Shirish Atre-Pai
Encyclopedia
Shirish Pai also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...
: शिरीष पै) (born November 1929) is a social worker and a writer from Maharashtra
Maharashtra
Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. She has written in Marathi
Marathi language
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, primarily the former.
Shirish is the elder daughter of Acharya Atre
Prahlad Keshav Atre
Prahlād Keshav Atre , popularly known as Āchārya Atre , was a multi-faceted Indian figure. He was a prominent Marathi writer, a poet, an educationist, a newspaper founder–editor of Maratha , a political leader, a movie producer–director–script writer...
. She has a college degree in Law.
She joined her father's newspaper, Maratha, as a journalist. She was deeply influenced by the Soviet thinking and way of life, and had toured the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and other Eastern Block countries.
Alongside her father, Shirish played a role in the Samyukta Maharashtra movement.
She has written several books; they include collections of her poems. She introduced Haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...
form of poetry to Marathi literature
Marathi literature
Marathi literature is the body of literature of Marathi, a Sanskrit-derived language spoken mainly in the Indian state of Maharashtra and written in the Devanagari script.-Early Marathi Literature :...
. Her literary work has received several national and state awards.
In a newspaper interview in June 2011 she revealed that she had started writing and composing poems from the time she was in secondary school and received great encouragement from her father in this regard.
Shirish was married to lawyer and journalist Venkatesh Pai. They have two sons, who are both lawyers. She currently resides in Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
.