Partap Sharma
Partap Sharma | |
|---|---|
| Partap Sharma Partap Sharma | |
| Born | 12th December 1939 Lahore (which was then part of India) |
| Occupation | playwright, novelist, commentator, actor, author children's books, and documentary film-maker |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Genre | plays, novels, children's literature |
Partap Sharma born December 12, 1939 is an Indian playwright, novelist, author of books for children, commentator, actor and documentary film-maker. A gifted writer, Sharma covers a wide range of subjects and perspectives, and as a master craftsman delivers intricate ideas simply.
Like Mahatma Gandhi, the subject of one of Sharma’s most applauded plays “Sammy” Sharma found that uncovering the truth was not always popular. In Contemporary Authors Sharma explains “Stories are perhaps a way of making more coherent and comprehensible the bewildering complexity of the world. I learn and discover as I write and I try to share what I have understood. This began with me when I was a child, before I could read, and when I needed to deduce a story to explain the pictures in a book. But that is just the technique; the aim is to uncover an aspect of the truth. The truth isn’t always palatable. Two of my documentaries and a play were, at various times, banned. The High Court reversed the ban on the play; it is now a text in three Indian universities and has been the subject of a doctoral thesis in drama at Utah University, U.S.A.”
Background
Sharma was born in Lahore which was then part of India. The oldest son of Dr. Baij Nath Sharma (a civil engineer who served as Technical Advisor to governments in Ceylon, Tanganyika and Libya, later retired to ancestral property as gentleman farmer) and Dayawati (Pandit) Sharma.
Sharma’s early education was in Trinity College, Kandy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and then at Bishop Cotton School, Simla, St. Xavier’s College, Bombay, India. Married to Susan Amanda Pick, they have two daughters: Namrita and Tara.
Sharma was associated with the Indian National Theatre, Bombay, as a playwright and theatre director from 1961 onwards, producing for produced by Films Division (Bombay). Also producer-director of documentaries. He was the T.V. host of “Connections” and “What’s the Good Word?” a programme for Television Centre (Bombay).
One of India’s leading voices heard in narrations and commentaries on film, radio & TV, he has voiced many national and international award-winning documentaries and short films. Sharma has often been referred to in the Press as ‘the Voice of India’ or simply ‘The Voice’. He has narrated most of the son-et-lumière programmes produced in India, including the one still running forty years later at the Red Fort in Delhi.
PUBLISHED WRITINGS
A Touch of Brightness (Play) Selected in 1965 by a committee of eminent British producers and critics for presentation at the First Commonwealth Arts Festival in London; however, an indignant campaign by a few persons in Bombay denouncing the play for depicting the redlight area resulted in the passports of the troupe of actors of the Indian National Theatre being impounded and the play being banned. The play was, nevertheless, produced on stage at the Royal Court Theatre, London, by the English Stage Company on 5th March 1967. The ban in India was revoked by order of the Bombay High Court in 1972.
The play has over the years been produced and published in at least five countries in various languages. It was broadcast for the first time over radio by the BBC Third Programme in November 1967 with a cast that included Judi Dench, and music specially composed for it by Pandit Ravi Shankar.
The Surangini Tales (a book of fables), 1973, 1974,1975,1976, 2005 An Afrikaans edition was published in 1976.
Dog Detective Ranjha (a book of childrens stories) 1978, 1984,1995, 1999, 2000 Also published in comic book format by Tinkle (IBH)
Power Play (a play), 1980
Queen Bee (a play), 1981
The Little Master of the Elephant (a book of childrens stories),1984, 2003, 2004 French edition 1996
Top Dog (a book of stories) 1985, 1995, 1998, 2000.
Days of the Turban (a novel) 1986, 1988, 1996, 2005