Bhisham Sahni

Bhisham Sahni Biography

Bhisham Sahni was a noted writer of Hindi, playwright, and actor. He is most famous for his novel and television screenplay Tamas, based on Partition of India and Pakistan. He has been honoured with Padma Bhushan for literature in 1998 and Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 2002. He is the younger brother of actor of yesterdays, Balraj Sahni and Parikshit Sahni is his nephew. He was general secretary of ‘Progressive Writers Association’ and was the founder and chairman of the organization 'SAHMAT'.

Sahni was born on 8 August 1915 in Rawalpindi, two years younger to Balraj Sahni. He holds a master degree in English from Government College Lahore. He was a freedom fighter of Indian independence and had gone to jail during Quit India Movement. When partition happened with Indian independence, he and his family were forced to leave Rawalpindi and come to Amritsar. During 40’s, he used to work with Balraj Sahni in theatres. He worked for Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA). In 1950, he became an English professor at Delhi College.

From 1957 to 1963, he lived in Moscow and during this time, he translated twenty-five books from Russian into Hindi. Bhisham Sahni's epic work Tamas is regarded as classic. The book published in the year 1974 was based on the real incidents he witnessed during India Pakistan partition in 1947. This work has been translated to Gujarati, English, Malayalam, Kashmiri, and Manipuri. Tamas won the 1975 Sahitya Akademi Award for literature and in 1987, Govind Nihlani made a teleserial of Tamas based on this novel. His masterpiece stories 'Chief ki davat' and 'Amritsar Aa Gaya Hai' are still popular.

His other works include 5 Hindi novels and more than 100 short stories published as 9 collections. Bhagya Rekha (1953), Pahla patha (1956), Bhatakti rakha (1966), and Nischar (1983 are his popular works. He has also written a few plays of which Hanush of 1977, Kabira khara bazar mein (1981) and Madhavi (1982) are most popular. His autobiography got published with title - "Aaj ke Ateet" and he has also written biography of his brother, "Balraj My Brother".

Apart from writing he has also acted in a few movies like Tamas, Mohan Joshi haasir ho, Little Budha, Kasba and Mr and Mrs. Iyyer. He died on July 11, 2003 aged 87.    

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Updated: July 24, 2013