Arvind Kumar (lexicographer) explained

Arvind Kumar
Birth Date: 17 January 1930
Birth Place:Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India
Death Place:New Delhi, India
Years Active:1945–2021
Spouse:Kusum Kumar
Children:2

Arvind Kumar (17 January 1930 – 26 April 2021) was an Indian journalist, art-drama-film critic, short story writer, translator, and lexicographer.

He has authored Samantar Kosh (published by National Book Trust in 1996), the first-ever thesaurus in Hindi or any modern Indian language as well as a three volume bilingual thesaurus and dictionary, The Penguin English-Hindi/ Hindi-English Thesaurus & Dictionary (published by Penguin India in 2007)[1] which has 2,823,630 English and Hindi words.

He digitized his works on Arvind Lexicon, a database published online in 2011 and accessible via subscription. This database is a repository of one million expressions in English and Hindi.

Prior to publishing his lexicographical works, Arvind worked as Executive Editor of Delhi Press group magazines Sarita, Mukta and Caravan (1953-1963), Founder-Editor of The Times of India group’s Hindi film magazine Madhuri (1963-1978),[2] and Founder-Editor of the Hindi edition of The Reader’s Digest, Sarvottam (1980-1985)[3]

His autobiography, ShabdVedh, was published in 2016 and released at the Jaipur Literature Festival.[4]

A documentary film based on Arvind's life and lexical works, Thesaurus Man - Arvind Kumar, was released on YouTube on April 26, 2023.[5] [6]

Early life and career

Arvind Kumar was born in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh on 17 January 1930.[7]

Arvind began his education in the local municipality school, and then Vaishya school, where he studied till class VIII. When dire economic circumstances compelled the family to move to Delhi, he completed Matriculation in Khalsa High School in Karol Bagh’s Gurudwara, obtaining distinction in four subjects. Despite being offered a scholarship, household circumstances did not permit him to study further, and at the age of 15, he began to work in Delhi Press, as an assistant to the compositor in the printing press.[8]

Over the next ten years, he worked in almost every department of the press as a compositor, machine man, binder, block maker, cashier, typist and proofreader and completed his BA (1953) and MA English (1955) from Panjab University.[9] By 1955, Arvind had become Executive Editor for Hindi, English and Urdu magazines published by Delhi Press group including Sarita (magazine), Mukta and The Caravan.

Often in translating stories from Hindi to English, it would be difficult for Arvind to find the correct words and it was during these days that a friend introduced Arvind to Roget’s Thesaurus; he could not find an equivalent lexicographical work in Hindi.

Arvind then moved to Mumbai to launch Madhuri.,[10] The Times of India Group’s new Hindi film magazine (1963-1978) Madhuri steered clear of all gossip content.[11] It taught its readers to appreciate every aspect of film making as well as world cinema and regional cinema.[12]

Arvind also launched Sarvottam, the Hindi edition of the international magazine Reader’s Digest, from Delhi (1980-1985).[13]

Lexicography

He resigned from Madhuri in 1978[14] to fulfil his dream of making a thesaurus in Hindi and spent 20 years researching, authoring and compiling the first-ever thesaurus in Hindi Samantar Kosh which was published by the National Book Trust India in 1996.[15]

Arvind with his wife Kusum presented the first copy of Samantar Kosh to the President of India, Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma on 13 December 1996.[16] Published in India’s Golden Jubilee year of Independence, Samantar Kosh has been reprinted six times and has sold more than 20,000 copies. The Hindu described Samantar Kosh as "vastly inclusive, user friendly and a golden dot on Hindi’s forehead."

After the release of Samantar Kosh, Arvind then began work on developing a bilingual thesaurus to link Hindi with English. And eleven years later, the three-volume Penguin English-Hindi/Hindi-English Thesaurus & Dictionary with five and a half lakh expressions was published by Penguin India in 2007.[17] This Work is 3,154 pages long, the three volumes weigh 5 kg and are a home for 500,000 expressions.

In addition to these two works, Arvind has compiled Arvind Sahaj Samantar Kosh, the first alphabetical Hindi thesaurus; Shabdeshwari, a thesaurus of Indian mythological names – the first-ever in any language; Brihat Samantar Kosh, a revised and extended edition of Samantar Kosh; Arvind Word Power: English-Hindi, a ready reference alphabetical dictionary, thesaurus and mini-encyclopedia, and Arvind Tukant Kosh, a book of 57,000 rhyming words.

All of Arvind’s lexicographical can be found in his web-based database, Arvind Lexicon, comprising a total of 1,012,754 Hindi and English expressions and words.[18]

Published works

Lexical works by Arvind Kumar (in order of publication)

Other works by Arvind Kumar (in order of publication)

Personal life

In 1959, Arvind married Kusum and they have two children together, Dr Sumeet Kumar and Meeta Lall. Kusum is a co-author for many of Arvind's lexicographic works. Meeta is the CEO of Arvind’s publishing company, Arvind Linguistics, that publishes all his lexicographical works.[30]

Sumeet, in the early 1990s, realized the importance of computerizing Arvind’s fast- expanding database for Samantar Kosh. Sumeet organized funds for buying a personal computer and then, wrote the software for computerizing the cards, sorting them and creating print-ready pages of Samantar Kosh.[31] He has written the computer applications for all of Arvind’s lexicographical works and has created the software for the web-based Arvind Lexicon.

