Arvind Kumar
Arvind's Journey
This section covers Arvind's life in Meerut, his family, and his early childhood stories.
This section covers Arvind's academic life and his entry into the world of journalism at Delhi Press as a typesetter.
This section covers Arvind's move to Mumbai to start Madhuri, his marriage with Kusum, and his life in the 60s and 70s.
This section covers Arvind's life-changing decision to create the world's first Hindi thesaurus and all the works that followed.
Arvind Kumar was born in a small dark room in Meerut on the evening of 17th January 1930 into the locally well-known clan of Lalawallas. Arvind’s birth was an occasion of great joy for the family since his parents, Ramkali and Lakshman Swaroop, had lost their first newborn just a year ago.
Arvind began his education in the local municipality school in Meerut. A bright student, a topper in class IV, Arvind won first prize for his essay on the Nauchandi fair. After moving to Delhi, Arvind went to study at the Khalsa High School in Karol Bagh’s Gurudwara. The move to a new city and a new environment proved beneficial for Arvind. He excelled academically once again, obtaining four distinctions in his matriculation exam but couldn't continue his studies due to the family's economic condition.
In the late 1950s, Arvind bought a small piece of land in Model Town and had to borrow money to construct the house… after nearly two decades, the family had a house of their own.
In 1959, Arvind married Meerut-born Kusum, his prime consideration being her BA-LT degree which would supplement his income in running a family of six and in paying off the money borrowed for construction of the Model Town home. Kusum went on to play a monumental role in the creation of Samantar Kosh: supporting her husband’s decision to quit a well-paying glamorous job as editor of Madhuri, working with him in collecting and collating data for Samantar Kosh, bringing up children with meager resources, and facing all challenges resolutely during the 20 long years that it took to create Samantar Kosh.
Arvind and Kusum have two children: Dr Sumeet Kumar (MBBS and MS degrees from Seth G S Medical College, Mumbai) and Meeta Lall (MSc Nutrition from Lady Irwin College, University of Delhi).
Arvind was introduced to lexicography in 1953 when a friend took Arvind to Galgotia’s bookstore in Delhi and bought him a small book: Roget’s Thesaurus.
And Arvind’s heart burst out: I wish Hindi too had a thesaurus like this!
By 1955, Arvind had become Executive Editor for the Hindi, English, and Urdu magazines published by the Delhi Press group including Sarita, Mukta, and Caravan. Arvind found the wide scope and social relevance of these magazines deeply relevant and derived satisfaction from his contribution in influencing the young post-independence generation.
In 1963, Arvind was invited by the proprietor of The Times of India group, Rama Jain, to launch a new film magazine in Hindi from Bombay (now Mumbai). And 33-year-old Arvind became the youngest editor of Madhuri.
Madhuri became a household name.
All audio-visual instances of Madhuri, the magazine belong to Bennett Coleman & Co. Pvt. Ltd. This video is a snippet from the documentary film, "Shabd Saarthi/ Thesaurus Man - Arvind Kumar".
Madhuri taught its readers to appreciate films as a quintessential art form and not just as a glamor world made up of larger-than-life film stars. Its long format journalism covered every aspect of film making as well as the people who work in the film including character artistes, comedians, villains, and also people working behind the scenes. The magazine introduced world cinema and regional cinema to its audience. Madhuri valued feedback from its readers and encouraged their wholehearted participation in its publication.
‘Shilalekh’, a unique feature which Arvind serialized for the magazine for a number of years, was a remarkable, never-before-tried format of film narration ~ an experiential shot-by-shot, word-to-word description of the film in graphic detail with extensive commentary on the use of expressions, camera, music, songs, setting, lighting, costumes as well as distinct style and techniques of direction. It informed the reader about the specific elements and techniques that contribute to the impact of a scene. Arvind ‘shilalekh’ed’ many classics including films like Mahal, Pyaasa, Aadmi, Baazi, Devdas, Dhool ka Phool and many others.
