Bhopal: ‘Malwa Ki Meera’ Passes Away At 90

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Author and storyteller, and a Padma Shri recipient Malti Joshi from Madhya Pradesh passed away here on Wednesday.

The 90-year-old Malti had been battling cancer for some time and breathed her last at her son and member secretary of the Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts (IGNCA) Sachchidanand Joshi’s residence in Delhi.

Malti who lived in Bhopal for a long time, was popularly known as ‘Malwa ki Meera’. She was known for her prolific literary contributions, with over fifty collections of stories in Hindi and Marathi to her credit. Throughout her career, she authored more than 60 books and was honoured with the Padma Shri award in 2018 for her significant contributions to literature.

The Madhya Pradesh government had feted her with ‘Shikhar Samman’  for 2005-06  and  ‘Rashtriya Maithilisharan Gupt Samman  for 2013-14.’ . She was also honoured with ‘Akshar Aditya’  award by the Madhya Pradesh Writers’ Association in 1995 and "Bhavbhuti Alankaran" by the Madhya Pradesh Hindi Sahitya Sammelan in 1998. Several of Joshi’s stories were adapted for television by Doordarshan, and she made appearances in television shows such as ‘Saat Phere,’ produced by Jaya Bachchan, and ‘Kirdaar,’ produced by Gulzar. Her stories were translated into multiple languages. 

The entire literary society in Bhopal was saddened by her demise.   director, culture, NP Namdev said that it is an irreparable loss to the literary world. “She was the leading female storyteller of the country, who had given a different dimension to story writing by using natural, simple and sensitive language,”  Namdev said.

State President of Madhya Pradesh Writers’ Association Ram Vallabh Acharya said her unique style of storytelling always impressed the readers. “Doctorate degrees have been awarded to many researchers on the research done on her works in many universities of the country,” Acharya said.