Eminent Assamese Litterateur Dr Basanta Kumar Bhattacharyya No More

Eminent Assamese writer, poet, and academic Dr Basanta Kumar Bhattacharyya passed away on Wednesday morning at his residence in Nalbari. He was 83 and had been battling illness for a long time, sources said.

Born on February 1, 1942, Dr Bhattacharyya was a towering figure in Assamese literature. Over the decades, he contributed as a short story writer, poet, essayist, playwright, and critic, with works that explored the depths of human emotion and social realities.

He began his education in village schools and later studied at Cotton College and Gauhati University. Though he enrolled in Guwahati Medical College, illness forced him to discontinue. He eventually completed his Master’s in Assamese and began teaching at Barnagar College, later joining Nalbari College in 1968, where he served as Head of the Assamese Department until his retirement in 2002.

As a teacher and researcher, he guided 15 PhD scholars and played a key role in establishing several junior colleges. His notable short story collections include Protest, The Sky is Blue, Unattached Voices, and Fragments of Dreams and Nightmares. His poetry collections such as Your Heart’s Warmth and Sometimes Alone in the Desert were widely admired for their lyrical beauty and emotional depth.

Dr Bhattacharyya remained an active literary voice till his final years. His passing is a great loss to Assam’s literary and academic fraternity.

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