MUMBAI, Nov. 30 -- He wrote with fingers dipped in Mumbai's sweat and tears. Prabhakar Narayan aka Bhau Padhye, the renowned Marathi litterateur whose birth centenary celebrations began this month (he was born in 1926), celebrated Mumbai's inclusive ethos with remarkable sensitivity and artistic restraint, chronicling its rhythm and roar through the sizzling 1960s-'70s when writers, artists and musicians were all set to break rigid rules and challenge the old order. Padhye's stories reek of Mumbai's sound and smell: pubs ('Aunty ka adda' in Mumbai's lingo), slums, railway stations, Irani restaurants, brothels and chawls - the milieu straight out of a noir film. He would peel off the soul of his characters to leave them free to shape their destiny, and he peppered his creations with wry humour. A film journalist, Padhye liberally employed metaphors from popular Hindi films to underscore life's futility amidst cataclysmic socio-political transformation between the sunset years of the Nehruvian era and the rise of Indira Gandhi in the 1970s. As a Socialist, Padhye opposed Gandhi's Emergency. A Mumbai University graduate, Padhye did several odd jobs - municipal school teacher, LIC clerk and trade unionist - before taking to journalism and creative writing. Although his first novel was published in 1960, Padhye 'arrived', as it were, with 'Vasunaka' (in Mumbai's lingo a meeting point for young boys). He was to soon turn 'Vasunaka' into a metaphor for the post- Independent generation of Marathis wracked by existential angst. 'Vasunaka' shook Marathi writers, who were weaned on gooey sentimentalism, out of their stupor. He was lambasted for interspersing 'Vasunaka' with four-letter words and its irreverent tone. "Padhye wrote what he saw around him. Being a journalist he had an eye for detail and a spartan style. While he faced flak from many writers, he earned good readership, especially from the young generation thanks to a well-oiled chain of public libraries in the Mumbai of those years," said Ashok Mule, Padhye's publisher and, later, his neighbour in Vasai. "He never compromised on his creative freedom. He wrote without fear," added Mule. In an article in 'Lalit', a prestigious literary journal, he said his detractors were either naive or hypocrites. "I realised early in life that sex, like God, is omnipotent and omnipresent.Writing a novel without sex is like chopping vegetables in the company of a ravishing beauty. Writing about the charisma of sex is what a novelist or a short story writer ought to do," he said in the article which left moral cops fuming and fretting. However, 'Vasunaka' triggered a storm in Marathi literature. Jaywant Dalvi's 'Chakra' (later turned into a film starring Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah and Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and 'Mahimchi Khaadi' by Madhu Mangesh Karnik offered a heart-wrenching account of life in Mumbai slums. Bhalchandra Nemade, Namdeo Dhasal and Arun Kolatkar too rolled out of the wings with poems and novels dismantling outdated values and questioning power and patriarchy. 'Rada' (Street brawl), a novel which talks of Mumbai's politicisation, brought him fresh laurels. The 1975 novel probes Shiv Sena's politics of nativism and street violence, which swept young Marathis off their feet across the city. Padhye's pincode at one time - 35, Kherwadi, Bandra East - brought him tantalisingly close to Shiv Sena's cloistered world. He had quite a few friends in the party, and it is believed the central protagonist of 'Rada' closely resembles Subhash Desai, a Sena strategist. Describing 'Rada' as relevant to the present times when "things have been deteriorating all around us", noted writer Ganesh Matkari said, "Padhye's use of language has a relevance to the times he depicts in his works. However, the characters and the structure of his novels transcend time effortlessly. When you read a Padhye novel it doesn't take you down the memory lane - it makes you aware of the impasse we find ourselves in as we struggle to wade through difficult situations." Padhye's marriage in 1956 became a talking point. Although a Brahmin with impeccable credentials (the family headed a Lord Rama temple in Dadar) he married Shoshanna Mazgaokar, his long-time Bene Israeli girlfriend who, like him, was a Socialist Party worker, in Mumbai. However, Padhye was never boastful about his rebellion. Also, he never allowed life's vicissitudes - endless financial worries and ailments - weigh him down. Mule described Padhye as a "man of few words, who kept to himself, lost in his own universe. He never raised his voice even when provoked". Poet Dilip Purushottam Chitre's preface to a 1995 compilation of his short stories succinctly sums up the latter's strength as writer. "Padhye's artistic skill to assess the eco-system of a community through an individual's lens makes him a compelling story-teller. In his voice we can hear the chaos of the teeming millions and echoes of humanity as well." The new crop of Marathi writers too think that Padhye hasn't lost his relevance and that the generational gap isn't a hindrance. As Matkari said, "Padhye's biggest strength is that he understands the urban milieu and its layered reality very well. He takes in his sweep diverse classes and groups - each with their individual back stories, political beliefs, philosophies and language. There is no artificial construct in his narrative." Some find a measure of similarity between him and Saadat Hasan Manto, although the two never met. "It was a case of shared beliefs. Moreover, both had a fiery urge to challenge the literary establishment," said poet Rekha Shahane. Like the legendary Urdu writer, Padhye drew his characters from the flux of Mumbai's underbelly, all struggling to survive and blend the sacred and the profane. Padhye gave them their moment of epiphany....