Faces of India – 355 Shri Dr. Vasant Nirgune
Faces of India
a series through which I intend to portray the various characters of my country whom I met during my travels. I bring back souvenirs, frozen moments from my travels, why not some memories of people I have met and interacted during the travels. Faces of India is a weekly series in my blog since MARCH 2011. See more here…
Dr Vasant Nirgune
To plan out a trip through Tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh, understanding the tribal culture, heritage and art is no easy task. Someone knowledgeable about the tribes has to handhold us through our journey. Folks of Times Passion Trail did the wisest thing by appointing Sahitya Academy winner, Shri Vasant Nirgune Sir as our guide through this trail.
I must mention here that during our last Times Passion Trail through heritage sites of Madhya Pradesh, they had taken Padma Shri K K Muhammed as our guide. You can read about him here: Faces of India 350 – KK Muhammed.
Dr Vasant Nirgune was born in Maheshwar (Dist West Nimad) in 1941. After acquiring Masters in Sanskrit classical, he debuted his career as a lecturer. He is winner of Janjati Bhasha Samman by Sahitya Akademi Award in 2015 for research in relation to the Bhili language.
Dr Nirgune has been felicitated with prestigious awards like Gangor Samman-1997, Ahilya Samman-1998, Shresth Kalacharya-1999 etc. He retired as Survey Officer from Madhya Pradesh Aadiwasi Lok Kala Parishad and presently working with IGRMS under Tagore National Fellowship.
In his five decade long career Nirgune sir has written several books related to tribal people’s lives, their habits, and lifestyle. They are in Hindi. Efforts are on to translate the books he said. At each of our destinations he gave us a descriptive explanation of the historic significance of the place.
He knew each place like the back of his hand. He personally knows several tribal artists, who came forward to touch his feet when they saw him. At 82 years young, he is a walking encyclopaedia of tribal people of Madhya Pradesh.
Some of the books written by Dr. Vasant Nirgune are:
Rituals of Bheel tribes – Birth to Death
Madhya Pradesh ki Lok kathayein
Madhya Pradesh ki Lok Nritya
Lok Sanskriti
Adim Pura Kathayen
Bike Huye Log
Jivan Mein Lok Vigyan
with Nirgune Sir
I do enjoy reading your face of India blog posts and it was wonderful to find out more about Dr Vasant Nirgune and his achievements. I hope to look for a copy of his books as well
It is so interesting to learn about authors I have not heard of before! Thank you so much for sahring.
Oh wow, it really does sound like you had just the right person taking you on the trip. It sounds like he is very qualified for this role.
What a wonderful series you have here. It was wonderful to learn about Dr Vasant and his many accomplishments!
This sounds really interesting. I will definitely check those books.
Dr. Nirgune sounds fascinating. I would love to be able to read his books translated into English. What an interesting man!
He sounds like an incredible man. Thank you for sharing his story with us! It’s amazing.
Nice series! I can’t wait to go back to India one day but for the meantime, this is a lovely way to dip your toe into such a culturally rich country.
I love love love the idea of this series, that is amazing. I am so excited and intrigued by all the amazing and wonderful people you meet when you travel. Shri Dr. Vasant is awesome.