To be given the Saraswati Samman, which entails a cash prize of R15,00,000, elates 77-year-old Gujarati poet-playwright academic Sitanshu Yashaschandra Mehta. But there is a piece of coinciding news that is even more empowering — the Oriya, Bengali, Hindi and Marathi translations of his anthology, Vakhar, which got him the honour, are due for publication. To top it all, a one-hour documentary on Yashaschandra, Aa Manas Gujarati Laage Chhe, (the title "This man looks like a Gujarati" takes after his play Aa Manas Madrasi Laage Che) will precede the end-of-the-year Saraswati Samman award ceremony. It has been made by another Gujarati poet and visual artist, Prabodh Parikh, who has followed Yashaschandra's work over the years.

Yashaschandra says the joy of being made available in multiple Indian languages, in print and on celluloid, is a heartwarming validation, more so when his literary corpus — 10 plays, three poetry anthologies, and three critical analyses — is not directed at a regional Gujarati sub-culture, but factors in a pan-Indian reader. In fact, he resents the label of a regional writer as he has adapted varied world texts in Gujarati — Eugene Ionesco's The Lesson, Thomas Hardy's Day After The Fair and Peter Shaffer's Equus. The subjects that pique his curiosity include 'Simon-Go-Back'-brand freedom fighter Yusuf Meherally, Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh, Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova. Of the three, only one is a Gujarati, he chuckles.