Squadron Leader Anil Sehgal
I am going to tell you a story that you will think I have taken from Devki Nandan Khatri’s epic fantasy novel in Hindi, Chandrakanta.
Well, the characters and situations may appear to have certain similarities. But, there is a subtle difference. Chandrakanta is fiction, and I am going to narrate every inch a true story !
Let us go back to the 18th century India, the times of the famous battles of Panipat. Following is the scenario.
Third battle of Panipat has ended. Bhaskar Rao Sathe, a Maharashtrian Brahmin, was a part of the Maratha forces that fought the third battle against Ahmed Shah Abdali. The Marathas lost this famous battle about which we all have been made to read about in our school history books.

Jammu Jottings

Bhaskar had left his wife and a son at Varanasi before joining the battle. The ruthlessness of a battle, large scale killings and the resultant bloodshed had adverse effects on him. He felt dejected and became disenchanted with life, just like the legendary king Ashok a felt after the Kalinga war.
He did not return to his wife and the son in Varanasi. He renounced the world and became a sanyasi. He wandered from place to place, and reached a place called Dograi near Lahore.
Here he happened to meet Raja Suchet Singh of Ramnagar who was a brother of Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu.
The present day Jammu & Kashmir was a part of the Punjab those days and Maharaja Ranjit Singh was the emperor of Punjab.
Three Dogra brothers from Jammu were favourites of the Maharaja who suitably rewarded them for their talents and services. He endowed jagir of Jammu to Gulab Singh, Ramnagar to Suchet Singh and Poonch to Dhian Singh.
Suchet Singh was impressed with the horse riding abilities of Bhaskar Rao and invited him to his jagir.
Sanyasi Bhaskar Rao Sathe had instantly developed a liking to Suchet Singh, and moved to Ramnagar. He spent rest of his life there adopting the Dogra culture, rituals, and the language.
Kashinath, son of Bhaskar Rao, whom he had left with his mother, started off from Varanasi in search of his father. Soon he was united with his father at Purmandal, near Jammu. Bhaskar Rao took his son to Ramnagar.
As time passed, in December 1910, a great grandson was born to this sanyasi, at Ramnagar. The child was named Bhagwat Prasad Sathe (BPS) who was to later become the first short story writer of Dogri language.
The boy, BPS was the eleventh child of Permanand, son of Kashinath. Permanand Sathe was a practitioner of astrology and possessed a large library of the books of astrology. His first ten children could not survive.
BPS spent his childhood in luxury as his father Permanand was the commandant of the Ramnagar fort and wielded enviable powers.
After middle school education at Ramnagar, BPS joined Sri Ranbir High School, Jammu for his matriculation. In the mid – 1920s, he had the luxury of 50 rupees per month as his pocket money. It was considered a large sum those days.
He indulged in expensive clothes, smoked cigarettes, wore well tailored suits with felt hats and shining shoes. He was talented too. He indulged in theatre, played female roles in Ramlila and participated in the local politics.
However, during the Swadeshi movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi, he burned all his expensive imported possessions in the bonfire that was lit in the historic City Chowk of Jammu city.
Sathe also inherited the art and science of astrology from his father, along with a large library of books on astrology.
Before he could finish his graduation, his father Permanand died. Bhagwatu, as he was lovingly called, started writing for newspapers like the Dogra Gazette and Veer to augment his earnings.
Around the year 1930- 31, Sathe wrote a short story in Urdu, in one of these papers,
which can be considered a first draft of the first Dogri short story Pehla Phull.
Those were the days Dogras will not give their daughter to a refugee Maharashtrian Brahmin like Sathe. So, BPS married a brahmin girl Saraswati from village Dhoda of Pasrur in Punjab. In Jammu, she was addressed as “Dhode Aali”in Dogri language, meaning the one from a place called Dhoda.
BPS got a job with Dharmarth Trust and worked as manager to their properties in Katra, Haridwar, Varanasi, and Ayodhya. He worked for eight years at these places and returned to Jammu. Here, he set up an advertising agency and also started giving consultations in astrology.
He had learnt astrology from his father and from studying books on the subject from his father’s large library. Whilst in Varanasi, he had even published a book on astrology called Hastarekha Vigyaan.
Legend has it that, to test his knowledge in astrology, some relatives sent him birth details of a calf to draw a horoscope. Sathe wrote back that the details belonged to a quadruplet with hair and not to a human being !
