Writer and lawyer Sourindramohan Mukhopadhyay was born on this day.
After getting his law degree he began to practise at the police court in the city. But he had entered the field of literature much earlier. He had first published a story in a Bengali journal when he was 14. He received the Kuntalin prize in 1902 on winning a literary competition.
From 1915 to 1923 he edited the Bengali periodical Bharati with his friend Manilal Gangyopadhyay.
Mukhopadhyay was a prolific writer, who wrote across genres: songs, poems, stories, novels, plays, film scripts, translations, travelogues, humorous sketches and the supernatural. He wrote about 200 books, which included Lalkuthi, Nirjhar and Kajari.
He was closely associated with Rabindranath Tagore. He intervened when Tagore, who had lost a favourite pen, was asked by the police to appear in person at Lalbazar to claim the pen back. But after Mukhopadhyay spoke to the authorities he was allowed to collect the pen on Tagore’s behalf.
Suchitra Mitra, the eminent Rabindrasangeet singer, was Mukhopadhyay’s daughter.