Pabitra Sarkar

Pabitra Sarkar is a person with many interests and identities, including those of a linguist, literary critic, actor, and theatre person, children's writer, man involved in various aspects of performed culture, grammarian, and Rabindra Sangeet singer. Pabitra, born in a Dhaka village in 1937, was an adopted son in a family that crossed the partitioned border in 1947. After passing his B.A. Honors Exam and M.A., he went on to teach Bangla literature at my own Bangabasi College and then at Jadavpur University. He was the Vice Chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University from 1990 to 1997. He then served as Vice-Chairman of the West Bengal State Council for Higher Education. He was interested in theatre in addition to teaching.

He did some acting, first at Dipen Sengupta's Anukar and then at Nandikar, directed by Ajitesh Bandyopadhyay. Later, he began writing about theatre and became an active theatre reviewer in both Bangla and English, writing for almost all Bangla newspapers, most notably Anandabazar , and The Statesman in English. The 'Professor' in Eugene Ionesco's The Lesson, translated as Nilima in Bangla, is regarded as his best stage performance. He married Maitreyi Bandyopadhyay, a classmate from his M.A. class. They have two wonderful daughters, Vasudhiti and Vasudhara. Pabitra Sarkar traveled extensively, visiting approximately nineteen countries abroad and covering a large portion of India.

Canada, England, France, Italy, Greece, Germany, China, Japan, Egypt, Turkey, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and, of course, Bangladesh are among the countries visited. He has retired from his jobs, but he has not retired from life. He is a professor at Calcutta University and several colleges, including Belur Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandir. And attend various programs across the country as he is invited.