Early career Tendulkar began his career writing for newspapers. He had already written a play,
Amchyavar Kon Prem Karnar? (), and he wrote the play,
Grihastha (), in his early 20s. The latter did not receive much recognition from the audience, and he vowed never to write again. Breaking the vow, in 1956 he wrote
Shrimant, which established him as a good writer.
Shrimant jolted the conservative audience of the times with its radical storyline, wherein an unmarried young woman decides to keep her unborn child while her rich father tries to "buy" her a husband in an attempt to save his social prestige. Tendulkar's early struggle for survival and living for some time in tenements (
Chawl) in
Mumbai provided him first-hand experience about the life of the urban lower middle class. He thus brought new authenticity to their depiction in
Marathi theatre. Tendulkar's writings rapidly changed the storyline of modern Marathi theatre in the 1950s and the 60s, with experimental presentations by theatre groups like Rangayan. Actors in these theatre groups like
Shriram Lagoo,
Mohan Agashe, and
Sulabha Deshpande brought new authenticity and power to Tendulkar's stories while introducing new sensibilities in Marathi theatre. Tendulkar wrote the play
Gidhade () in 1961, but it was not produced until 1970. The play was set in a morally collapsed family structure and explored the theme of violence. In his following creations, Tendulkar explored violence in its various forms: domestic, sexual, communal, and political. Thus,
Gidhade proved to be a turning point in Tendulkar's writings about the establishment of his own unique writing style. Based on a 1956 short story,
Die Panne () by
Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Tendulkar wrote the play,
Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe (). It was presented on the stage for the first time in 1967 and proved to be one of his finest works.
Satyadev Dubey presented it in movie form in 1971 with Tendulkar's collaboration as the screenplay writer.
1970s and 1980s In his 1972 play,
Sakharam Binder, Tendulkar dealt with the topic of domination of the male gender over the female. The main character, Sakharam, is a man devoid of ethics and morality, and professes not to believe in "outdated" social codes and conventional marriage. He accordingly uses the society for his pleasure. He regularly gives "shelter" to abandoned wives and uses them for his sexual gratification while remaining oblivious to the emotional and moral implications of his exploits. He justifies all his acts through claims of modern, unconventional thinking, and comes up with hollow arguments meant in fact to enslave women. Paradoxically, some of the women whom Sakharam had enslaved buy into his arguments and simultaneously badly want freedom from their enslavement. In 1972, Tendulkar wrote another, even much more acclaimed play,
Ghashiram Kotwal (), which dealt with political violence. The play is a political satire created as a musical drama set in 18th century
Pune. It combined traditional Marathi folk music and drama with contemporary theatre techniques, creating a new paradigm for Marathi theatre. The play demonstrates Tendulkar's deep study of group psychology, and it brought him a
Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship (1974–75) for a project titled, "An Enquiry into the Pattern of Growing Violence in Society and Its Relevance to Contemporary Theatre". With over 6,000 performances thus far in its original and translated versions,
Ghashiram Kotwal remains one of the longest-running plays in the history of Indian theatre. Tendulkar wrote screenplays for the movies
Nishant (1974),
Akrosh (; 1980), and
Ardh Satya (; 1984) which established him as an important "Chronicler of Violence" of the present. He has written eleven movies in Hindi and eight movies in Marathi. The latter include
Samana (; 1975),
Simhaasan (; 1979), and
Umbartha (; 1981). The last one is a groundbreaking feature film on women's activism in India. It was directed by
Jabbar Patel and stars
Smita Patil and
Girish Karnad.
1990s to 2008 In 1991, Tendulkar wrote a metaphorical play,
Safar, and in 2001 he wrote the play,
The Masseur. He next wrote two novels –
Kadambari: Ek and
Kadambari: Don – about sexual fantasies of an ageing man. In 2004, he wrote a single-act play,
His Fifth Woman – his first play in the English language – as a sequel to his earlier exploration of the plight of women in
Sakharam Binder. This play was first performed at the Vijay Tendulkar Festival in New York in October 2004. In the 1990s, Tendulkar wrote an acclaimed TV series,
Swayamsiddha, in which his daughter
Priya Tendulkar, noted Television actress of 'Rajani' fame, performed in the lead role. His last screenplay was for
Eashwar Mime Co. (2005), an adaptation of
Dibyendu Palit's story,
Mukhabhinoy, and directed by theatre director,
Shyamanand Jalan and with
Ashish Vidyarthi and
Pawan Malhotra as leads. ==Family==