Vijay Dhondopant Tendulkar (6 January 1928 – 19 May 2008) was a leading Indian playwright, movie and television writer, literary essayist, political journalist, and social commentator primarily in Marāthi. His Marathi plays established him as a writer of plays with contemporary, unconventional themes. He is best known for his plays Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe (1967), Ghāshirām Kotwāl (1972), and Sakhārām Binder (1972). Many of Tendulkar's plays derived inspiration from real-life incidents or social upheavals, which provide clear light on harsh realities. He has provided guidance to students studying "play writing" in US universities. Tendulkar was a dramatist and theatre personality in Mahārāshtra for over five decades. Early life Vijay Dhondopant Tendulkar was born in a Gaud Saraswat Brahmin family on 6 January 1928 in Girgaon, Mumbai, Maharashtra, where his father held a clerical job and ran a small publishing business. The literary environment at home prompted young Vijay to take up writing. He wrote his first story at age six. He grew up watching western plays and felt inspired to write plays himself. At age eleven, he wrote, directed, and acted in his first play. At age 14, he participated in the 1942 Indian freedom movement, leaving his studies. The latter alienated him from his family and friends. Writing then became his outlet, though most of his early writings were of a personal nature, and not intended for publication. During this period, he participated in the activities of Nabajiban Sanghatana, a splinter communist group. He said that he liked sense of sacrifice and discipline of the communists. Career Early career Tendulkar began his career writing for newspapers. He had already written a play, Āmcyāvar Koṇ Preṃ Karṇār? ( Who is going to love me?), and he wrote the play, Gṛhastha (गृहस्थ; The Householder), 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 Śrīmant Rich), which established him as a good writer. Śrīmant 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 ("cāḷ/chawls") in Mumbai provided him first-hand experience about the life of urban lower middle class. He thus