Google Doodle celebrates playwright Munier Chowdhury's 95th birth anniversary

Search engine giant, Google, has created a new doodle on its homepage in Bangladesh, celebrating the life of Bangladeshi playwright Munier Chowdhury to mark the 95th anniversary of his birth.

Educator, linguist, literary critic, stage actor, and political activist Chowdhury is widely considered a pioneer of the country's modern Bangla drama.

Renowned for plays like Kabar (The Grave, 1952) and Roktakto Prantor (The Bloody Meadow, 1959), Chowdhury dedicated his life to the promotion of the Bangla language, its national identity, and the fight against repression in all its forms, according to Google.

Martyred intellectual Munier Chowdhury was born on this day in 1925 in the town of Manikganj, British India (now Bangladesh), and from a young age he impressed his family with his precocious wit.

Following his first of multiple master's degrees, he became a teacher in the English and Bangla departments of Dhaka University in 1950.

In 1952, Chowdhury was imprisoned for his activism related to the Language Movement, an ultimately successful campaign to have Bangla recognized as one of Pakistan's official languages. While detained he completed one of his greatest works, Kabar — a surrealist ode to the struggles of the movement.

Munier Chowdhury, one of the brightest minds of the country, was a victim of the mass killing of Bangladeshi intellectuals in 1971. 

On December 14, he was picked up by the Pakistani army and their collaborators, never to be seen again. 

Throughout the rest of his life, Chowdhury maintained his success as a writer of short stories and plays while serving as a champion of nationalist and cultural causes. 

A committed torchbearer for the Bangla language, he also helped to design an improved Bangla typewriter keyboard in the mid-'60s.

In 1980, the Bangladesh government posthumously awarded Munier Chowdhury the Independence Day Award — the nation's highest state honour.