Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
“Astronomer Jayant Narlikar enriched the Marathi language with his writings. At a time when experts from all over the world in fields like science, technology, research and economics were ignoring the mother tongue Marathi and insisting on English. It is very difficult to fill the void left by his death in the field of astronomical and science writing,” said litterateurs while paying tributes to Narlikar at a condolence meeting on Thursday organised by the Marathwada Sahitya Parishad (MS).
The condolence meeting was held at the auditorium of MSP under the chairmanship of MSP president Principal Kautikrao Thale-Patil. Writers like Dr Dada Gore and Dr Hrishikesh Kamble expressed their feelings on the demise of Narlikar.
The condolence message was read by Dr Ganesh Mohite. It was mentioned in this introductory speech that Dr Jayant Narlikar, the president of the 94th All India Marathi Literature Conference organised in Nashik, brought the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune, an organisation conducting research in astronomy, astrophysics and theoretical physics, to worldwide fame.
The writers said that Narlikar was not only a scientist but also a great writer.
“Science was far from Marathi literature. To introduce Science to Marathi readers and to promote it, he started writing science stories in Marathi, using a language that the general public could understand. His writing journey began with his first science story, ‘Krishnavivar’ in 1974,” they said.
His science stories and novels, such as ‘Antaralatil Bhasmasur’, ‘Antaralatil Sphoth’, ‘Abhayaranya’, ‘Chala Jau Avaksh Safarila’, Time Machinechi Kimya’, ‘Preshit’, ‘Yakshachi Dengi’, ‘Yala Jeevan Aise Naav’, ‘Vaman Parat Na Aala’, ‘Virus’, ‘Antaral Aani Vigyan’, ‘Akashashi Jadle Nate’, have become important in Marathi science literature.
He was honoured with various awards such as Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, Maharashtra Bhushan and Sahitya Akademi in recognition of his space science research and literary work.