The Man behind the Ramayan

For millions of Indian television viewers in the late 1980s, Sunday mornings were a celebration viewing Ramanand Sagar's epic serial Ramayan.

Sagar, 87, who died on Monday from complications caused by old age in Mumbai, was born in December 29, 1917 at Asal Guru Ke near Lahore into one of the region's wealthiest families.

He showed striking literary precocity, inheriting the faculty from his father Dinanath Chopra who wrote under the pseudonym Taj Peshawari.

Ramanand was adopted by his maternal grandmother, who changed his original name Chandramauli. Later, he often confessed to have missed the love of his real parents. His childhood was responsible for the emotional note consistent in his work.

He first published a piece of prose-poetry, Pritaam Pratiksha, in 1933 when he was just 16 for the Srinagar-based Shri Pratap College magazine. The editor was impressed but was not convinced Ramanand had authored the work and so wrote as a footnote that 'the editor could not vouch for the originality of the article.'

Ramanand was thrown out of his house after he refused to accept dowry and struggled to make a living. In turn, he worked as a peon, truck cleaner, soap vendor and apprentice to a goldsmith during the day, studying for his degree at night.

He won a gold medal from Punjab University and the title of Munshi Fazal in Persian.

He joined the Daily Pratap newspaper and rose to become the news editor of the Daily Milap, a leading newspaper in Punjab.

Alongside his journalism, he continued to write prodigiously, and authored 32 short stories in 12 years, three novellas, one novel, two serials and two plays.

He wrote under the name 'Ramanand Chopra,' 'Ramanand Bedi,' 'Ramanand Kashmiri,' and finally settled on 'Ramanand Sagar.'

In 1942, he was afflicted by tuberculosis and fought death in a sanitarium. It was there that he wrote Diary of a TB Patient, which was serialised in Adab-e-Mashriq, a highly rated magazine in the 1940s.

It caught the fancy of the literary world, including the writer Krishen Chander, and won him acclaim.  

He made a significant contribution to the literary world between 1943 and 1949 with Jwaar Bhata in 1943, Ainey the next year; Jab Pahle Roz Baraf Giri, Goura in 1948 for a play enacted by Prithviraj Kapoor among others.

In 1947, Sagar fled Lahore to India with his family.

Penniless, his only possessions were five annas and a trunk full of manuscripts that described the horrors of Partition.

These manuscripts were the basis for Aur Insaan Mar Gaya, his life's masterpiece. Acclaimed as a classic in Urdu and Hindi literature, it was translated into several Indian and foreign languages. The English version And Humanity Died was published in 1987-1988.