Bhisham Sahni's epic work
Tamas (Darkness/Ignorance 1974) is a novel based on the riots of 1947
partition of India which he witnessed at
Rawalpindi.
Tamas portrays the horrors of senseless communal politics of violence and hatred; and the tragic aftermath – death, destruction, forced migration and the partition of a country. It has been translated to
English,
French,
German,
Japanese and many Indian languages including
Tamil,
Gujarati,
Malayalam,
Kashmiri,
Marathi and
Manipuri.
Tamas won the 1975
Sahitya Akademi Award for literature and was later made into a
television film in 1987 by
Govind Nihalani. Two of his masterpiece stories, "Pali" and "
Amritsar Aa Gaya Hai", are also based on the partition. Sahni's prolific career as a writer also included six other Hindi novels:
Jharokhe (1967),
Kadian (1971),
Basanti (1979),
Mayyadas Ki Madi (1987),
Kunto (1993) and
Neeloo,
Nilima,
Nilofar (2000)., over hundred short stories spread over ten collections of short stories, including
Bhagya Rekha (1953),
Pahla Patha (1956),
Bhatakti Raakh (1966),
Patrian (1973),
Wang Chu (1978),
Shobha Yatra (1981),
Nishachar (1983),
Pali (1989), and
Daayan (1996); five plays including
Hanoosh,
Kabira Khada Bazar Mein,
Madhavi,
Muavze,
Alamgeer, a collection of children's short stories
Gulal Ka Keel. But his novel named
Mayyadas Ki Mari (Mayyadas's Castle) was one of his finest literary creations, the backdrop of this narrative is historical and depicts the age when the
Khalsa Raj was vanquished in Punjab and the British were taking over. This novel is a saga of changing
social order and decadent set of values. He wrote the screenplay for Kumar Shahani's film,
Kasba (1991), which is based on
Anton Chekhov's story "In the Gully". Although Sahni had been writing stories for a long time, he received recognition as a story writer only after the publication of his story "Chief Ki Daawat" (The Chief’s Party) in the
Kahani magazine in 1956. Bhisham Sahni wrote his autobiography
Aaj Ke Ateet (''Today's Pasts
, Penguin 2016) and the biography of his brother Balraj Sahni, Balraj My Brother'' (English).
Plays •
Hanoosh (1977), staged by theatre director
Rajindra Nath and
Arvind Gaur (1993). it was adapted into Kashmiri as
Waqtsaaz by Manzoor Ahmad Mir and was performed by the artists participating in month-long Educational Theatre workshop organized by
National School of Drama at
Srinagar under the direction of
M. K. Raina in the year 2004. •
Kabira Khada Bazar Mein (1981): Many Indian theatre directors like M. K. Raina,
Arvind Gaur and
Abhijeet Choudhary have performed this play. •
Madhavi (1982): First staged by theatre director Rajindra Nath. Later US-trained actress
Rashi Bunny performed
Madhavi as a solo play. This solo won many awards in international theatre festivals. •
Muavze (1993): First performed by National School of Drama with Bapi Bose. This is a very popular play among theatre groups;
Swatantra Theatre, Pune also performed it various times and received the best play and best actor awards at the Maharashtra state competition awards in 2018.
Literary style Bhisham Sahni was one of the most prolific writers of
Hindi literature.
Krishan Baldev Vaid said, "His voice, both as a writer and a man, was serene and pure and resonant with humane reassurances. His immense popularity was not a result of any pandering to vulgar tastes but a reward for his literary merits—his sharp wit, his gentle irony, his all-pervasive humor, his penetrating insight into character, his mastery as a raconteur, and his profound grasp of the yearnings of the human heart." Writer
Nirmal Verma stated, "If we see a long gallery of unmatched characters in his stories and novels, where each person is present with his class and family; pleasures and pains of his town and district; the whole world of perversions and contradictions; it is because the reservoir of his (Bhisham Sahni's) experience was vast and abundant. At the request of his father – would anyone believe? – he dabbled in business, in which he was a miserable failure. With his high-spirits and passion for life of the common people, he traveled through villages and towns of
Punjab with the
IPTA theatre group; then began to teach to earn a living; and then lived in the
USSR for seven years as a
Hindi translator. This sprawling reservoir of experience collected in the hustle-bustle of various occupations ultimately filtered down into his stories and novels, without which, as we realize today, the world of Hindi prose would have been deprived and desolate. The simplicity of his work comes from hard layers of experience, which distinguish and separate it from other works of simplified realism. ... Bhisham Sahni is able to express the terrifying tragedy of
Partition with an extraordinary compassion in his stories. "Amritsar Aa Gaya Hai" (We have reached
Amritsar) is one such exceptional work where Bhisham gets away from the external reality and points to the bloody fissures etched on people's psyche. This is possible only for a writer who, in the darkness of historic events has seen the sudden 'accidents' that happen inside human hearts from up close. ... After reading his last collection of stories
Daayan (Witch), I was amazed that even after so many years there seemed no repetition or staleness in his writing. Each of his stories seemed to bring something sudden from newer directions, which was as new for him as it was unexpected for us. That Bhisham never paused, never halted in such a long creative journey is a big achievement; but what is bigger perhaps is that his life nurtured his work and his work nurtured his life, both nurtured each other continuously." == Awards and honours==