North Maharashtra University will now be named after 'Bahinabai'- Maharashtra's favourite farmer poet who composed poems on daily life, relationships and nature as she grounded flour on her grinding stone.
The Maharashtra Cabinet on Thursday passed a decision to the effect. A household name in every Marathi home, Bahinabai was illiterate and never went to school. The university will be now called the Kaviyatri Bahinabai Chaudhari North Maharashtra University.
Some renowned poem lines (Ovi) of Bahinabai are -- Adhi Hatale Chatake, Tehva Milate Bhakar (In life while making rotis you burn your fingers and only then you get to eat them) or Shikisani kora kagad pan hos shahana ( Even a blank paper gets illuminated through education)
Another renowned poem is 'Man Vadhay Vadhay, Ubhya Pikatla Dhor/ Kiti Hakal Hakal, Phiri Yete Pikavar' ( The mind is like a calf wandering in the crop/ you may choose to shoo it away and yet it comes back.) The farmer poet from Jalgaon used to compose her songs verbally in a dialect of Khandeshi-Ahirani.
In the last State Assembly session, senior BJP leader Eknath Khadse had demanded the renaming of North Maharashtra University after poetess Bahinabai Chaudhari. Interestingly, Bahinabai had sung these Ahirani songs for all occasions from birth to death. She had also targeted bad rituals prevalent in the society and depicted farmers, women and labourers lives aptly.
Krishna Patil, Ahirani dialect, and Sahitya Akademi awardee from Jalgaon told DNA that Bahinabai’s son Sopandev Chaudhari who himself was a poet after her mother's death showed her poems to famous Marathi poet PK Atre.
"Atre praised Bahinabai poems and termed them as pure ‘24 carat gold’. Many poems of Bahinabai had lost because these poems were not documented properly. Following which the poems got publicity in state and national platforms,” Patil said.
Stating that renaming the University after Bahinabai name is a good move, Patil added, "She never visited school still she wrote world class poems that are still relevant today. This is good recognition and a moment of pride for us writers. It will also encourage young writers to write in their own language. It is always better to rename the institutions on such great people rather than on personalities that stir controversies.”
