Shrawan Kumar Verma, is a renowned living “afsaana nigaar”, or short-story writer of Urdu language. He is a prolific writer.

Though Verma was greatly influenced by the matchless stories of Manto, yet he could not meet him during his lifetime, though both lived in Amritsar.

With the hope of meeting him, Verma dashed to Mumbai in 1953. However, his hopes were shattered when he learnt that Manto had already left for Pakistan just three days ago.

The Language Department, Punjab, honoured him with the Siromani Sahitkar Award for his contribution to Urdu language in 1993.

His father, a barrister by profession, shifted to Lucknow before his birth in 1930. Thus, he lived ten years of his childhood in the city of Nawabs and had adequate exposure to the language, which is widely spoken there.

His works include five books of short stories and three novels.

He penned about 250 short stories during his five-decade-long literary journey and produced poems, too.

The turning phase in his career came in 1953, when his story appeared in Urdu magazine “Afkar”, a reputed monthly published from Karachi