Veteran wordsmith and former editor Arvind Kumar dies at 91

Lexicographer Dr Arvind Kumar, who was the editor of the yesteryear film journal Madhuri and creator of India's first Hindi thesaurus, has died of COVID-related complications. He was 91. He is survived by his wife Kusum Kumar, son Sumeet and daughter Meeta Lal. 

Starting off as an errand boy in the magazine publishing house Delhi Press at the age of 15, he went on to become the editor of Madhuri in 1963. The journal, which focussed on the craft of filmmaking as opposed to glamour, would create the template for a number of film magazines that followed. Referred to colloquially as Hindi Filmfare, its circulation ceased in the 1980s. 

Apart from his work in film journalism, Kumar is known for his invaluable contribution to Hindi lexicography. Inspired by Peter Mark Roget's English thesaurus, he set out in 1978 to create a similar universal thesaurus for the Hindi language. The tome, Samantar Kosh, was finally launched in 1996 by the National Book Trust. He later went on to compile the mammoth The Penguin English-Hindi/Hindi-English Thesaurus and Dictionary, an ambitious undertaking that included English expressions.