The father of Indian soap operas, who kept television viewers spellbound in the days before cable with long-running shows about ordinary people, died here early Thursday, a report said.
Manohar Shyam Joshi, 73, a Hindi novelist and creator of two hugely popular television serials, died of a heart attack, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
Joshi is best known as the man behind series like "Hum Log" (We the People) and "Buniyaad" (The Foundation), which aired on state-run Doordarshan channel in the 1980s.
Based on Mexican soaps, which combined entertainment with social messages, "Hum Log" told the story of an extended family - where many generations live in one home - and ended each episode with commentary by a popular actor.
Many viewers could personally relate to "Buniyad," about a Punjabi family forced to leave Pakistan after 1947 and start a new life in India. Joshi also wrote both fiction and non-fiction, as well as a column for the Hindi edition of popular newsweekly Outlook.
His novel "Kyaap" won an award last year from the Sahitya Akademi, India's national academy of literature.