Bachan Pathak 'Salil', retired professor of Hindi at Jamshedpur Women 's College. Picture by Bhola Prasad.

Born and brought up at Rahatahua, a small village in Buxar, Bihar, this 68-year-old took to poetry when he was barely 10. He went to a high school at Brahampur, two km from his village, lived with a widowed mother and a four-year-older brother. At the age of 10, when he suffixed ?Salil? to his name, it was just another word. Today, however, he feels he has been able to live up to his alias, which means ?water? in Hindi.

For noted writer Bachan Pathak ?Salil?, his writing has been so similar to water, neither adhering to a school of thought nor restricting to a clich? form, that they were always marked with a flow of its own. No wonder his unique style of writing has ranked him among the most popular poets and novelists.

?When I came to Jamshedpur in 1955, I had to fend for myself and giving tuitions to young children seemed to be the best option.? So, Pathak would teach during the day and attend college at Mrs KMPM Inter College in the evening. He topped his Inter examinations and scored the highest in B.A. Hindi.

?My brother encouraged me to write, but it was my first cousin Shubhnarayan Pathak, who goaded me to take it seriously and it was because of his support that I earned accolades for my writing even while I was in college,? reminisces Pathak.

From poems to short stories, novels to a collection of essays, the writer tried his hand at everything and produced some of the best works. Pathak, who had researched on the works of Premchand for his Ph.D. degree way back in 1968 now has students studying his works for their doctorate degrees.

In Hindi novels Sneh Ke Aansu and Dhula Aanchal were appreciated, while his collection of poems Sarvodaya Suman received rave reviews. Kavayang Darpan was his book of couplets and octaves.

A lot of writing was done in Hindi and Sanskrit. ?The urge to write in Bhojpuri grew in me after I visited Surinam, a Caribbean country, in 2003,? asserts Pathak who believes that Surinam ke Tat Par is very instinctive. ?Authors are anyway driven by instincts. But an incident at the World Hindi Conference at Surinam urged me to pen this poem immediately. It is one of my favourites,? he says.

Four decades of writing has been honoured by one and all. The list is long but Amrit Puraskar, Rashtriya Sadbhavna Puraskar, Swami Pranavanand Award and Bhojpuri Mulan Samman are some of the awards that Pathak holds close to his heart.

Pathak is always invited to religious discourses of Ramcharit Manas at various places, be it in Dhanbad, Chakradharpur or at the Tensa Hills near Rourkela.

Pathak is a columnist as well. ?I write in both Hindi and Bhojpuri. I am regularly on All-India Radio and it feels real good when young speakers come up to me to get their scripts checked for programmes like Pallav and Angana,? smiles Pathak.

An adviser with the Freedom Fighter Successors? Organisation, a trustee of Bhartiya Tarun Sangh, a patron of Bishwajeet Manimela, president of Kavyalok, Pathak at 68, remains awfully busy, thanks to his association with various social and cultural organisations in the city.

Savvy Soumya