Nanalal Dalpatram Kavi was a lyricist and dramatist who strove to create free-flowing blank verse in Gujarati. This rhythmic style is called Dolan shaili. Nanalal Dalpatram Kavi was born in 1877. He was the son of the first modern Gujarati poet-playwright, Dalpatram. He taught at Rajkumar College, Rajkot, for about a decade. He resigned as Education Officer in Saurashtra to join the civil disobedience movement, but dissociated from it after a disagreement with Mahatma Gandhi, and devoted the rest of his life to literature. As a lyricist par excellence he followed Dayaram`s melodious poetic tradition. His pen name was Prembhakti i.e. `love and devotion`. His study of Persian and interest in history came handy in writing two plays, Jahangir Nurjahan i.e. `Jahangir and Nurjahan` in 1928 and Shahenshah Akbar i.e. `Emperor Akbar` in 1930. Six verse plays include Jaya-Jayant i.e. `Jaya and Jayanta` in 1914 and Indukumar in 1932, while most notable among five mythological works are Viswagita i.e. `World Song` in 1917 and Rajarshi Bharat i.e. `The Sage-king Bharat` in 1922.

Nanalal`s plays have thin storylines, no dramatic conflict, excessive poetic narration and dialogue, and characters symbolizing his life-view and philosophy. He modeled his long soliloquies as in Akbar on those in Greek tragedies. Unfortunately, except Gopika i.e. `Cowherd Girl` in 1935, none of his plays appeared in the commercial Gujarati theatre, nor was his Dolan shaili tried out by professional actors. Thus his quest for Gujarati verse-drama remained unfulfilled, though Raghunath Brahmbhatt, popular company-theatre playwright, wrote his Sringi rishi i.e. `Mountain Sage` based on Jaya-Jayant, and the original was produced in a shorter version by Rupak Sangh, an amateur troupe in Ahmadabad, after Nanalal`s death in 1946.

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