mirror-image forms. In medicines, these forms may produce different biological effects. One may be beneficial, while the other may be less effective or even harmful.

The ability to manufacture molecules in a desired form is therefore essential for developing safer and more effective medicines, improving industrial chemical processes and understanding the fundamental chemistry of living organisms.

Literature: Illuminating the Human Mind and Spirit

In discussions surrounding the Literature Prize, the name of renowned Canadian poet, essayist, translator and scholar of ancient Greek literature Anne Carson has also emerged.

Born in Toronto in 1950, Carson has taught at several universities in Canada and the United States. Her literary distinction lies in her remarkable ability to combine ancient Greek mythology, philosophy and history with contemporary human emotions and experiences.

Her celebrated works include Autobiography of Red, Nox and Eros the Bittersweet.

Carson’s writing explores love, separation, memory, loneliness and the complexities of human existence through a distinctive intellectual and creative perspective.

Her work reminds us that human progress cannot be measured solely through scientific instruments, technological advancement or economic resources.

Literature teaches people to examine their inner lives, understand the suffering of others and appreciate the experiences of different civilizations.

If science reveals the mysteries of the physical universe, literature illuminates the unseen worlds of human consciousness and the spirit.

Peace: Human Rights, Justice and Human Dignity

In the field of Peace, distinguished South African jurist Navanethem “Navi” Pillay is closely associated with the international struggle for human rights and justice.

Born in Durban in 1941 into a family of Indian Tamil ancestry, Pillay defended oppressed communities during South Africa’s apartheid era. She subsequently held important positions in international criminal justice institutions and served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014.

At the heart of her work lies the principle that human rights are not the exclusive privilege of any race, religion, nationality or political power. They are the fundamental rights of every human being.

Her legal and institutional contributions to accountability for genocide, war crimes, violence against women and crimes against humanity have strengthened the international pursuit of justice.

Such contributions remind the world that lasting peace does not simply mean the absence of war. It must be founded upon justice, human dignity and the rule of law.

Economic Sciences: Understanding Inflation, Employment and Economic Stability

In Economic Sciences, the research of American economists Robert E. Hall, aged 83, and Michael Woodford, approximately 71, has made important contributions to understanding economic stability, interest rates, household spending, savings and business decisions.

Hall is associated with Stanford University, while Woodford is affiliated with Columbia University.

Their economic models help explain how decisions taken by governments and central banks influence inflation, employment, production and overall economic activity.

The practical importance of such research is particularly significant for developing countries like Pakistan, where inflation, unemployment, rising energy costs and economic uncertainty affect millions of households.

These models can help policymakers make better-informed decisions concerning interest rates, public expenditure and fiscal and monetary measures.

When properly applied, such knowledge can help reduce the severity of economic crises, protect employment and preserve the purchasing power of ordinary citizens.

Nevertheless, economic research alone cannot guarantee prosperity. Its effectiveness depends upon institutional capacity, sound policymaking and successful implementation.

Six Disciplines, One Common Purpose: Human Progress

Examining these six disciplines reveals a remarkable common thread.

Medicine seeks ways to protect human life from disease. Physics uncovers the mysteries of the universe. Chemistry explains the structure of matter and helps develop safer medicines and materials. Literature expands human imagination, understanding and emotional awareness. Peace initiatives emphasise human dignity, justice and coexistence. Economics seeks better ways to manage society’s resources and promote prosperity.

Despite their different approaches, all six disciplines ultimately contribute, in one way or another, to improving the human condition.

A Century and a Quarter of Nobel Achievements

The history of the Nobel Prizes is equally fascinating.

According to figures verified by the Nobel Foundation, 633 Nobel Prizes were awarded across the six categories between 1901 and 2025, representing 1,026 awards to individuals and organizations.

Because some individuals and organizations have received the Prize more than once, these awards correspond to 990 distinct individuals and 28 organizations.

With the addition of six prizes in 2026, the total number of Nobel Prizes reaches 639, while the updated number of distinct laureates requires confirmation against the complete official list.

Over approximately 125 years of recognizing knowledge, literature, peace and service to humanity, the Nobel Prize has established itself as one of the world’s most respected international honours.

Different authoritative institutions are responsible for selecting the laureates.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences selects the recipients in Physics, Chemistry and Economic Sciences. The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet selects the laureates in Physiology or Medicine. The Swedish Academy chooses the Literature laureate, while the Norwegian Nobel Committee decides the Peace Prize.

The formal award ceremonies take place annually on 10 December, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.

The King of Sweden presents the awards in five categories at the Stockholm Concert Hall, while the Nobel Peace Prize is presented by the Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee at Oslo City Hall in Norway.

The Nobel Peace Prize: Recognition and Controversy

The history of the Nobel Peace Prize also contains controversial examples in which political leaders and rulers received the award but subsequently failed to establish lasting peace, while bloodshed continued during their leadership.

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in Vietnam. However, his role in the American bombing of Cambodia attracted severe criticism. Two members of the Nobel Committee resigned in protest against the decision.

US President Barack Obama received the Peace Prize in 2009 for his contributions to international diplomacy. Nevertheless, the war in Afghanistan and counterterrorism drone strikes continued during his presidency.

Myanmar’s political leader Aung San Suu Kyi received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her struggle for democracy and human rights. However, her silence and her government’s position during the military atrocities against Rohingya Muslims in 2017 attracted widespread international condemnation.

Similarly, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed received the Peace Prize in 2019 for establishing peace with Eritrea. Yet, the following year, a civil war erupted between his government and forces in the Tigray region, causing enormous loss of human life.

These examples do not diminish the importance of genuine efforts for peace. They do, however, raise an important question:

Should the Nobel Peace Prize be awarded on the basis of a political leader’s particular achievement, or should the selection also consider that leader’s overall record, respect for human rights and contribution to lasting peace?

Women and the Nobel Prize: A Growing Recognition

The increasing recognition of women in the Nobel Prizes represents another encouraging development.

According to official figures through 2025, 67 individual women had received the Nobel Prize on 68 occasions, because Marie Curie won the award twice.

If two additional women are confirmed among the 2026 laureates, the total would rise to 69 women and 70 awards.

Under this count, women would have received the Nobel Prize 21 times in Peace, 19 in Literature, 14 in Physiology or Medicine, eight in Chemistry, five in Physics and three in Economic Sciences.

Although women still represent a relatively small proportion of all Nobel laureates, their increasing recognition, particularly in Peace, Literature and human health, is an important sign of intellectual and social progress.

Marie Curie made history by winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911, opening new possibilities and inspiring generations of women scientists.

Five Individuals Who Won the Nobel Prize Twice

Five remarkable individuals have received the Nobel Prize twice: Marie Curie, Linus Pauling, John Bardeen, Frederick Sanger and K. Barry Sharpless.

Marie Curie won in Physics and Chemistry; Linus Pauling in Chemistry and Peace; John Bardeen twice in Physics; Frederick Sanger twice in Chemistry; and Barry Sharpless also twice in Chemistry.

These achievements demonstrate that scientific curiosity does not necessarily end with one extraordinary discovery. Sometimes the same researcher continues exploring and makes another contribution capable of transforming humanity’s understanding of the world.

