Partap Sharma

Partap Sharma (12 December 1939 – 30 November 2011) was an Indian playwright, novelist, author of books for children, commentator, actor and documentary film-maker.

Sharma was born in Lahore, Punjab, India (now in Pakistan) and was the oldest son of Dr. Baijnath Sharma and Dayawati Pandit.

Sharma's father was a civil engineer who served as Technical Advisor to governments in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Tanganyika and Libya and later retired to their ancestral property in Punjab as a farmer.

This colourful Punjabi village forms much of the backdrop of Sharma's novel, Days of the Turban.

Sharma's early education was in Trinity College, Kandy, Ceylon, and Bishop Cotton School, Shimla.

Sharma received a triple promotion and completed school at 14 before going to study at St. Xavier's College, Bombay; all other universities in India required a minimum age of 16.

He was married to Susan Amanda Pick and they have two daughters: Namrita and Tara Sharma.

Sharma's association with the Indian National Theatre, Mumbai, began in 1961 with the production by it of his first full-length play "Bars Invisible" and continued until the production of the banned "A Touch of Brightness."

While working on his writing, Sharma freelanced as a narrator for short films and newsreels and directed a few documentaries for the Government of India.

Sharma has voiced many national and international award-winning documentaries and short films.

He is the voice on most of the Son et lumière shows produced in India, including the one still running forty years later, at the Delhi Fort, in Delhi.

The Surangini Tales (1973) is a children's book, about Surangini, daughter of the village zamindar.

She is the most beautiful maiden anyone has ever seen.

Kalu, the poor weaver, loves her, but only the wealthiest of eligible young men can ask for her hand in marriage.

Unless, Kalu with his deft hands, quick wit and unselfish love can produce something like a miracle, unexpected and amazing, on the day she is to choose her bridegroom....!

Dog Detective Ranjha (1978) is a story book about Sharma's Alsatian dog Ranjha.

Sharma dedicates the book to animal lovers the world over, and particularly in India where some of the world's earliest animal stories were written, opening with,

"Even today the streets in India are open not only to traffic and human beings but also the friendly cows and bulls who wander freely as they please, sometimes absentmindedly standing in a bus queue or staring in with curiosity from the doorstep of a shop. There are even festivals for the less loved creatures, like snakes. Birds, of course, are often fed little morsels even by those who can hardly afford a daily meal for themselves. In the great epic, Mahabharata, it is said that when the legendary hero, Yuddhister went to heaven he insisted that his dog should be allowed to accompany him."

'Sharma has written a good, old-fashioned adventure story book, its rather solid virtues enlivened by the amusing device of having events narrated by the dog.'

– Rosemary Stones, Children's Book Bulletin (UK)

The Little Master of the Elephant (1984) tells the story of a parched land, where people are dying or leaving.

Chintu and his elephant Vivek go in search of water to save a dying uncle.

They come back with a retinue of people and animals and a river of water instead of first a bucketful.

This is just the beginning of their adventures together and their search for the meaning of life.

In a part Chintu finds love and is promised to be king and find the meaning of what he is looking for.

Top Dog (1985) has more stories about Ranjha, the dog detective.

They live in Mumbai and Ranjha has been so skilfully trained in the art of tracking that he has become famous for the crimes he has solved.

All the stories in this book are based on real cases and Ranjha tells us, in his own words, about some of the most puzzling he has helped to solve.

He tracked down a local thief, he got involved in a particularly unpleasant case of what seemed to be ritual murder, he got to the bottom of a series of thefts from a warehouse that had reduced the owner of the goods to despair.

He helped to find and return to her family a little girl, who had been kidnapped.

Sharma's novel Days of the Turban (1986) presents a picture of Indian Society from the inside.

It shows a country in transition, where old values are under attack from new ideas but where, in the end, the traditions and ways of life still have their place.

It tells the story of Balbir, the youngest member of a wealthy Punjabi family, the descendant of a great Brahmin warrior dynasty.

In the Punjab the family counts for everything.

Over-educated and bored with life in a Punjabi village, Balbir wants only to escape, to get away from the demands of ever-present family.

Most of all he would like to follow his glamorous elder brother Raskaan, who has escaped to Europe and become westernised and rich, a businessman in Berlin.

Searching for adventure and trying to raise the money to finance his escape, Balbir becomes entangled with local gunrunners.

Venturing into the golden Temple at Amritsar with a message for the Sikh extremists who have fortified it, he is held hostage to ensure that his cousin Satyavan will provide the arms the movement needs.

The book provides an insight into the mind of extremists.

It shows how extremism builds on fear and then has to reach further into terrorism, not necessarily to further its aim, but for its leadership to keep ahead of its supporters and rivals.