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The Council - National Awards

THE DEROZIO AWARDS - The Life of Henry Derozio


HENRY DEROZIO

Early Childhood : April 18th 1809


Henry was born to an Indo-Portuguese father, Francis Derozio, and his wife Sophie Johnson, an English
woman. He was baptised in St. John's Church on August 12, 1809 by Rev James Ward, the same minister
who christened the future novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, three years later.

Early School
At the age of six, Henry was sent to Dhurmtollah Academy, a secular school run by a Scottish scholar
poet, David Drummond, under whose care he discovered his own genius.

Though Derozio's formal education in the established normative appreciation was meagre, his poetic
aspirations were awakened quite early in life. Literature was his sole delight and moral philosophy his
most preoccupying passion, next to poetry.

The Poet
Henry Derozio attempted to write verse in school. In his *prologue to a play enacted by fellow students,
what one sees is not so much the poetry but the earnest attempt of a school boy of fourteen to be
poetically articulate. Perhaps in his last line Henry Derozio instinctively wrote a prologue to the whole
of Indo-English poetry of the nineteenth century, for most of the authors who wrote poetry in the 19th
century were echoing either consciously or unconsciously, the same sentiment, seeking recognition for
their "first essay of school-boy effort" or 'indulgence' when they failed.

Later he was placed under his uncle, Mr. Johnson, and Indigo planter at Bhagalpore. The scenario was
most congenial to his disposition. Here amidst the country scene with the ripple of the river in his ears
and the music in his heart, the boy-poet began to weave his wreath of songs. At this time signing as
'Juvenis' for his 'nom de plume' he courted public favour. Appearing in the 'Indian Gazette' then
conducted by John Grant, he attracted the notice and the applause of a section of the London Press
(stated in an article in the India Gazette). These had some fine oriental images in them and to use his
own words, "lines written on the sand". It was here that his metrical classic 'The Fakeer of Jungheera'
was conceived. Derozio in his notes to Canto First *writes

'Although I lived nearly three years in the vicinity of Jungheera, I had but one opportunity of seeing

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