Sachin Bhowmick

Mumbai, April 12: Scriptwriter and screenplay stalwart Sachin Bhowmick, who penned Aradhana, Golmaal and An Evening in Paris in half-a-century-long career studded with many such classics, passed away today.

Bhowmick was 81 and is survived by his son Sandip and his family who lived with the writer. “He died of cardiac arrest in his sleep this morning. He was keeping unwell for quite some time and had health complications like diabetes and heart trouble. He had also undergone a hip replacement surgery three months ago,” Sandip told The Telegraph from the family’s Pali Hill residence in Bandra this evening.

A veteran whose work cut across generations and included hits like the Hrithik Roshan-starrer Koi Mil Gaya and Krrish in recent years, Bhowmick was described by his son as a “Bengali at heart”.

Sandip said his father loved Bengali food, cricket and movies. “He had last visited Calcutta 10 to 12 years ago and was to visit the city before his hip replacement surgery but couldn’t (because of the health problems),” Sandip added.

Bhowmick, whose first screenplay was for Mohan Sehgal’s Nargis-starrer Lajwanti in 1958, wrote more than 90 films. His last screenplay was for his long-time associate Subhash Ghai in the Salman Khan- starrer Yuvraaj in 2008 — he completed 50 years in the industry with that. He wrote several films for Ghai’s Mukta Arts, including the 1980 musical Karz.

Born on July 17, 1930, Sachinda, as he was called, came from Calcutta to Mumbai as a replacement to writer Premendra Mitra in a film. He worked with some of the biggest directors, including J. Om Prakash, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Nasir Hussain and Rakesh Roshan, among others.

Bhowmick also wrote Balraj Sahni-Leela Naidu-starrer Anuradha, which won the first-ever National Award for the best film in 1961. Bhowmick had first written it as a short story for a Bengali magazine. He acknowledged in his autobiography later that the story was inspired by Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.

Directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Anuradha had its music composed by Pandit Ravi Shankar. It was nominated for the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1961.

Bhowmick’s greatest quality was his ability to write films that captured popular imagination across decades and generations, from the “golden sixties” to the “angry eighties” and later even in the post-liberalisation era of the 1990s.

He wrote Shammi Kapoor hits like An Evening in Paris, Janwar and Brahmachari. The Rajesh Khanna-starrer Aradhana, a rage in the late 1960s, was also penned by him. In the seventies, he wrote diverse films such as Jeetendra-Asha Parekh-starrer Caravan and Hum Kisi Se Kum Nahin for Nasir Hussain. Then came thrillers Khel Khel Mein, starring Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh, and comedy Golmaal for Hrishikesh Mukherjee.

In the eighties, Bhowmick wrote Do Aur Do Paanch, Nastik and Bemisal — starring Amitabh Bachchan. He also penned Karma for Ghai and the Anil Kapoor-starrer Saaheb, which was directed by Anil Ganguly.

In the nineties, Bhowmick’s works included the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Karan Arjun and Koyla, and Ghai’s Taal.