Ashangbam Minaketan Singh

Minaketan was born at Wangkhei Ashangbam Leikai now known as Wangkhei Angom Leikai in Ashangbam family but was brought up in the family of royal descendants of Maharaja Nara Singh by Sanajaobi Devi, the granddaughter of Maharaja Nara Singh at Moirangkhom Sougaijam Leirak. He graduated from the University of Calcutta in 1930 and by that time he had mastered English, Bengali, Hindi, Sanskrit and the Old Meitei languages. He belonged to the generation which had grown up and saw the difficult times of Manipur in the socio-economic condition under the monarchic system of government shaped by the colonial rule of British Empire.

Minaketan engaged with every field of literature: poetry, prose, essays, translations, mythology, biography, autobiography, and criticism. His published works numbered more than 25 books on these different branches of literature. Some of his works are Basanta Sheireng (Poetry), 1928; Asheibagi Nityaipod (Poetry), 1976; Asheibagi Sheirol, 1977; Tonu Laijinglembi (Play); Bharatki Lonsingi Marakta (Essay); Meitei Upanyas (Criticism). Ashangbam Minaketan Singh is a name to reckon with among the pioneer poets of Meitei literature. He had associated himself with many State advisory committees. In short, Minaketan himself was an institution, a school of variety of thoughts. One inimitable quality which keeps Minaketan apart from other poets, which makes him occupy a special place in the annals of Manipur literature, is his invention of new words purely from Old Meitei languages spoken in the old days. In Minaketan's poetry, people come across obscure and recondite words or references which are too difficult to understand at the first reading. The vast learning and the vast knowledge he had acquired is expressed in such a twisted manner that it becomes difficult to follow what the poet really intends to say. About Minaketan's style and choice of words, poet Shree Biren has this observation^{[clarification needed]} – It is a fact that any reader will find himself a kind of push which violently thrown out at the very threshold. To know the true Minaketan a reader must face this kind of repulsion and must try to open the door and if one had succeeded to open the door of his treasure house then he will surely enjoy the beauty in the writings and words of Minaketan. Minaketan had the power of impressing the imagination by lines of spleen-dour and magnificence suggesting some half-expressed thoughts, some dimly shadowed emotions. In the twilight years of his life he had seen the mother in every woman even in his own daughter. In his poem 'Sanarik Pareng' he penned 'My loving daughter/ you are my mother/ My mother in you darling'. The sense of vastness and immensity is suggested in several lines of his poem 'Bidai Ashirbad'. The mystery of life is exquisitely and yet mystically suggested:

Premna Lingba Jagatnido Puba-nido Premna/ Pubanido Premna Tengbal Hingba-nido Premna

(Love makes the universe love binds the universe/ love gives soul to the world) The body and the soul are united for him with love to the whole of universe.

In his last poem 'Yachang Sheirol Khameen Tengtha' there is an expression of a communion with god with his love of motherland.