Early Life
Ishwar Chandra Gupta was brought up in his uncle's house after the death of his mother. Gupta spent most of his childhood in Kolkata. At that time, poets were named Kobiwala and the kobiwalas were not so civilized in language. Sexual words and clashes were common. But Ishwar Chandra Gupta created a different style of poetry.
He started the newspaper Sambad Prabhakar with Jogendra Mohan Tagore on on January 28, 1831. which finally became a daily on June 4, 1839. Many Bengali writers of the 19th century started their career with that magazine. He reintroduced into Bengali poetry the mediaeval style with double meaning (already seen in Sandhyakaranandi and Bharatchandra):
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- কে বলে ঈশ্বর গুপ্ত, ব্যপ্ত চরাচর,
- যাহার প্রভায় প্রভা পায় প্রভাকর।
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- Ke bole Ishwar Gupta, byapta charachar,
- Jahar prabhaye prabha paye Prabhakar..
'Ishwar' means God, 'Gupta' means hidden and 'Prabhakar' is the sun.So a translation runs:
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- Who says God is hidden? He is omnipresent
- From Him the Sun gets its luminescence.
Also, Ishwar (Chandra) Gupta ran the journal 'Prabhakar'. So a second meaning of the poem, making a tongue-in-cheek reference to the author, runs:
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- Who says Ishwar (Gupta) is hidden? His reach touches the world
- For his brilliance makes the Prabhakar luminiscent.
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