Hindi litterateur Mannu Bhandari, whose short stories were very popular, passed away in a Gurgaon hospital on 14th November due to an infection. She had suffered a series of strokes over the last few years, because of which she was frail but never bedridden. She was 90.
Basu Chatterji, with whom Mannu Bhandari shared a fond association, converted her short story, Yehi Sach Hai, into Rajnigandha. Basu da’s Jeena Yahan was also based on her work, Ekhane Aakash Neyee. Mannu Bhandari wrote the dialogues for Swami. Her novel, Aap Ka Bunty, was made as Samay Ki Dhara (1986). The film ran into legal trouble as it veered away from the original.
Writer Mridula Garg said that Krishna Sobti, Usha Priyamvada and Mannu Bhandari were regarded as the three best Hindi women writers of the 1960s and ’70s.