South Asia’s Contribution to Nobel History

South Asia also occupies an important place in Nobel history.

Twelve prominent laureates associated with the region include Rabindranath Tagore (Literature, 1913, India); C. V. Raman (Physics, 1930, India); Har Gobind Khorana (Medicine, 1968, an Indian-born American scientist); Dr Abdus Salam (Physics, 1979, Pakistan); Mother Teresa (Peace, 1979, associated with India); Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Physics, 1983, an Indian-born American scientist); Amartya Sen (Economic Sciences, 1998, India); Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank (Peace, 2006, Bangladesh); Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (Chemistry, 2009, an Indian-born scientist); Malala Yousafzai (Peace, 2014, Pakistan); Kailash Satyarthi (Peace, 2014, India); and Abhijit Banerjee (Economic Sciences, 2019, an Indian-born American economist).

These represent twelve prominent individual figures, while any comprehensive count of laureates associated with South Asia must clearly define the criteria concerning birthplace, nationality and the country in which their contributions were made.

Despite the region’s considerable intellectual and human potential, why does South Asia, particularly Pakistan, remain underrepresented in major international scientific honours?

Among the principal reasons are inadequate investment in research, a shortage of modern laboratories, an education system heavily dependent upon memorization, weak merit-based institutions, restrictions on academic freedom and the migration of talented individuals to other countries.

The region does not suffer from a shortage of intelligence.

What it needs are institutions and academic environments in which talent receives opportunity, research receives resources and independent thinking enjoys freedom.

Nobel Laureates and Religious Backgrounds

An unofficial historical study of the religious and intellectual backgrounds of Nobel laureates covering 1901 to 2026 suggests that approximately 65.4% were Christian, more than 20% Jewish, 10.5% nonreligious or freethinking, and approximately 0.8% Muslim. Hindu, Buddhist and other religious backgrounds accounted for the remaining proportion.

These figures do not represent an official classification by the Nobel Foundation, since estimates may vary depending on whether individuals are categorized by personal religious beliefs, family backgrounds or intellectual identities.

Common historical estimates identify approximately 16 Nobel laureates who were Muslim or came from Muslim backgrounds, although the precise figure varies according to the criteria applied.

Among them are Pakistan’s Dr Abdus Salam (Physics, 1979); Egypt’s Naguib Mahfouz (Literature, 1988), Ahmed Zewail (Chemistry, 1999) and Mohamed ElBaradei (Peace, 2005); Iran’s Shirin Ebadi (Peace, 2003) and Narges Mohammadi (Peace, 2023); Bangladesh’s Muhammad Yunus (Peace, 2006); Türkiye’s Orhan Pamuk (Literature, 2006) and Aziz Sancar (Chemistry, 2015); Yemen’s Tawakkol Karman (Peace, 2011); and Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai (Peace, 2014).

An important question arises: Why have relatively few Nobel Prize-winning scientists emerged from the Muslim world, which has a population of approximately two billion?

The explanation should not be sought in religious identity itself, but in the structural weaknesses affecting research and education in many countries.

These include inadequate investment in scientific research, shortages of high-quality universities and advanced laboratories, restrictions on academic freedom, memorization-based education, political instability and the migration of talented researchers.

The intellectual history of the Muslim world includes extraordinary scholars such as Ibn al-Haytham, Al-Biruni, Al-Khwarizmi and Ibn Sina (Avicenna).

The challenge today is to transform pride in that historical legacy into a living tradition of modern research, scientific reasoning, merit and intellectual freedom.

What Pakistan Must Learn from the Nobel Prizes

The global celebration of the Nobel Prizes offers an important lesson for Pakistan.

Every day, we benefit from scientific discoveries. We use modern medicines, mobile phones, computers, artificial intelligence and advanced technologies as essential parts of our lives.

Yet, in many of our educational institutions, memorizing textbooks, passing examinations and obtaining degrees are still treated as the primary measures of academic success.

In numerous schools and colleges, laboratories are either unavailable or remain underutilised because of outdated equipment, inadequate facilities and insufficient practical training.

Where students are not encouraged to experiment, ask questions, make observations and draw independent conclusions, how can we expect new discoveries to emerge?

Pakistan must develop an academic environment in which scientists enjoy the freedom to question, stable financial support for research, access to modern equipment, trained colleagues and fair recognition of their contributions.

The value of research should not be measured merely by the number of published papers, but by their quality, originality and benefits to humanity.

Instead of encouraging students to memories textbook definitions, educational institutions should introduce them to experimentation, observation, critical thinking and creative questioning.

Scientific institutions must recognize individuals on the basis of ability and research achievements rather than religious, gender or social identities.

The decades-long scientific work of researchers such as Francis Halzen teaches us that major discoveries require patience, sustained effort, financial resources and institutional confidence.

Sometimes the results of research become visible almost immediately. At other times, its true benefits emerge only after several decades.

Investment in scientific research should therefore never be regarded as an unnecessary financial burden. It should be understood as an investment in the future of coming generations.

Conclusion: The True Measure of Human Greatness

Through his fortune, Alfred Nobel established a tradition that placed service to humanity above wealth and power.

The fundamental message of the awards he created is that human greatness should not be measured by personal possessions, official positions or public fame, but by what an individual contributes to the world and how that contribution improves the lives of others.

Behind the world’s greatest discoveries stand not only extraordinary minds, but also societies and institutions that allow those minds to question, experiment and learn from failure.

If Pakistan wishes to produce Nobel Prize-winning scientists, writers and intellectuals in the future, it must first create an environment that encourages knowledge, research and creativity, where every talented individual has a genuine opportunity to develop and demonstrate their abilities.

Nobel Prizes are not won merely through a nation’s aspirations. They are earned through intellectual freedom, decades of dedicated effort and extraordinary contributions to humanity.

(All images provided by the author) 

Read: Afghan Railways: A Wake-Up Call for Pakistan

_________________

Hailing from Gambat town of Sindh, Engr. Ramesh Raja, is a Civil Engineer, visionary planner, PMP certified and literary enthusiast with a passion for art and recreation. He can be reached at engineer.raja@gmail.com  

The post Nobel Prize and Pakistan’s Scientific Future first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Ramesh Raja

Yesterday’s Noble Prize Announcement, Francis Halzen, winner of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics, has helped humanity open another window into the Universe. Through the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, the Belgian-American physicist and an international team established high-energy neutrino astronomy, enabling scientists to investigate cosmic events through particles rather than light alone.

Born in Belgium in 1944, Halzen earned his doctorate at KU Leuven and joined the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1972. Now 82, he receives the entire Physics Prize of 12 million Swedish kronor for his decisive contributions to IceCube and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.

Neutrinos have very little mass, no electric charge and interact extraordinarily rarely with matter. They usually pass through Earth undetected. Their paths are not bent by magnetic fields, making them valuable messengers from distant cosmic accelerators. Halzen proposed detecting them in Antarctic ice in 1988.

IceCube’s original array placed 5,160 light sensors across a cubic kilometer of ice, approximately 1.45 to 2.45 kilometers underground. When a neutrino interacts with matter, secondary particles produce faint Cherenkov light. Its pattern helps researchers estimate energy and direction. In 2013, IceCube reported 28 high-energy events supporting an origin beyond our solar system.

