Kiran Nagarkar was an Indian novelist, playwright and screenwriter. A noted drama and film critic in Indian media, Nagarkar was one of the most significant writers of post-colonial India. Amongst his notable works are Saat Sakkam Trechalis , Ravan and Eddie, and the epic novel, Cuckold for which he was awarded the 2001 Sahitya Akademi Award in English by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters. His novels written in English have been translated into German. In 2012, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Personal life
Nagarkar was born on 2 April 1942 in Bombay in a middle-class Maharashtrian family, the younger of two sons of Sulochana and Kamalkant Nagarkar. His grandfather, B. B. Nagarkar, was a Brahmo and had attended the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago. He studied at Fergusson College in Pune and the S.I.E.S. College in Mumbai. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1964 and a master's degree in English literature in 1967. After that, he worked as an advertising copywriter for 15 years. From June to November 2011 he was 'writer in residence' of the Literaturhaus Zurich and the PWG Foundation in Zurich. He was married to Tulsi Vatsal, sister of industrialist Anand Mehta. Nagarkar was a life long critic of the establishment and stood by his political views throughout his literary career. Nagarkar was admitted in hospital on 2 September 2019, after he had suffered a brain haemorrhage at a friend's place during the celebration of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival. He remained in coma for two days and died on 5 September 2019.
Novels
Nagarkar is notable among Indian writers for having written acclaimed novels in more than one language. His first novel, Saat Sakkam Trechalis published in Marathi language in 1974, was translated into English by Shubha Slee in 1980 and published in English in 1995 as Seven Sixes Are Forty Three. It is considered one of the landmark works of Marathi literature. His novel Ravan and Eddie, begun in Marathi but completed in English, was not published until 1994. Since Ravan and Eddie, all Nagarkar's novels have been written in English. All his novels have been translated into German language. His third novel, Cuckold on mystic Meerabai's husband, Bhoj Raj, was published in 1997 and won the 2001 Sahitya Akademi Award. It took him nine years to write his next, God's Little Soldier, a tale of a liberal Muslim boy's tryst with religious orthodoxy, which was published in 2006, to mixed reviews. In 2012, he published The Extras, a sequel to Ravan and Eddie that traces the adult lives of Ravan and Eddie as extras in Bollywood. The third and last book in the Ravan and Eddie series was written in 2015, Rest in Peace, to complete a trilogy. His 2019 novel, The Arsonist, is a re-imagining of the life of Kabir, the 15th-century Indian mystic poet and saint. It also critiqued the rise of Hindu majoritarianism in India.
Plays and screenplays
In 1978, Nagarkar wrote the play Bedtime Story, based partly on the Mahābhārata. Its performance was extra-legally banned for 17 years by Hindu nationalistfundamentalist parties, including the Shiv Sena, a far-right political party; Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Mahasabha. He warned about the twin dangers of censorship faced by India in the introduction of the Bed time stories.He stated: "Legal censorship in India can often be gauche, club-footed and hyper-protective of anything and everything but the freedoms of speech and expression. Extra-legal censorship in the country, however, is fearless and effective. It successfully prevented Bedtime Story from being performed for seventeen years." In 2018 during an interview, Nagarkar did not appear to be concerned about the censorship prevailing in the country in 2018. He recalled the past incidents when the radical groups in Mumbai had threatened to prevent his play from staging. Nagarkar confidently stated in the interview that, "these things happen from time to time, and then only we can assure that art is still living." Nagarkar's theatre work also includes Kabirache Kay Karayche and Stranger Amongst Us, and his screenplay work includes The Broken Circle, The Widow and Her Friends, and The Elephant on the Mouse, a film for children. Nagarkar played the role of Brother Bono as a cameo appearance in Dev Benegal's Movie Split Wide Open.
