Our Great War Heroes: Seven Param Vir Chakra Recipients Volume 1

Shyam Kumari was born in Muzaffarnagar, U.P., in 1934. There she studied in the Vedic Putri Pathshala and S. D. Degree College up to her B.A. In 1965, she passed her M.A. from Lucknow University. She has read widely in Hindi and English literature, as well as religious and spiritual books.

Since her childhood she yearned to find God. In 1969, the Divine Mother accepted her in Sri Aurobindo Ashram and appointed her a teacher in the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education.

Hundreds of her poems, lyrics, stories, plays, literary and social essays, both in English and Hindi, have appeared in national and international journals. She has also written and published more than 70 books, some running into several reprints. Many of her books have been translated into Hindi, Oriya, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi and Gujarati. She has written path-breaking rhymes and story books for children. In 1998 she launched a Hindi quarterly magazine, Swarna Hansa which she, single-handedly, wrote, edited and published for 20 years.

In 1998, she established Vraja Trust, a public charitable trust, and is at present its managing trustee. In 2001, she started Sri Aravinda Sanskrit Vidyalaya, in Pondicherry, India, to impart free Sanskrit education to children and adults alike and she is its chairperson. In 2005, she launched the “Let Each School Adopt a Hero” scheme. In 2006, she launched the “Let Us Honour Our Soldiers” and “Let each child become a Hero Warrior” schemes.