Tapeswar Sharma wins Sahitya Akademi Translation Award

From our Correspondent

MANGALDAI, Feb 23: The SahityaAkademi has conferred its Translation Award in Assamese on Tapeswar Sharma for the year 2016.

Tapeswar Sharma, an octogerian retired officer of the Assam Civil Service and a resident of Santipur, Mangaldai, has been selectedfor this prestigious literary award for his book titled Upanisad –Padyanubad where he translated the Upanisads, collection of Sanskrit texts and considered to be the end part of Vedic literature, to Assamese language in the form of poems. The award reportedly relates to the translations first published during the five years prior to the year immediately preceding the year of Award for Translation (i.e. between the years 2010 and 2014). The award carries an amount of Rs 50,000 and a copper plaque which will be presented to the recipients at a special function to be held sometime later this year.

Born in village Borigaon of Deomornoi area of Darrang district, Sharma used to study culture and literature since his childhood days and many of his thought-provoking articles are published in different newspapers and magazines on a regular basis for which he has already earned the literary pension of the State Government.

The award-winning book has been published by Balata,  a leading publication house of Guwahati, and looking into the importance and standard of the book during its draft publication, the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore reportedly extended its support by bearing 80 percent of the cost of its first publication.

Talking to this correspondent after hearing the news of his award, Tapeswar Sharma expressed his delight and satisfaction for getting his literary works being recognized in such an amazing way. “I am really delighted and have no words to express it and at the same time I am also surprised to know. It is the outcome of the well wishes of the people around me and I am really pleased that I could bring pride to Darrang as well as Assam,” he said.  Regarding his book he said, “Upanisads are quite serious ture of literary work, so it is not considered for the common readers, the reason why it failed to get necessary publicity. However, I am hopeful that from now it will get good publicity and common readers will go through it.”