From The Frontcover Of 'Meet My People - Indian Folk Poetry' By Devendra Satyarthi

 MEET MY PEOPLE takes you to every comer of India, and introduces you to the valuable heritage of the Indian people in their intimate perspectives. The book takes you much further to the Indian people's modes of life, their ceremonies, festivals, customs and their ideas, as reflected in their folk-songs. Every glimpse has been enhenced by the sympathy and understanding. The apprecia­tion of traditional imagery and the living intimacy of details is significant and enchant­ing. Symbolic interpretation of the life and ethnic history of each group of people, with its own language or dialect, as a medium of expression, makes us confident of the people and their culture.

Folk-songs of India, in English renderings, project a representative anthology, with its capacity to portray unity in diversity.

MEET MY PEOPLE gives a feeling of great peace, as eternal as the tears that fill the eyes of a folklorist.

The many illustrations of folk-songs coupled with Davendra Satyarathi's narrative show that he possesses three pre-eminant qualities-an eye for detail, an unerring artistic sense and an unflagging spirit of adventure.

The book further intimates the reader with a vast bibliography with critial notes that make us capable to argue regarding the involvement of a dedicated team of scholars of anthropol­ogy, social studies and folklore. The biblio­graphy covers over a century of studies in Indian folklore.  

About The Author Of The Book 'Meet My People - Indian Folk Poetry'

Born in 1908 in the Punjab at Bhadaur in Sangroor District, Devendra Satyarthi is a well-known anthor of over fifty books in Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi, in the sephere of poetry and fiction.

Rabindranath Tagore visualised in Satyarthi 'the gift of a sensitive imagination'. Mahatma Gandhi, reforming to Satyarthi's long travels all over India in search of folksongs, appreciated his 'dignified persistance'.

W.G. Archer, commenting on the tremend­ous upsurge of national feelings in the 1920's in India, observed that it inspired Davendra Satyarthi to undertake his famous journeys for over twenty years, in which he would set off 'with hardly a rupee and hitch-hike from village to village all over India, coaxing peasants to sing their songs. In this way he collected over 3 lacs of songs'.

He has seen many storms and also peaceful interludes. "My first book Giddha, the first fruit of my love for folklore, was Publisted in Punjabi at Amritsar in 1936." he would tell you with his dentures gleaming through his flowing beard.