Film director, novelist Ved Rahi to get Kusumagraj literature award

Nashik, March 13

Film director and novelist Ved Rahi has been selected for prestigious ‘Kusumagraj’ national award for literature.

Instituted by the city-based Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU), the ‘Kusumagraj Rashtriya Sahitya Puraskar’ carries a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh, a memento and a citation.

Rahi would be handed over the award at a function to be held at the YCMOU soon, the university said in a release.

The award is instituted after Jnanpith-laureate Marathi poet and playwright late VV Shirwadkar, popularly known as ‘Kusumagraj’.

Born in Jammu in 1933, Rahi has penned seven novels in Dogri. He was given the Sahitya Akademi award for his Dogri novel, ‘Aale’ in 1983.

A prolific writer, he also wrote in Hindi and Urdu.

Rahi also made the film ‘Veer Savarkar’ (2001), a biopic on the life of revolutionary Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.

He was director of the 1991 Doordarshan television serial, ‘Gul Gulshan Gulfaam’.

Rahi has written dialogues for several Bollywood movies, including ‘Bezuban’, ‘Charas’ and ‘Mom ki Gudiya’. PTI