Halzen did not discover neutrinos themselves. His achievement helped establish a new way to study their cosmic population. Understanding nature’s energies has already transformed human life through electricity, electronics and medicine. Neutrino astronomy promises deeper knowledge, while its instruments may inspire future applications. A new energy source or medical treatment, however, cannot yet be promised.

This pursuit of knowledge reflects Alfred Nobel’s vision. The Swedish inventor’s will established prizes benefiting humanity, first awarded in 1901. Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace were the original categories; Economic Sciences joined in 1969 as a separate memorial prize. Awards are annual, sometimes withheld, and may be shared.

Through 2025, the six categories had produced 633 awards, involving 990 different individuals and 28 organizations. Halzen’s is the 120th Physics Prize. As of 7 October 2026, Physics has gone to Halzen; Chemistry to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai for nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis; and Medicine to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.

Literature will be announced on 8 October, Peace on 9 October and Economic Sciences on 12 October. Pakistan’s announcement times are 4:00 pm, 2:00 pm and 2:45 pm respectively, with Literature and Economics scheduled at those times at the earliest.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences selects Physics, Chemistry and Economics; the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet selects Medicine; the Swedish Academy selects Literature; and the Norwegian Nobel Committee selects Peace. Presentation follows on 10 December, Nobel’s death anniversary. Sweden’s King presents five categories at Stockholm Concert Hall; the Norwegian committee’s chair presents Peace at Oslo City Hall.

Celebrated Physics laureates include Marie Curie, honored for radioactivity in 1903; Albert Einstein, particularly for the photoelectric effect in 1921; and Niels Bohr, for atomic structure in 1922. The subcontinent contributed C. V. Raman, winner in 1930 for light scattering; Indian-origin Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, honored in 1983 for stellar physics; and Pakistan’s Abdus Salam, who shared the 1979 prize for electroweak theory.

Pakistan’s relationship with scientists deserves reflection. Abdul Qadeer Khan received exceptional honors, but following his 2004 proliferation confession, he was pardoned and confined. He later retracted the confession; his scapegoating claim remains disputed. A court declared him free in 2009, and he received a state funeral in 2021. This controversy should not be equated with punishment for research.

Salam’s experience was different: he resigned from government advisory service after the 1974 constitutional exclusion of Ahmadis. Recognition nevertheless followed, including Nawaz Sharif’s 2016 approval of a center and fellowships bearing his name. Other scientists helped build national institutions, while university disputes, including Pervez Hoodbhoy’s 2020 departure from Forman Christian College, require examination without automatically attributing them to government orders.

Our deeper challenge is giving evidence authority. The politically promoted water-car claim of 2012 showed the danger of endorsement before verification. Polio misinformation undermines vaccination, although government officially supports it. Antibiotic misuse exposes failures in practice and oversight. Cloud seeding is legitimate experimentation, but cannot replace sustained pollution control.

Public honors matter, but medals cannot substitute for a healthy scientific culture. Supporting researchers means maintaining equipment, protecting intellectual independence and judging claims through reproducible tests. Pakistan needs institutions that welcome difficult questions and reward careful work, rather than expecting discovery to emerge from ceremonial praise.

We use science daily, yet too often teach it through memorization. Where laboratories are absent, outdated or seldom used, students learn definitions without investigation. Functioning laboratories, trained teachers, practical examinations and sustained research funding must become priorities. Scientists deserve fair treatment regardless of faith. Halzen’s long journey reminds us that discovery requires patience, resources and freedom to question. Our classrooms must offer those beginnings.

(All photos provided by the author)

Read: Read History, Not Mythology

_______________

Hailing from Gambat town of Sindh, Engr. Ramesh Raja, is a Civil Engineer, visionary planner, PMP certified and literary enthusiast with a passion for art and recreation. He can be reached at engineer.raja@gmail.com  

The post Physics Prize Unlocks A New Universe first appeared on Sindh Courier.

Han Kang becomes second South Korean Nobel laureate after former President Kim Dae-jung, who was awarded the peace prize in 2000

SEOUL

Author Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday, becoming the first South Korean to get the honor, a surprise feat that had her country rejoicing in disbelief.

The Swedish Academy announced Han as this year’s laureate, recognizing the 53-year-old “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”

Han is the first Asian female winner in literature and the second South Korean Nobel laureate after former President Kim Dae-jung, who was awarded the peace prize in 2000.

“In her oeuvre, Han Kang confronts historical traumas and in each of her works exposes the fragility of human life,” the Nobel Committee said. “She has a unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead, and in a poetic and experimental style, has become an innovator in contemporary prose.”

Each Nobel Prize is worth 11 million Swedish crowns (US$1.1 million).

The Swedish Academy recognizes achievements in literature, science, medicine, economics and peace. The prizes were created through the will of Swedish scientist and businessman Alfred Nobel and have been awarded since 1901, with the economics prize being a later addition.

Han first shot to fame by winning the Man Booker International Prize for fiction in 2016 for “The Vegetarian.” Her Nobel Prize is expected to catapult Han further into the international spotlight.

Han was born in November 1970 in the southwestern city of Gwangju as the daughter of novelist Han Seung-won. She later moved to Seoul with her family and graduated from Yonsei University, majoring in Korean language and literature.

She began her literary career in 1993 by publishing poems in the winter issue of the quarterly “Literature and Society.” The following year, she made her debut as a novelist when her short story “Red Anchor” won a literary contest hosted by the Seoul Shinmun daily.

Han is acclaimed for creating a unique literary world that explores universal human issues, such as death and violence, through a poetic and lyrical style.

Notably, she has given fictional form to the deep darkness and wounds of modern Korean history through novels like “Human Acts” (2014), which deals with the pro-democracy people’s uprising that occurred in 1980 in Gwangju, and “I Do Not Bid Farewell” (2021), which portrays the tragedy of the Jeju April 3 Incident through the perspectives of three women.

Her other notable works include “Yeosu,” “The Fruit of My Woman,” “Your Cold Hands,” “Black Deer,” “The Wind is Blowing” and “Greek Lessons.”

Previous laureates include American novelist Ernest Hemingway, English author Rudyard Kipling, Irish playwright Bernard Shaw, French writer Albert Camus and Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In 2016, American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan became the first musician to win the award.

The Nobel Prize award ceremony takes place at the Stockholm Concert Hall in the Swedish capital each Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.

According to a report, the Swedish Academy’s Nobel Committee announced the winner Thursday in Stockholm. Han was recognized “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life,” said Mats Malm, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy.

Read: Mathematics prizes have a gender problem

Han became the 121st laureate of the prestigious award and the 18th woman to receive the illustrious prize.

Her win marks a historic moment for South Korea, 24 years after then-President Kim Dae-jung was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.

Han has garnered global recognition for her powerful exploration of suffering and resilience, winning the International Booker Prize in 2016 for “The Vegetarian,” which was also a first for a Korean.

Her other notable works include “Human Acts,” a finalist for the Booker Prize in 2018, and “I Do Not Bid Farewell” (2021), which earned her France’s Prix Medicis for foreign literature last year.

