Dr. Anil Pushker was born on 2nd October in Allahabad (now Prayagraj), known for Triveni Sangam and the birthplace of the most famous Hindi authors. He grew up in Barabanki, famous for Parijat Tree and Dewa Sharif and finished his primary education at Anand Bhawan School, Barabanki and Mother Teresa Convent School, Allahabad. He completed his Junior High School at Ranjeet Pandit Inter College, Allahabad and High School at Jamuna Christian College, Allahabad. Later, he studied for a B.A. (Hindi, Education and Ancient History) at Ewing Christian College, Allahabad, situated on the bank of the Yamuna River.
Dr. Pushker cherished the dream of becoming a writer since a young age. Although he started writing poems at the age of 10-12, by the time he turned 12, his poems started getting published in magazines. His first poem, ‘Mukaam’, was published as ‘Muktak’ by Delhi Press. Later, he got involved in all forms of literature – stories, plays, and various art forms. He also maintained an interest in sketching, watercolor, and oil painting. He joined Parsona Natya Sansthan in 1995. From there, he developed a serious interest and practiced in plays. From here, he also turned to script writing and in 1998, he registered his name in the All India Short Play.
Along with this, while still a teenager, he made his presence felt in various forms, including poems, Muktak, stories and letters in various famous Hindi magazines – Kadambini, Hans, Sarita, Tarun Ghosh, Prasthav, Mahakta Anchal, Gudiya, Saras Salil, Navneet etc. He exhibited more than 100 oil paintings in various cities. He won many prizes at college and university levels in multiple exhibitions of sketches, paintings, and story and poetry writing competitions.
After graduation, he moved to New Delhi where he obtained an M.A. in Hindi Literature and an M.Phil. in Hindi Translation from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). In the final year of M.A., he worked on the literary achievements of Suryakant Tripathi Nirala and in M.Phil. he translated the poetry collection ‘A Summer of Tigers’ written by Keki N. Daruwala as ‘Cheeton Ki Fasle-Garma’. He continued studying JNU to complete his Ph.D. on Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s translation work. Ruby Press published his Ph.D. research work in 2014 as ‘Harivansh Rai Bachchan ki Anuvad Drishti’.
In 2009, while doing research at JNU, he founded Argala, a magazine of public sentiment and Hindi literature of the twenty-first century. It was inspired by the protagonist of his novel ‘Argala’, which was published by Shilpayan Prakashan in 2023. He also worked as a production assistant for ‘Muse of Murmur’ – 2008, an art and poetry special issue. Later he joined as a research assistant for the Hindi section of ‘Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru‘ (Volumes 56 & 57, Oxford University Press) at Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Trust (JNMF),.
In 2013, he started research on ‘The Role of newspapers and magazines in the mass movements of Hindi belt’ at Allahabad University under a post-doctoral fellowship. He also taught Hindi literature to graduate students at Allahabad University during his tenure. Apart from this, he interviewed many famous art and literary personalities including Amarkant, Namvar Singh, Ganga Prasad Vimal, Varyam Singh, Jagdish Gupt, Kishori Lal, Maitreyi Pushpa, Neelabh Ashk, Uday Prakash, Ajit Kumar, Himanshu Joshi and Acharya Nishant Ketu and wrote memoirs which were published by Shilpayan Prakashan as ‘Sadi Ke Nayab Hastakshar’ – Volume 1, 2.
In the year 2019, Dr. Pushker was awarded Lokodaya Navlekhan Award for his poetry collection ‘Rajdhani’ (Lokodaya Prakashan), and was awarded the ‘Nirmala Smriti Sahitya Award’ for his translation work on ‘Harivanshrai Bachchan Ki Anuvad Drishti‘ (Ruby Press). He was also selected among twelve young Hindi poets in the book ‘Yuva Dwadash-6‘ (Bodhi Prakashan), published in the young poets series.
After continuously touring many parts of the country, Dr. Pushker started working as a freelance writer in Kolkata. He is taking stock of the situation in Bengal for his next novel and is busy working on the corrupt education world. Under this, the politics of educationists has been openly discussed, and he is also engaged in some poetry collections. Along with the autobiography of Prof. Gangaprasad Vimal, he is also engaged in the work of compiling and editing the complete volumes of Gangaprasad Vimal Rachnavali.