Distinguished French award given to Prithvindra Mukherjee

Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

July 31, 2009

French Government has announced the decoration of Prithwindra Mukherjee with the insignia of the “Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.” The ceremony was attended by eminent members of French and Indian communities including Ambassador Ranjan Mathai.

Prithwindra Mukherjee, was born in Calcutta in 1936. He was only eleven when he joined Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry where he learnt several Indian and European languages, studied the philosophy of the Samkhya, the Vedanta and Heraclitus, and practised Hindustani, Karnatik and Western music.

Before the age of twenty, he was mentioned in the manuals and the anthologies of the Indian Academy of Letters as a poet.

In 1966 he received a scholarship from the French Government and was appointed lecturer by the University of Paris III (Langues Orientales) and soon after by the Department of Philosophy in Paris XII University.

During the creation of Bangladesh, he published a full page of “Poems from Bangladesh” in the French newspaper LE MONDE and in 1979 he published his first collection of verses in French LE SERPENT DE FLAMMES.

In 1974 he registered in the University of Paris IV for a “Doctorat d'Etat” thesis on “Intellectual Roots of India's Freedom (1893-1918)”, received a Fulbright scholarship to work on this thesis in the United States Archives and got his doctorate degree in 1986.

In the mean time, in 1981 he represented Radio-France at the Festival of Rennes (France) and recorded the Drums from Burundi, Dervish songs from Turkey, the diphonic yodling from Mongolia. He joined CNRS (France) in 1981 in the Department of Ethnomusicology and worked on the scales of Indian music. He has published about four hundred articles in Bengali, French and English, as well as a dozen LPs and CDs and two documentary films released by CNRS.

Among other recognitions as a poet he was invited to dinner twice by the former Prime Minister of France Dominique de Villepin a lover of poetry and poets.

In 2003 he took retirement but he has continued to work on the projects that had remained unfinished during his CNRS life.

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