Another report says that six-days of Nobel announcements opened Monday with Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the medicine prize. Two founding fathers of machine learning — John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton — won the physics prize on Tuesday. On Wednesday, three scientists who discovered powerful techniques to decode and even design novel proteins were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the economics award on Oct. 14.

Read: Would the Chinese President be the Nobel Laureate of Peace?

______________

Courtesy: The AsiaN, Korea Herald and The Korea Times 

The post South Korean author Han Kang wins Nobel Prize for literature first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Angela Kosta

We are often encountering articles and publications on various portals, of several authors, who themselves are running for the prestigious Nobel Prize. This phenomenon is a significant fake. Before it is published in portals, magazines or newspapers, it should be carefully analyzed by editors and publishers. The proposal of anyone, a university professor, literary critic, or even a well-known writer, does not constitute the announcement of the Nobel Prize candidate, as during the year, scores of authors and individuals are proposed in the field of literature.

The Nobel Prize for Literature is the highest award for the greatest literary achievements by one (or several) authors within a year.

In 1895, Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel, in his will, among the five prizes to be awarded, designated a prize for literature, for that individual who creates in the field of literature, as “the best work in an ideal direction”.

The laureate (winner of this prestigious prize) is determined by the “Stockholm Academy”, which later under the statute of the Nobel Foundation, designated as the Swedish Academy.

According to this statute, not only literature, but also other writings, are defined, which in terms of quality of form and style have invaluable literary value.

It was also decided and changed that the price should be given to works published during the previous year, thus expanding to “old works” if their importance had not been made transparent by that time.

Candidates, by statute, must be appointed in writing by those who can do so, by February 01 of each year. According to the regulation, the right to appoint the laureate is only granted by the Swedish Academy as well as other academies, institutions and associations similar to it, based on its foundation and purpose. This is also the right of university teachers of aesthetics, literature and history.

According to Wikipedia, a 1949 amendment clarifies the category of teachers: professors of literature and physiology at universities and university colleges. The right to appoint at the time was also granted to previous Nobel Prize winners as well as “Chairpersons of Associations of Authors who are representatives of literary creation in their countries”. The statute also establishes the establishment of the Nobel Committee “to give their position regarding the awarding of prizes” as well as the Nobel Institute with a library that must gather a substantial collection of modern literature.

The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature is announced every year on October 10, 2024. The Nobel Prize for Literature was designed by Erik Lindberg. The name of the Laurates is engraved under the figures, while the text “ACAD. SUEC.” It means the Swedish Academy.

The prize was first awarded by Sully Prudhomme in 1901. The first Albanian writer to be nominated for this award was the national poet Gjergj Fishta.

________________

Angela Kosta, born in Albania and based in Italy, is Executive Director of MIRIADE Magazine, Academic, journalist, writer, poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, translator, and promoter

The post THE PARADOX OF THE NOBEL PRIZE ITSELF first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Alison Abbott

In 1996, Denise Kandel warned her husband that were he to win the Nobel prize for his pioneering work on memory, then it should be later rather than sooner. Laureates too often turn into socialites, she warned, and stop contributing to the intellectual life of science.

Just four years later, Eric Kandel shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He was then 71, an age when he could legitimately have rested on his laurels. But resting is not among Kandel’s many strengths. His new book, There Is Life After the Nobel Prize, outlines his achievements of the past couple of decades — numerous enough to dispel Denise’s fears, he writes. It is hard to disagree.

The volume adds to Kandel’s respected literary oeuvre, which ranges from neuroscience textbooks to highly original popular science. But it is slight, and feels like a coda. In it, he summarizes his post-Nobel research (on learning and memory deficits in addiction, schizophrenia and ageing), writing and public outreach. And he acknowledges colleagues and sponsors of his long career, particularly the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and Columbia University in New York City, where he remains a professor and institute director. A fuller and more poignant autobiography can be found in Kandel’s 2006 book In Search of Memory. There, he explains why his traumatic childhood in Austria drew him to study the mechanisms of memory. That book also presents a marvelous history of neuroscience.

Making sense

Kandel was born in 1929 in Vienna. His family was Jewish and owned a toy shop. When Hitler annexed Austria in 1938, his parents began their year-long effort to emigrate. They finally arrived in New York shortly before the outbreak of World War II, physically unharmed but psychologically traumatized.

Incidents from that final year in Vienna etched themselves into Kandel’s brain: the burning of synagogues on Kristallnacht in November 1938, eviction from the family apartment just days after his ninth birthday, being shunned by his school friends and roughed up by neighborhood bullies. Such memories would flash unannounced into his consciousness years later.

His desire to make sense of his experience led him to study history at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to which he won a scholarship. There, a girlfriend introduced him to psychoanalysis. Thinking that this new way of analyzing the patterns of mind and memory could bring him the understanding he sought, he entered medical school at New York University.

Disillusionment with the non-empirical nature of psychoanalysis soon set in. Kandel realized that progress required a return to basics. In the 1950s, he joined the avant-garde neuroscientists studying the physiology of the brain, such as the electrical properties of neurons. Kandel went a radical step further. Unpicking exactly how neurons facilitated learning and memory required study in a very simple organism, and a very simple learning-dependent behavior, he decided.

The reductionist approach he chose — the protective reflex of gill withdrawal in the sea slug Aplysia — raised eyebrows. Most neuroscientists thought that simple invertebrates could never elucidate the complexities of mammalian memory systems. In fact, Kandel discovered that as the slug learnt which environmental conditions required it to suck in its gills for protection, its synapses — structures that allow electrical or chemical signals to transmit between neurons — were altered.

He went on to describe the neural circuitry and molecular biology involved in short- and long-term memory in the slugs. Determining these principles won him the Nobel Prize, and they have proved true for all creatures, humans included. Post-Nobel, he has studied memory in higher organisms including mice, turning out high-profile papers well into his eighties.

The Nobel experience widened Kandel’s horizons beyond experimental science. The success of In Search of Memory awakened in him the desire for broader communication. I met him in Vienna in 2008, when a German-language documentary based on this book was about to have its premiere (Nature 453, 985; 2008). Radiating energy, he had started to make peace with the city of his birth.

His new book relates how, following the prize, Austria’s president, Thomas Klestil, made overtures. Kandel initially rebuffed them, saying that he considered himself a Jewish American scientist. But then he proposed that Klestil honor him by setting up a symposium at the University of Vienna on Austria’s response to the Nazi doctrine of National Socialism, and its implications for science and the humanities. Since that symposium, in 2003, Kandel has acted as an adviser to a couple of Austrian neuroscience organizations. “My relationship with Austria is becoming more comfortable, although it’s got a way to go,” he writes.

Since the 1960s, he has collected twentieth-century German and Austrian expressionist art, an interest that led to his 2012 book The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present. This superb volume illuminates the period when modernists of all shades were engaging with the internal workings of the mind. Sigmund Freud was developing psychoanalysis; novelist Arthur Schnitzler was pioneering the interior-monologue mode of narration; expressionist artists including Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele were portraying subjective emotions. Kandel guides readers through this cultural history and describes how the neuroscience of perception explains so much of our intuitive understanding of art. It epitomizes Kandel’s breadth of vision. There has indeed been life after the Nobel prize.