For residence, he hired a big house that he shared with one Sanskrit teacher, Balak Ram Shastri. They became good friends and spent long hours together in discussing their common interest in astrology.
Sathe, a devout bhakt of Durga, claimed he had achieved a siddhi in astrology. He also busied himself in literature and became a Secretary in the Hindi Sahitya Mandal. He spoke excellent Dogri and was an enthusiast when it came to promote the language.
Eventually, Sathe was a part of the Dogra enthusiasts who formed Dogri Sanstha on 29 January 1944, along with Ram Nath Shastri, Dharam Chand Prashant and others.
Sathe functioned as Publicity Secretary of the Sanstha and wrote a few Dogri short stories, starting with “Pehla Phull” followed by “Kurmen da Lahma” and “Mangte da gharat”. By 1946 he had written quite a few short stories and was in a position to publish a collection of them under the title Pehla Phull by the end of that year.
He was a visionary who had great ideas about popularising Dogri and Kashmiri literature all over India through translations. To give shape to his ideas, he founded a publishing house named Mahashakti Prakashan and also formed a publicity concern called Kashmir Publicity Service. But, partition of the country put a stop to his ideas and it upset all his plans.
In the summer of 1948, his neighbour and friend Balak Ram Shastri died of diarrhoea, leaving behind his young and beautiful wife Ratnavalli and her three sons. Slowly, but surely, Sathe was attracted to her and, breaking all social taboos, started living with Ratnavalli. You may call it the first known case of live-in relationship in the Dograland.
How could a widow have a live-in relationship with a married man whose wife is alive ? In the 1940s, it was a social shock for an orthodox society like the Dogras and completely unacceptable. But, Bhagwatu had the guts and the temerity to break all the social taboos.
Sathe kept writing in Dogri, Hindi and Urdu. Soon, he returned to politics and joined the National Conference. But, in a short time, he was disenchanted. At this time, his earnings were meagre and responsibility of Ratnavalli and her three children was telling on his financial health.
He moved to Mumbai with her lady love and the kids to try his hand at his astrological abilities. Be it Jammu, Haridwar, Katra, Varanasi, Mumbai or Ayodhya, Bhagwat Prasad always carried with him his large library of books, mainly the books on astrology.
Somehow, the shift to the erstwhile Bombay did not work well for him. He was forced to supplement earnings by writing for Hindi magazines like Dharmayug and other periodicals. He also worked for top advertising firms and did translation works too. But, all through, he continued his love for Dogri.
He lived in Mumbai for 17 years, published second edition of his astrology book Hastarekha Vigyaan, and got a daughter, Suryakumari, from Ratnavalli. Finally, he was almost settled when he got a call from Jammu.
Dogri Sanstha had invited him to return, and return he did. Duggar and Dogri were always close to his heart. But, somehow things could not work out as planned.
Assignments assured at the Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages, did not materialise. All his hopes were belied. Also, new faces had started appearing in Dogri literature. He realised he did not have much to offer left in him. For the first time, dejection enveloped this enthusiastic pioneer of Dogri literature.
His health suffered adversely. He had bad bouts of bronchitis that finally consumed this passionate Dogri litterateur on 6th May 1973, at Jammu Ayurvedic College hospital.
Bhagwat Prasad Sathe was a romantic deeply in love with beauty, especially the feminine beauty, which is evident from his short stories.
He had good measures of sympathy and empathy for fellow humans. He had a feeling heart for the downtrodden and the suffering. In fact, he was a free spirit with independence of thoughts that were uncompromising.
Sathe was a giver who generously gave whatever he could. Unfortunately, his friends failed him miserably when he needed their love and care.
B P Sathe is a pioneer in Dogri who gave the language a firm literary infrastructure to stand on. Before him, Dogri language was not considered fit enough to produce good literature. It was considered a mere dialect. Sathe gave the language literature respect and acceptability
Literary output of Sathe in Dogri is rather small, but it has given the language her first short story, Pehla Phull, and also given a literary faculty to the language. He gave us two collections of short stories, two novels of translations in Dogri and a few prose essays.
In the words of Dogri critic and historian Shivanath : these works are very significant and important in the development of Dogri literature. His contributios are pioneering in nature, and ensure a permanent place for him in the history of Dogri literature.

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