Chotila to get Zaverchand Meghani Museum, library
Chotila, the birthplace of acclaimed poet Zaverchand Meghani in Surendranagar district, is all set to get a memorial museum and a library. Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel Friday performed the groundbreaking ceremony for the Meghani museum and library will be built at Rs 29.51 crore and Rs 3.39 crore respectively.
In August 2021, the then chief minister Vijay Rupani announced an allocation of Rs 5 crore for the Meghani Museum to mark his 125th birth anniversary. The government had also allotted land for the project. The museum will showcase Meghani’s contribution to journalism and Gujarati literature, a government release said. Meghani, who was given the title of “Rashtriya Shayar” by Mahatma Gandhi for his patriotic poems and his participation in India’s fight for freedom, was a journalist with Phool-Chhab newspaper.
The CM who was on a day’s visit to Surendranagar also renamed the Chotila Taluka library after Rashtriya Shayar Zaverchand Meghani and announced renovating and modernising the building to a two-storey library. The new library building will have all of Meghani’s works.
Meghani’s original home was converted into a museum in 2010 with a Meghani Sahitya Corner to display his works.
Born in 1896 at Chotila, Meghani wrote poems, novels, plays, short stories and travelogues and compiled folklores and folksongs. Radhiyali Raat, a compilation of folk songs, and Saurashtrani Rasdhar, a compilation of folklore are among his noted books. His poem Jananina Haiyama Podhanta, which talks about the pride and spirit of sacrifice of people of the country, and Chhelo Katoro, which tells the story of India’s freedom struggle through tribulations and travails of Mahatma Gandhi are some of his well-known poems. He passed away on March 1947 aged 50.
