Celebrated Hindi novelist Ved Prakash Sharma cremated

Meerut: Popular Hindi novelist Ved Prakash Sharma, who has 176 novels to his credit, breathed his last on February 17. The 62-year-old wasn’t keeping well since the last few months and had developed some infection and complications which led to his demise. His family members confirmed the news on Saturday.

Born on June 10, 1955 in Meerut city of Uttar Pradesh, India, he started his career as a ghost writer. After penning down as many as 23 novels, he got credit as a writer for the novel Dahekte Shaher in the year 1973. His other books which broke records and added to his popularity included Qaidi No 100 and Vardi Wala Gunda.

Sharma had also written scripts for about half-a-dozen Hindi movies. His novel Bahu Maange Insaaf was made into a Bollywood film in 1985. The 1992 film “Anaam” and the 1995 Akshay Kumar starrer “Sabse Bada Khiladi” were made on stories based on Sharma’s novels. Later, he also wrote the screenplay for the movie “International Khiladi” which released in the year 1999.

The television series “Keshav Pandit”, which aired on Zee TV in 2010, was based on his imaginary character Keshav Pandit. He had developed the character and written umpteen novels under that series.

Sharma has been honoured with “Meerut Ratna” award twice in the year 1992 and later, in 1994. Not just that, he has also been an award recipient of “Natraj Bhushan Award” in 2008 and “Natraj Award” in 1995.