Death

On 26 April 2021, Arvind died of COVID-19 complications in New Delhi.

Honours and awards

Notes and References

  1. News: Kumar . Kuldeep . Builder of word power . 3 October 2022 . The Hindu.
  2. Web site: Wonderful Wordsmith . The Mother and Sri Aurobindo . 22 September 2022.
  3. News: Pathak . Nilima . The making of the first modern Hindi thesaurus . 3 October 2022 . Gulf News.
  4. Web site: Malhotra . Vibha . Jaipur Literature Festival 2016 : A Great Place to Recharge One's Creativity . Travelling Cameras . 22 September 2022.
  5. News: Film pays homage to ‘Thesaurus Man’ Arvind Kumar . The Print . 28 April 2023.
  6. News: Life of ‘Thesaurus Man’ comes alive in documentary . 28 April 2023 . Tribune India.
  7. News: Pandey . Jaiprakash . अरविंद कुमार, जिन्होंने हिंदी भाषा की समृद्धि, समांतरकोश के लिए छोड़ दी थी नौकरी . 3 October 2022 . Aaj Tak.
  8. Web site: Sharma . Anurag . साक्षात्कार: हिंदी के विख्यात सम्पादक अरविंद कुमार . setupmag.com . Setu Magazine . 3 October 2022.
  9. News: लाला के बाजार के रहने वाले थे शब्दाचार्य अरविन्द कुमार . 4 October 2022 . 2021-04-28.
  10. Web site: Veteran wordsmith and former editor Arvind Kumar dies at 91 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220922075642/https://www.cinestaan.com/articles/2021/apr/28/29573/veteran-wordsmith-and-former-editor-arvind-kumar-dies-at-91 . live . 22 September 2022 . Cinestaan . 22 September 2022.
  11. News: Srivastava . Sanjeev . उस युग पुरुष के कितने रूप – संपादक, अनुवादक, कोशकार: अरविंद कुमार . 4 October 2022.
  12. Ravikant . Popular Cinephilia in North India . Journalism Studies . 2015-08-03 . 16 . 5 . 2 . 10.1080/1461670X.2015.1054161 . 22 September 2022.
  13. Web site: Mohan . G . The Reader's Digest completes 100 years . 22 September 2022.
  14. News: Kumar . Arvind . वह अविस्मरणीय रात . 4 October 2022 . Jansatta . 2014-12-30.
  15. News: हिंदी साहित्य जगत को थिसॉरस का तोहफा देने वाले अरविंद कुमार का निधन . 4 October 2022.
  16. News: Sharma . Manoj . Veteran wordsmith who created world's first Hindi thesaurus . 22 September 2022 . Hindustan Times.
  17. Web site: Jha . Srishti . Art & CultureWhen India's thesaurus man gave JLF a world bank of words . DailyO . 22 September 2022.
  18. Web site: Lall . Meeta . Arvind Kumar and his lexicographic works . Bharat Darshan . 3 October 2022.
  19. Book: Kumar . Arvind . Samantar Kosh . National Book Trust India . 8123719515 . 3 October 2022.
  20. Book: Kumar . Arvind . Shabdeshwari . 1999 . Rajkamal Prakash . 9788171788477 . 3 October 2022.
  21. Book: Kumar . Arvind . Arvind Sahaj Samantar Kosh . Rajkamal Prakashan . 9788126718450 . 3 October 2022.
  22. Book: Kumar . Arvind . The Penguin English-Hindi Dictionary and Index . 2007 . Penguin India . 9780143102601 . 3 October 2022.
  23. Book: Kumar . Arvind . Brihat Samantar Kosh . January 2006 . Rajkamal Prakashan . 9788126711031 . 3 October 2022.
  24. Book: Kumar . Arvind . Arvind Word Power . 2015 . Arvind Linguistics Pvt. Ltd. . 9788192496627 . 3 October 2022.
  25. Book: Kumar . Arvind . Arvind Tukant Kosh . Arvind Linguistics Pvt. Ltd. . 8192496635 . 5 October 2022.
  26. Web site: Kumar . Arvind . Arvind Lexicon Online . Arvind Linguistics LLP . 5 October 2022.
  27. Book: Kumar . Arvind . Vikram Saindhav . Rastriya Natya Vidyalaya . 4 October 2022.
  28. Book: Kumar . Arvind . Sahaj Geeta . Rajkamal Prakashan . 8171196063 . 4 October 2022.
  29. Book: Kumar . Arvind . Faust: A Tragedy . Bhartiya Jnanpith . 812630765X . 4 October 2022.
  30. News: Daftuar . Swati . An endless road of words . 3 October 2022 . The Hindu.
  31. News: Hazra . Indrajit . English-Hindi-English: A love triangle story . 3 October 2022 . Hindustan Times . 2008-01-27.
  32. News: Hindi Ratna Award to Arvind Kumar . 22 September 2022 . Navbharat Times.

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