_____________________

Courtesy: Nature

The post There is life after the Nobel Prize first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Nazarul Islam

Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul was a scathing critic of postcolonial societies and their offspring. In his fiction and travelogues, the Indo-Trinidadian author depicted the newly liberated nations of the Third World as something akin to a grim joke, ironizing the chasm between their utopian aspirations and the sordid and often bloody realities that followed their independence.

This stance won him few friends among his fellow postcolonial writers. The Caribbean historian C.L.R. James spoke for many when he dismissed Naipaul as a colonial stooge who simply published “what the whites want to say, but dare not”. But while it may have been true that Naipaul provided comfort to Westerners licking their wounds over the end of European empire, he also offered something to those he critiqued: a challenge. Naipaul wrote about the pathologies of the downtrodden with an intimacy that could neither be faked nor ignored.

Today, at a time when the American empire has entered its twilight, Europe is somnolent, and the long-marginalized are slowly attaining power commensurate with their numbers, Naipaul’s challenge feels worth reflecting upon.

“He had been fed by so many civilizations; so much had gone into making him what he was, but now, at what should have been the beginning of his intellectual life, he [had] cut himself off,” he wrote in his travelogue Among the Believers about a Leftist Iranian friend whose life he used to critique the culturally defensive trajectory of Iran after its revolution.

The Iranians had wanted the amenities of modernity — fighter jets, medical technology, television. But the headlong cultural Westernization of the Shah had unnerved them. Their passionate, unforeseen revolution had tried to turn back to the past while holding onto modernity’s material benefits, only to find that such a thing was impossible. The new regime they now lived with was ruthlessly modern in its style of oppression while still corrosive to the old values. In place of the Shah, they had not received the warm certainties of the past, but a gaping spiritual void.

It was these types of half-modernized peoples whose psychology Naipaul picked apart in his travel writings, from the Middle East to India, to Argentina. Even as he skewered the hypocrisy and brutality of empire, which he did with quiet effectiveness, Naipaul knew the pathologies of those on the other side.

The child of an impoverished Caribbean society deeply shaped by the slave trade and colonialism, Naipaul, when he turned his sights onto his own people and those like them, knew how to press where it hurt.

Naipaul’s fiction, for which he won the Booker Prize fifty years ago this month, poked holes in the confidence of the newly liberated masses. In his 1979 novel, A Bend in the River, Naipaul depicted a fictional African country spiraling into the abyss after winning its freedom.

At a time when cathartic violence was very popular on the postcolonial Left, he wasted no time pointing out where those furies would lead. “They’re going to kill all the masters and all the servants. When they’re finished nobody will know there was a place like this here. They’re going to kill and kill. They say it is the only way, to go back to the beginning before it’s too late.” These chilling words remind one of the apocalyptic visions of Isis. But they could describe any number of countries that have plunged into limitless violence after winning independence.

“Hate oppression; fear the oppressed,” Naipaul once wrote, pessimistically. Too often this has turned out to be wise advice. Naipaul painted with a broad brush. He got his share of things wrong. Later in his life, he even succumbed to the same fanaticism and hypocrisy for which he chastised others. Even so, his writings — about the squalor of India, the prideful stagnation of most Muslim countries, and the dangerous fantasies of the recently liberated across Africa and Latin America — could not be brushed off as simple ignorance. They had the sting of truth.

I started reading Naipaul a few years ago on the recommendation of friends. These recommendations typically came with a murmured warning that his politics were questionable, but that his books were worth it for the prose alone. I found that they were even better than that.

Discovering Naipaul was like finding a curmudgeonly uncle who could point to one’s neuroses because he, too, had suffered from them.

Any reader who identifies with what used to be known as the ‘developing world’ will find in Naipaul’s writing a heavy dose of introspection. Naipaul’s first book about India, An Area of Darkness, was so pitiless about the country’s backwardness that its publication there was banned for several years after its initial release in 1964.

His words seemed to open something up in people who were willing to listen. The Indian writer Pankaj Mishra said that the experience of discovering Naipaul as a young man left him “shocked and bewildered”. “I didn’t know that you could write a book like that about India,” he added. “I think it was the first book I read in English that contained the world I lived.”

Naipaul could be ungenerous to his subjects, most of whom were just emerging towards political independence after the long trauma of colonization. But by shining a harsh spotlight on their failures, he also offered them a more comprehensive kind of freedom. Naipaul returned to those he wrote about moral responsibility for their own condition. This was the burden of independence, and accepting it, Naipaul suggested, was the only way that the formerly colonized would ever truly be liberated.

There’s a lesson in Naipaul’s life story as well. As the son of a lower middle-class Indo-Trinidadian family, he had one of the unlikeliest literary careers in history. At a time when the Western publishing world was considered the racial patrimony of those who controlled it, Naipaul triumphed so thoroughly that his personal background became immaterial.

By the time Naipaul finished A House for Mr Biswas in 1961, he had established himself as perhaps the finest writer of the English language to be published in decades.

Naipaul achieved this in the face of an atmosphere that was not just unwelcoming but actively hostile. He did not retreat into a defensive cocoon but instead conquered the English literary world on his own terms. Like James Baldwin, whose writings on race dwarf most of what is published on the subject today in eloquence and coherence, Naipaul’s writings were put up against the Darwinian test of an unsympathetic audience.

“I have got to show these people that I can beat them at their own language,” he wrote to his father in an anguished letter while at Oxford. And he did.

The “bootstrap” mantra of modern American conservatism is correctly criticized for serving as a defence of unjust economic or social arrangements, often by those who fail to live up to the high standards they prescribe for others. But there is also something to be said for persevering in the face of a world that never has been and never will be fair.

“The world is what it is,” as Naipaul put it in the immortal opening lines of A Bend in the River, and those who begin at a disadvantage must strive to be their best selves regardless. This, at least, was the world that he inhabited. “You couldn’t be a victim in the 1950s,” Naipaul observed drily. “There wasn’t the market.”

If there was no market for victimhood in Naipaul’s time, even for a brown-skinned, lilting-accented son of Caribbean poverty, now it seems there is no market for anything else. These days I sometimes find myself involuntarily rolling my eyes at the mention of terms like “race” and “empire,” even though, objectively speaking, they remain important subjects. The deference that comes when these sacred terms are invoked feels too easy.

No one has the courage to push back, to demand from the victims rigour and consistency. Without worthy adversaries to overcome, their writing devolves into cliché.

Perhaps, in the likes of C.L.R. James and Edward Said, I likely would have been a political opponent of Naipaul had I lived in his time. But one does not need to endorse all of his views to recognise that he was a worthy critic of many who would conceive of themselves as members of an underclass — and that we, like everyone else, need such critics.

I never met him. Yet reading his books decades after they were published, I’ve often had the feeling that that Naipaul was challenging all of us in many ways. His entire career was an argument against taking up the mantle of sainted victimhood.  To a reader of a particular background, he offers bitter medicine through self-reflection rather than the sugar rush of moral self-righteousness.

Fifty years after winning the Booker Prize and a few years after his own death, it turns out that this descendant of indentured laborers cast off by the British Empire—still has a lot of important things to tell us!

