Ramdhari Singh Dinkar (1908–1974), born at Simaria in Begusarai, is one of modern Hindi’s great poets — hailed as Rashtrakavi, the national poet. His thunderous, patriotic verse — Rashmirathi, Kurukshetra, Parshuram ki Pratiksha — gave voice to the spirit of the independence movement and to the young republic that followed.
A scholar and parliamentarian as well as a poet, he won the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Padma Bhushan and the Jnanpith — and remains, for the Mithila–Anga borderlands that raised him, a towering literary son.