Haldhar NagShri Haldhar Nag was born on 31 March 1950, in a village in Bargarh district of Odisha. Hailing from a modest background, Haldhar Nag did not receive a formal education. He did many odd jobs, in his childhood for a living. His different jobs include erforming on and off in theatre groups and other village troupes, where he gave expression to his artistic talents. He took up work as a cook in a school hostel, and later set up a small cabin-shop selling stationery for students in the vicinity of that school. During his association with schools, he started writing folk songs in his mother tongue, Kosali (the language is also known as Sambalpuri-Kosali). His writings were appreciated, and soon he recognized his own talent and started writing more poems. The first poem he wrote, and which was published in 1990, in a local magazine, was Dhado Bargachh (The Old Banyan Tree). He then sent out another four poems to that magazine, and all got published. Nag soon gained considerable fame for writing poetry with social themes. Since then, there has been no stopping him. He has written several hundreds of poems of which he has not kept a count. Some of his poetic works include long narratives like Mahasati Urmila, Bachhar, Achhia, Tara Mandodari, each between 200 to 300 stanzas in length; the longest one exceeds 1300 verses. His poems carry a message for the people, and he covers themes like oppression, social issues, nature, religion, mythology. He remembers all his poems by heart and sings them out to gatherings and crowds from his mind like a minstrel. Thus, his popularity grew as a bard. He was recognized formally as 'Lok Kabi Ratna' by Prayog Anushthan in 1997 in a ceremony held in his honor. He received the Sahitya Akademy Award in 2014. He was awarded Padma Shri for literature in 2016. He was also bestowed with the LifeTime Achievement Award by LIC Gateway Literary Festival Organization in 2017. The latest feather in his cap is the Bhasha Samman by Kendra Sahitya Akademy in January 2019. The same year, a doctorate was conferred on him by Sambalpur University. The poetry of Haldhar Nag has become the subject for theses by seven students of whom two have earned their PhD in literature. His poems have been translated into several languages. Prominent among these is the collection of English translations compiled as Kavyanjali Vol-1 to Kavyanjali Vol 4. Besides, his poems have also appeared in Hindi, Nepali, Bengali, Kannada and Tamil languages. Read More Read Less