Kiran Nagarkar, who was 77, passed away late Thursday. The author collapsed from a brain haemorrhage while at a friend's place where he had gone for Ganpati celebrations. He was rushed to Bombay hospital where he remained in a coma for two days, finally succumbing last night.

Considered to be one of the country's most prolific writers, Kiran Nagarkar worked as a journalist, screenplay writer, and a copywriter along with noted poet Arun Kolatkar. His first book Saat Sakkam Trechalis (1974) was written in Marathi and translated into Seven Sixes are Forty-Three by Shubha Slee in 1980. Since then, all his books have been translated into German. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award for the best novel in English for Cuckold — a novel set in the early 16th century — in 2001, the Rockefeller grant and a scholarship by the city of Munich. Nagarkar also made a cameo in Dev Benegal's Split Wide Open where he essayed the role of Brother Bono.