Nazarul Islam

The Bengal-born writer Nazarul Islam is a senior educationist based in USA. He writes for Sindh Courier and the newspapers of Bangladesh, India and America. He is author of a recently published book ‘Chasing Hope’ – a compilation of his 119 articles.

The post Revisiting a literary legend V S Naipaul first appeared on Sindh Courier.

Abdulrazak Gurnah’s writing explores immigrant life, dislocation, power and shame. His latest novel, Gravel Heart, follows Salim, a timid and troubled child, from his boyhood in Zanzibar through his painful coming-of-age as an immigrant in England. Widely praised for its insight and sensitivity, the novel — Gurnah’s ninth — has been called a “quiet masterpiece.”

Gravel Heart reflects Gurnah’s own story. Born in Zanzibar in 1948, he left the island — off the coast of East Africa — in the midst of political turmoil and violence in the late 1960s. He arrived in Canterbury, England, where he pursued engineering, then switched to English literature, and eventually started writing.

He has written 10 novels and one short story collection throughout his career. His first book, the novel Memory of Departure, was published in 1987.

Gurnah is best known for his 1994 novel Paradise, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Prize. His other notable works include 2005’s Desertion and 2001’s By the Sea. His most recent work is the 2020 novel Afterlives.

Gurnah, whose native language is Swahili but who writes in English, is only the sixth African-born writer to be awarded the Nobel for literature.

Anders Olsson, chairman of the Nobel committee for literature, called him “one of the world’s most prominent post-colonial writers.”

He said Gurnah’s characters “find themselves in the gulf between cultures … between the life left behind and the life to come, confronting racism and prejudice, but also compelling themselves to silence the truth or reinventing a biography to avoid conflict with reality.”

The prize was announced in Stockholm by Mats Malm, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy.

“Stumbled into” writing after arriving in England

In an interview a few years back to CBC Radio, Gurnah talked about the xenophobia and racism he’s witnessed in cities around the world — a major theme in his novel Gravel Heart. Here are some excerpts from his interview:

“When I started to write Gravel Heart, I wanted to capture why it feels so bad to be living so far away from people you care for. I was thinking of the ongoing conversation that Salim, the protagonist, was having with his mother through their letters. Their relationship is potent, and he hasn’t forgotten about her. But there are things he cannot write about because of the distance, which can create room for misunderstanding, room for upsetting her. There’s a reticence that comes out of sorrow — when people are sad, they don’t always know how to speak about it. He continues writing. Maybe he’s also confiding to himself; maybe he’s doing that thing that people do when they write in a journal.”

“There is a way in which sorrow is misunderstood as a kind of self-indulgence. I use what we call homesickness. At some point Salim says that, for years, he has felt homesick. Now, a general reaction would be to say it’s an adolescent thing. And, if you’re in your sixties like me and you say to people ‘I feel homesick,’ they look pityingly at you. It’s not something that is understood as a serious and deep longing, which people in their very last breath probably still feel if they’re dislocated. There are certain kinds of sorrows, which you are not supposed to feel – sorrows that you should outgrow.”

“When you go to London, you notice it’s a multicultural city. In other cities you see the same thing. Visibly things look different. But the language with which outsiders are spoken of and the language which the state treats outsiders is actually, in some cases, worse. The register has simply evolved into something else rather than becoming more humane. I’m afraid something still needs to be done — people still need to be saying things and campaigning and persuading and so on – when it should be perfectly obvious that we should be past these inhumane and obnoxious, confused notions of privilege and race.”

Nobel Prize

The 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.5 million Cdn) prize, which has been given out since 1901, recognizes authors who have “in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction.

In his will, Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel specifically designated the Swedish Academy as the institution responsible for the Nobel Prize for literature.

The winners are always announced in October and the Nobel Prizes are presented on the Dec. 10 anniversary of Nobel’s death in 1896.

Normally, the prizes are presented in Sweden, alongside a lecture by the 2021 recipients. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the lectures and the ceremony will be virtual.

American poet Louise Glück won the prize last year for her “unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.”

Glück was a popular choice after several years of controversy. In 2018 the award was postponed after sex abuse allegations rocked the Swedish Academy, the secretive body that chooses the winners.

The awarding of the 2019 prize to Austrian writer Peter Handke caused protests because of his strong support for the Serbs during the 1990s Balkan wars.

Two Canadians have won the prize in the past: Saul Bellow (a Canadian-born American) in 1976 and Alice Munro in 2013.

Other past winners include American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, Russian historian and essayist Svetlana Alexievich, Irish poet Seamus Heaney and American novelist Toni Morrison.

Nobel prizes are also given for chemistry, physics, medicine, peace and economic science.

German scientist Benjamin List and Scottish-born scientist David MacMillan won the chemistry award for finding an “ingenious” new way to build molecules that can be used to make everything from medicines to food flavorings.

Americans David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discoveries into how the human body perceives temperature and touch.

The physics award was split between Giorgio Parisi of Italy for explaining disorder in physical systems and Japan’s Syukuro Manabe and Germany’s Klaus Hasselmann for their work in developing forecast models of Earth’s climate.

The peace prize will be announced Friday, Oct. 8. (Today)

The economic science prize will be announced on Monday, Oct. 11.

____________________

Courtesy: CBC Radio

The post Abdulrazak Gurnah – A novelist known for exploring migration, colonialism first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Mohan Gehani

“He has unsheathed the sword with all his might while the other is sitting silently, unmoved, with head held high like king cobra.”

“Narendra is a person of very high caliber so is Hira. What simplicity! What a sweet nature! I wish he be ever present near me.” (Sri Ramkrishna Amrit Katha- Sindhi)

The above observations are of none other than that of a great seer that India has produced Swami Ramakrishna Paramhansa. He made the above remarks after listening to their spiritual dialogue. In this observation Narendra refers to the Swami Vivekananda and Hira refers to Sadhu Hiranand of Sindh.

It appears both shared the same umbilical cord. So is the case with Sindh and Bengal. It would not be out of place to briefly peep in the historical background that separates as well as binds both the extreme geographical boundaries of this subcontinent.

Sindh has Sindhu River with numerous estuaries as its life-line for survival, whereas Bengal has sacred Ganga spread its veins to enrich it. Sindh has one of the oldest civilizations and Bengal has its magic. Sindh has seen countless hordes of invaders descending on it and Bengal has always been the last post to be coveted by the rulers of Delhi and extent of their ambition. In the desert of Sindh the tinkle of bells tied to camels’ ankles and howling winds chasing mirage infuse a man with otherworldly music and philosophy. The breeze of green paddy fields of Bengal whispers in the ears the mysteries of life and its joy. The singing minstrels of Bengal wander along sprawling fields and farms and spread the message of unity of mankind and nature. The wandering bards and fakirs of Sindh spread the message of An-al-Huq (I AM THE TRUTH) and Whadat al wajood (Unity of the same spark of light in the universe) – the truth pervading every atom of the universe and its inherent unity. Bengal cherishes the legacy of Chaitanya and Chandidas and Sindh carries the legacy of Shah Abul Latif, Sachal and Sami as blood in body. The basic core of Vaishnavite philosophy and Sufi thought spring from the same source would be stating the obvious.

