Veteran writer Bhisham Sahani, who blazed a trail in modern Hindi literature by weaving the personal with the political and who completed his autobiography just six months ago, died of a stroke on Friday evening. He was 84. He is survived by a daughter and a son.A brother of film legend Balraj Sahani, Bhishma Sahani had been admitted to the Escorts for the treatment of a heart problem. His condition was critical for the last 24 hours and doctors said he suffered a massive cerebral infarction this evening just before he had a stroke.While his most-famous works still remains Tamas — a heart rending saga that poignantly portrayed the horrors of Partition, his other famous novels included Kurto, Basanti, Mayadas ki Mari.Said longtime friend and writer Nirmal Verma: ‘‘Sahani was not a prisoner of his ideology. Though he had Communist inclinations, he could trascend beyond boundaries and tell extraordinary tales from ordinary lives.’’ Eminent director Govind Nihalani, who filmed Tamas, pays a tribute to the writer:Bhisham Sahani’s death has created an unfathomable emptiness in me. The last time I met him in Delhi, he looked frail. But I didn’t know it would be our last meeting.Strangely, I have been thinking of him for a week or so. Whenever I would be in Delhi, I would make it a point to visit him. Recently, I participated in a seminar on Media and Reconciliation in Colombo, organised by Young Asia Television. I displayed some of the footage of Tamas over there. It had a tremendous impact on the audience. They all debated it threadbare.I stumbled upon Tamas by sheer chance. As a second unit director of Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, I was in Delhi in the early eighties. I would often go to the library at Sriram Centre.One day a book on the top shelf attracted my attention. The title read Tamas (Darkness). While browsing through it, I found it was about Partition. I bought it and started reading it. The very first paragraph got me in. I told myself, ‘‘Here is the subject I have been longing for.’’ It was unputdownable. I had nursed a dream to make a film on Partition ever since I turned a director. Bhishamji’s style fascinated me. It was written after 30 years of the painful Partition. Its tone was reflective, not judgmental. I wanted to shoot the film at the earliest. Somehow it took me eight years to start shooting.I had even broached the idea of making a film on Partition to Indira Gandhi and asked her if the government could help me. ‘‘The government of the day will decide,’’ she had told me. We started its shooting a year after her death.When I approached Bhishamji and his wife Sheela with my project, they felt elated. Bhishamji readily agreed and asked me to write its script. Lalit Bijlani and Freny Variava of Place Advertising came forward to finance this three-hour telefilm.Bhishamji was so excited, he played the character of Dharnam Singh (Dina Pathak played his wife) in the serial. The serial received a tremendous response. I was under police protection for eight weeks. The rest is history.Though underrated by many critics, Bhishamji wrote with rare passion. He was honest about what he wrote. Never in any sectarian literary group, he was frank in his views. He wrote what he strongly felt about. I was astounded to see that he could act so well. His experience with the Indian Peoples’ Theatre Association (IPTA) helped him essay the role.I wanted to direct his other stories too, but couldn’t get a financier. Even the political and social landscape of the country had changed. Bhishamji was last of the sentinels who believed in a secular, pluralist India.Hindi has lost one of its greatest soldiers, the country its literatteur, I have lost a father-figure who was more like a friend. We were like buddies. I have been greatly enriched by his words. I will miss him.(As told to Mohammed Wajihuddin)
