Khandekar was born on 11 January 1898 in Sangli, Maharashtra. His father was a munsif (a subordinate official) in Sangli principality where he spent his childhood and completed his early education. In his early life, he was interested in acting in movies and staged various dramas during school days.[4][5]
After passing his matriculation exam in 1913, Khandekar joined Fergusson College, Pune. In 1920, he started working as a school teacher at a school in Shiroda[4][5]
Professional and literary life
Khandekar's writing career began in 1919 when Shrimat Kalipuranam, his first work, was published, and continued to 1974 when his novel Yayati was published.[5]
In 1920, Khandekar started working as a school teacher in a small town, Shiroda, in the present-day Sindhudurg district of the Konkan region in Maharashtra. He worked in that school until 1938. While working as a teacher, Khandekar produced in his spare time abundant Marathi literature in various forms. He frequented a hillock located overseeing the sea where he wrote many of his literary works, this place later came to be known by locals as "Khandekaranchi Khurchi" (Chair of Khandekar). In his lifetime, he wrote sixteen novels, six plays, around 250 short stories, 50 allegorical stories, 100 essays, and over 200 critiques.[6]
He worked and founded Khandekari alankar in Marathi grammar.[citation needed]
Honors and awards
In 1941, Khandekar was elected as the president of the annual Marathi Sahitya Sammelan (Marathi Literary Conference) in Solapur. In 1968, the Government of India honoured him with a Padma Bhushan award in recognition of his literary accomplishments.[7] Two years later, he was also honoured with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship of the Indian Sahitya Akademi. in 1974, he was awarded Jnanpith Award, country's highest literary recognition, for his novel Yayati.[2][3]Shivaji University at Kolhapur, Maharashtra conferred on him an honorary degree of D.Litt. In 1998, the Government of India issued a commemorative postage stamp in his honour.
^ abM. L. NARASIMHAM (4 September 2011). "DHARMAPATHNI (1941)". The Hindu. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
^ abc"JNANPITH LAUREATES". Bharatiya Jannpith. Archived from the original on 14 July 2016. Retrieved 20 November 2013. 12. V.S. Khandekar (1974) Marathi
^ abHatkanagalekar, M. D. (1991). Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar (in Hindi). Translated by Sharma, Rameshchandra. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. pp. 10–11. ISBN81-7201-082-6.
