Buddhadeb Guha

Buddhadeb Guha (29 June 1936 – 29 August 2021) was an Indian writer of fiction in Bengali language. Apart from writing, he was a trained singer and a painter too. Born in Calcutta, Guha studied at St. Xavier's College of the University of Calcutta. He spent his early years in various districts of Eastern Bengal (now Bangladesh). Those days in Rangpur, Jaipurhat and Barisal are depicted in his Rivu series. Some of the Rivu books are dedicated to friends from his youth. He was also the creator of Rijuda, an imaginary character who explores jungles with his sidekick Rudra. The jungles that he wrote about were mainly in Eastern India. Guha received Ananda Puraskar in 1976. He was a chartered accountant by profession. Apart from writing, Guha was a trained singer of Rabindra Sangeet which he learned at the famous Tagore school of music Dakshinee and later also trained in Hindustani classical music and in old style Tappa songs from Ramkumar Chattopadhyay and Chandidas Mal. He was also a gifted painter and towards the end of his life, when his eyesight began to fail and he began to dictate his writings, he fell back on painting which he was self-taught in but was very good at.