Since ages worshippers of mother cult have been visiting temple of Mata Hinglaj nestled in the hills of Bulochistan traversing through Sindh. Thus, in spite of all the differences and distance, Sindh and Bengal have never remained strangers.

British laid the foundation of their Empire in India in Bengal and Sindh was last part to be conquered and occupied by them in the year 1843. At that time great social reform movements stated in Bengal. The impact of the winds of change blowing then was felt in Sindh also. Son of the chief of the Hindu Community of Hyderabad (Sindh), which was capital city till British invaded Sindh, was so impressed by the tenets of Brahmo samaj that he travelled all the way to Sri Lanka to meet Keshab Chander sen. On his return he established a branch of Brahmo samaj in Hyderabad (Sindh). Soon a site was chosen and Brahmo temple was constructed which resembled Shanti Niketan in miniature form.

Around that time elder brother of Rabindranath, Mr. Satyendranath Tagore settled in Hyderabad as a sessions judge. Thus close family relations were established between the two families and the children of both the households would be found in company of each other.

When Hiranand could not appear for his matriculation examination due to his not being of requisite age, under the advice and guardianship of Keshab Chander Sen, he was sent along with his younger brother Moti to Calcutta to clear his matriculation and eventually graduation from Calcutta University. During his student days he came with finest minds of his time. When Hiranand returned to Sindh he started two newspapers- one in Sindhi and other in English as a vehicle of social reform movement. In this venture his friend from Bengal Mr. Nagendranath Gupta joined him. During this period much of literature pertaining to principles of Brahmo samaj was translated and published in Sindhi. When Hiranand found that papers have been established he moved to establish an educational institution to propagate his principles of Brahmo samaj. In this institution also his friends Nandlal Sen and Bhawanicharan Banerji joined him.

Thus the bonds at cultural, intellectual and personal level between Sindh and Bengal were strongly forged and they were not stranger to each other.

Rabindranath Tagore was awarded Nobel Prize for literature in 1913 for his book of songs “Gitanjali”. The award went a long way to boost the self-image of entire nation. It came at the time of nascent emerging national movement for Independence of country and the rulers were still arguing that Indians were incapable of ruling themselves. Every Indian seemed to be proudly basking in this glory. Rabindranath could actually get the award only after the conclusion of the First World War in 1918. Rabindranath himself visited Sindh in March 1923.

He was welcomed in Sindh as one of its own. There were banner headlines in papers by Doyen of Sindhi literature Jethmal Parsram, himself an important writer, nationalist and intellectual of his times. Poets wrote poems in his welcome and honour. One poem was written by eminent writer Assanand Mamtora.

In Hyderabad, college students M.U. Malkani and others staged a performance of some parts from his play ‘Chitra’ which were rendered into English by poet himself. It recorded that he was so much impressed by the performance of M. U. Malkani , who latter was to become a fellow of Sahitya Akademi, and Tahil Advani that he called them for breakfast with him next day. During his stay in Sindh, he was felicitated at various towns and by various organizations. He was very much impressed by absence of caste system and untouchability in Sindhi society which was bane of the rest of the country. It can be said that he fell in love with Sindh at first sight and Sindh reciprocated that love with immeasurable abundance.

Before he set his foot on Sindhi soil his book ‘Sadhana’ was translated by none other than a freedom fighter and a writer Virumal Beghraj, who was imprisoned along with Gandhiji at Yerwada prison. He translated that book in prison itself and this was published in 1923.

“Nauka Dube”, (The Wreck) was translated by another important writer of Sindhi language Parsram Gulrajani as ‘Budal Bedi’ in the year 1924. His “Rath yatra” was translated by Acharya Assudomal Gidwani and was published in 1924.

Novels of Rabindranath Tagore were also translated in Sindhi and had a lasting impact on Sindhi Literature. Rabindranath Tagore has penned 12 Novels. All his Novels have been translated and published in Sindhi language and many have had more than one reprint. His ‘Bo Thakurani Haat’ was translated by Melaram Vaswani as ‘Duhagin Rani’. His ‘Raj Rishi’ was also translated by Melaram Vaswani and Published in 1943. ‘Chokerbali’, this novel has been translated 3 times by as many writers. Translation of this Novel by Chuharmal Hinduja as “Akh Soor” was published by Sahitya Akademi in 1973. Mr. Chuharmal Hinduja also translated again, ‘The wreck’ and published it in 1939. ‘Gora’ was translated in 1938 by none other than Guli Sadarangani (Kripalani) the first female Sindhi writer. Inspired by humanistic ideals of Rabindranath, she wrote her novel ‘Ithad’ on the controversial issue of inter -religious marriage. ‘Ghare Bahre’ has been translated by two writers – One by Rochiram Gangaram Sadani and the other by ‘Adeeb’.

His Novels ‘Yoga yog’, ‘Shsheer kavita’, ‘Dueen Bhun’, and ‘Char adhya’ also have been published and have proved to be very popular among generations. Some of his long stories also have been published as Novels.

There has been profusion of translations into Sindhi of short stories of Rabindranath Tagore. First translation of stories has been done by none other than Girdhari Vehromal kripalani, who in 1913 was sent by his parents to Shanti Niketan at the tender age of 13, in spirit of Guru -Shishya Prampara. His collection of stories of Tagore was published in 1927. Translation of ‘Kabuliwala’ and ‘Hungry Stones’ have remained favourite with Sindhi readers since inception. Another collection of short stories titled ‘Rabindranath Joon Khaniyoon’ which was originally edited by Somnath Mitra was translated by Fatehchand Vaswani. This compilation has been published by Sahitya Akademi in the year 1963.

Tagore’s Plays also have been translated into Sindhi. The first play that was translated into Sindhi was by Jethamal Parsram, was “Rath Yatra”. This play was topical as it deals with subject of untouchability. It was translated and published in 1926. ‘DAAK GHAR’ (Post Office) this play has been translated by 3 different writers. First translation is by a prominent writer Behrumal Meharchand published in the year 1938. Hariram Mariwala and Narayani Advani translated this play in the same year in 1957. Translation by Hariram Mariwala was published by Hindustan Sahit Mala. ‘Uma ain Vinayak’ is based on Hindu Muslim unity. It was translated by Assanand Mamtora and published in 1930. ‘Chitra’ was written by Gurudev in 1892 and was translated by him into English in 1914. This was translated in Sindhi by Tirth Basant which was serialized in magazine “Sindhu” and published in book form in 1944. ‘Mukta Dhara’ (Waterfall) was translated by Chuharmal Hinduja and Published in 1942. His two small plays ‘Karan ain Kunti’and ‘Balidan’ have also been translated into Sindhi. Prof. M.U Malkani staged three plays of Tagore, ‘Malini’, ‘Balidan’, ‘The King and Queen’ in the years 1924-27 during annual functions of college, under the auspices of New Sindh College Society. ‘Post office’ was staged in 1937 on the occasion of Golden Jubilee function of the college.

