'Dilip Chitre was the rarest of the rare!'

It will not be wrong to say that poet-writer-filmmaker Dilip Chitre, who passed away on Thursday, was the rarest of rare people. He was a multi-faceted personality who made a mark in the world of filmmaking, music, writing, and translations.

As a gifted all-rounder, he was able to view human beings in a holistic manner and this was reflected in his writing and poetry.

There were two influences in Chitre's life that were very important. His maternal grandfather Kashinath Gupte was an expert on Sant Tukaram and this served as Chitre's childhood introduction to the 17th century poet.

Chitre's father Purshottam used to publish a popular Marathi magazine called Abhiruchi in Vadodara. This is how Chitre's literary journey began. As a student of literature in Mumbai, Chitre began writing for the Marathi magazine Satyakatha. This shaped his later career.

It was amazing how Chitre managed to work in so many fields. He was at different times of his distinguished career a journalist, an advertising executive, a teacher, a filmmaker, and a poet.

Of course, Chitre's greatest strength was his ability to write with impact in both English and Marathi. He was a powerful writer and poet in both languages and a very efficient translator. He translated Sant Dnyaneshwar's text Amrutanubhav into English, Sant Tukaram's abhangs into English in his popular book Says Tuka, Namdeo Dhasal's poems, and even Patthe Bapurao's famous Marathi lavni. Chitre is perhaps the only person to have got two awards from the Sahitya Akademi, one for his writing and the other for his translations.

His contribution to popularise Sant Tukaram's works is immense. His book Says Tuka in English was translated into multiple international languages and went a long way in popularising Tukaram's work across the world. Chitre wrote boldly and said, "Poetry as a genre is incomplete without Tukaram!" He was of the opinion that Tukaram was not just a Marathi poet but an international one.

An important book that Chitre authored was Punha Tukaram in which he listed some of Tukaram's select poems, commented on them, and analysed several Marathi poets in relation to Tukaram. Chitre was always of the opinion that Marathi poets must review themselves constantly by keeping Tukaram as a benchmark.

Involved as he was in Tukaram literature, Chitre had a soft corner for the warkaris of Maharashtra. Very often, when foreign students or researchers visited Pune, he took them on a tour to Pandharpur during the warkari padyatra. He also loved to visit the Bhandara hill near Dehu which has multiple Buddhist caves. Tukaram used to meditate on this hill and Chitre never lost an opportunity to visit it in the company of his friends, both Indian and foreign.

A little known fact about Chitre is that he won several awards for his Hindi feature film Godam. He also wrote the script for Shashi Kapoor's war film Vijeta and made a documentary on poet Dhasal. He will be missed.

(As told to Rahul Chandawarkar)