Arvind was the flagbearer of the evolving art cinema movement in the 1970s. He coined the Hindi equivalent for such cinema: Samantar Cinema which till then was referred to as ‘Parallel Cinema.’ The idea of compiling a thesaurus in Hindi – a feat not yet accomplished by anyone until then – came to Arvind on the night of 26th December 1973. Madhuri was doing well; yet Arvind missed the satisfaction of editing socially relevant magazines like Sarita and Caravan.
Work on Samantar Kosh began on 19th April 1976 in Nashik. The family – Arvind, wife Kusum and children Sumeet and Meeta – took a holy dip in the river Godavari, got the date inscribed on a copper urn, and signed on the first card of the thesaurus, then named Shabdeshwari. For two years, Arvind laid the groundwork for the thesaurus in mornings and evenings along with his Madhuri job. Kusum too would help him in collecting data from various sources. Arvind calculated that if he worked fulltime, it would take about two years to complete the thesaurus.
And then as planned, after the family had saved enough money to last them a couple of years, Arvind quit Madhuri, and the family, on 15th May 1978, returned to his parents’ home in Delhi. To fulfill his dream of making a thesaurus in Hindi. With him was his enthusiasm, his courage, his family.
The making of Samantar Kosh took 20 years of painstaking research and imagination during which innumerable trials and tribulations tested the couple’s devotion and dedication to their purpose. A dream that could be realized only when their surgeon son Dr Sumeet Kumar organized funds to buy a computer and then, learning software programming, designed a program to computerize the fast-expanding database. Computerization of the data helped Arvind finetune the structure of the thesaurus, sort and collate the data, and provide the output as print-ready pages for publishing.
13 December 1996
The Kumar duo - Arvind & Kusum – created history when they presented a copy of Samantar Kosh to President Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma - ~ a full twenty years after the first card had been written in 1976. The first-ever thesaurus in Hindi! A collection of 160,000 expressions and the culmination of Arvind’s untiring devotion of 20 long years. Without financial support from any individual or institution.
Published by National Book Trust in 1996 as its first offering to the nation in the Golden Jubilee year of Independence, Samantar Kosh was an instant success. Samantar Kosh was further expanded and updated by Arvind and published by National Book Trust India in 2013.
Samantar Kosh was a resounding success. It was welcomed wholeheartedly by all and hailed as ‘The Book of the Century.’ The ultimate compliment came from a Hindi weekly which declared Samantar Kosh as ‘A golden dot on Hindi’s forehead.’ Writer and editor Mr. Khushwant Singh wrote: “It filled a lacuna and brought the Hindi language at par with the English.”
For Arvind, existence always meant work. He was never one to rest on his laurels. Following the release of Samantar Kosh, Arvind began a project to link Hindi and English and develop a bilingual thesaurus that would have worldwide utility. And thus began the journey of the Penguin English-Hindi/Hindi-English Thesaurus and Dictionary...
Published by Penguin India in 2007 and now wholly owned by Arvind Linguistics LLP, this three-volume bilingual thesaurus works as 4-in-1 reference tool: an English to Hindi thesaurus, Hindi to English thesaurus and as standalone English and Hindi thesauruses. It facilitates seamless transition from one language to the other and is especially useful for Indians who use both these languages in everyday life.
After the successful release of the bilingual Penguin Thesaurus and Dictionary, Arvind and his family focussed on making his work accessible to people around the world.
His entire database (the largest bilingual corpus to exist) was published online in 2011 as Arvind Lexicon Online.
This database is available in two editions to subscribers.
1) A free, limited edition of words and expressions
2) A paid, professional edition (INR 3,000/year) that has more than 10 lac expressions in Hindi and English comprising synonyms, antonyms, related & opposite concepts, definitions and sample phrases in English, Hindi, and Roman side-by-side
A new and innovative linguistic tool that allows word search in English, Hindi and transliterated Roman script which is especially useful for those who cannot type or read Devanagari.