It is as a poet that Rabindranath Tagore walks as colossus and is shining star of literary firmament. His thousands of songs adorn the lips of Bengali speaking people of all generations. They wear his songs as welcome smile of new dawn on their lips. He was awarded Nobel Prize on his book of songs, ‘Gitanjali’ (offering of songs). In fact this book should have been first to be translated into Sindhi. But the first translation into poetic prose form could see light of the day only in 1927. This translation was done by Dilip Singh Mankani. Translation of Gitanjali in metric poetic form could come only around 1956 which has been rendered by lifelong admirer of Tagore’s literature Prof. M. U. Malkani. This translation is considered quite appropriate to the spirit of original ‘Gitanjali’. Mr. Gobindram Salamtrai ‘Saail’ also translated ‘Gitanjali’ in poetic prose and was published as late as 1976. The fourth translation is done also in poetic prose by Amarlal Sadhwani but this translation could not see light of the day in a book form due to some unknown circumstances. Only a few poems survive in some literary magazines.

Prof. M. U. Malkani translated the poems of Tagore in poetic prose form ‘Gardner’ which could be published only in 1940. This saw another reprint after partition from Ajmer. In preface to original edition of the book Prof M.U. Malkani writes that he had translated this book way back in 1921 but could be published only after the agonizing delay of 20 years. During same period some of the poems were rendered in poetic prose form by Lalchand Amardinomal which was named ‘Sada Gulab’. This found place in the college curriculum as a text book. ‘Crescent Moon’ was translated by Mr. Arjan Issrani and Published in 1940. Mr. Hariram Mariwala translated selected poems of Tagore from various anthologies and it was published as ‘Phool Chund’ (Flower gathering) by Hindustan Kitab Ghar in 1956. Similarly Mr. Phatan Purswani translated selected poems of Tagore in Published under the title ‘Geet ganga’ in year 1955.

Recently Mr. Khiman Mulani has translated 203 poems collected by Mr. Satyakam Vidyalankar in Hindi Book also named ‘Gitanjali.’ This book is under publication. English version of Gitanjali has only 104 poems which forms the basis of all other translations.

Most of the works of Tagore are translated from English barring some from Hindi or Urdu. Thus translation loss is twice compounded, yet even in such a translation the beauty of expression remains quite impressive. Tagore literature translated into Sindhi has been a source of inspiration to many writers in the last century.

The translation of Tagore’s Poems in poetic prose led to a new literary genre of poetic prose. In this genre the contribution by Prof. M.U. Malkani, Mr. Lalchand Amardinomal, Mrs. Kala Prakash and Mr. Phatan Purswani has been quite significant.

A major poet Kishinchnad Bewas who is credited to have changed the course of Sindhi poetry from Persianised content of Gul-Bulbul, Saqui- Maikahna- the caprice of hair style of beloved, to themes of the weal and woes of ordinary masses and changed the diction of Sindhi poetry, was greatly influenced by Tagore. He used to organize weekly classes to study Gitanjali at Gyan Bagh at Larkana. He composed a memorable and heart rending poem on the demise of Tagore.

On the occasion of Tagore centenary in 1961 most of literary magazines notably Kahani, Tasweer, Naeen Duniyan, brought out special issues on Tagore and his contribution to Sindhi literature. Mr. A J Uttam a prominent ‘progressive’ critic wrote a book ‘Tagore Hika nazar’ (Tagore one glance) However Rabindra sangeet failed to make any impact in Sindh. I now understand that this is the case in other languages also. Here I will quote from a recent book “Rabindranath Tagore The Singer and His song” by Reba Som. It says, ‘In an ardhanarishwar combination the lyrics and the melody work in tandem to create the artistic balance that was Tagore’s endeavour……his songs have to be translated and explained in cultural context.” I feel that it would be an apt tribute to Gurudev on the occasion of 150th anniversary if his songs are translated in all Indian Languages and set to tune in tradition of Rabindra sangeet. It will be a unique gift to the nation and befitting tribute to great songster that India has ever produced. It is hoped that Sahitya Akademi And Sangeet Natak Akadmi will collaborate in this venture.

A significant contribution of Tagore for Sindh has been through Shanti Niketan. Tagore established this educational institution as a continuation of Indian tradition, which held holistic view of the development of an individual in concert with nature and brought out the best potential through inculcation of discipline, as against the Macaulayvian method of education by rote, imitation and imposition of discipline through regimentation. In the initial years itself Mr. Uttamchand joined Shanti Niketan as a part of its faculty. He was among first four teachers to join this institution. Many more followed as students but those who have left their mark in the society need a mention here. Mr. Krishin Kripalani joined Shanti Niketan in the year 1933. He remained here as Bengal claimed him to be one of its own as he married into Tagore family and remained here for the most part in Bengal. He held many important positions at Shanti Niketan. He was first secretary of Sahitya Akademi when it was established. In 1976 he was invited to participate in commonwealth festival at London and gave an illuminating lecture on ‘Gitanjali.’ He was considered as an authority on literature and life of Rabindranath Tagore.

First Student from Sindh was Girdharilal Kripalani. His contribution to translation of Tagore’s literature to into Sindhi has already been recorded.

Sobho Gianchandani, who came to Shanti Niketan and was fondly called by Gurudev as a person from Mohen Jo daro and he opened up the doors of his personal library to him to quench his thirst for knowledge. Now even in his old age of 92 years he remains on his native soil in Sindh (Pakistan). He carries aloft the torch of humanistic, socialist and secular values and is a beacon of light for his innumerable followers, strangely in a country which is ravaged by Fundamentalist terrorist violence. He remained undeterred by intermittent spells in jail by various successive governments!

Mr. Kishen Khatwani joined Shanti Niketan to study Painting. Partition of the country changed his life and instead of paint brush he had to take up pen for his expression. In his writings he developed his unique lyrical, intense and restrained style. His writings have undeniable imprint of Bengali ethos. He won Sahitya Akademi award and was member of Sahitya Akademi executive board.

Mr. Methram Dharmani joined Shanti Niketan after partition of the county. He learnt painting and sculpture at Shanti Niketan and today he has privilege to be one of the noted sculptors in the county.

It would be needless to say that Shanti Niketan had an inclusive cultural approach. As for Sindh is concerned the similarity of Sindhi and Bengali ethos or for that reason Indian ethos could be cited from the fact that at Shanti Niketan during year 1932-33 lectures were organized on Sufi saints of Sindh. The lectures were delivered by Prof. Gurdail Mullick and were published in a book for titled “Divine Dwellers in the Desert.” This book has seen two reprints.

In tragic aftermath of partition of the country Sindhi Hindus had to leave their land and are now scattered throughout India as dry leaves in the wake of storm. We constitute less than half a percent of Indian Population, yet we are proud inheritors of the legacy of one of the oldest human civilization in the world. We carry in our heart the noblest traditions and values that form the core of culture. We are proud of our language, literature and rich culture. We know that we do not have even an inch of land under our feet in this vast country- yet we live proudly, when we hear the national anthem and we hear word ‘SINDH’, blood rushes to our hearts ,our heads bow before Rabindranath Tagore. He lives in the very breath of our hearts.

__________________________________

(Mohan Gehani is a noted Sindhi scholar, playwright, translator and poet, born in Karachi (Sind) on January 20, 1938. This Paper was read at the seminar of Sahitya Akademi held at Kolkata on 10th and 11^th May 2012)

Courtesy: Sindhi Sangat

The post Reception of Tagore in Sindhi Literature first appeared on Sindh Courier.