Narayan Dharap
Narayan Dharap (Devanagari: नारायण धारप) (August 27, 1925 – August 18, 2008) was a Marathi writer from Maharashtra, India.
He wrote more than 100 books, primarily of the horror genre- written in Marathi language.[1]
Dharap earned a B.Sc. (Tech) degree from Mumbai University.
The main characters which can be found often in his stories or novels are: Samarth, Appa Joshi, Krishnachandra, Panta. There are assored stories as well, in which there can be individual heroes/heroines of the stories - who come out of situation with their own heroic deeds - sometimes with little external help, sometimes without it. Most of his stories would have a great battle between good and evil - with victory of good! Sometimes it is seen that evil wins - but it is indeed rare! Some similarities can be found between a few of Stephen King stories with Dharap stories. However, Dharap stories seem to come from Marathi culture and marathi readers can always relate to his characters & rituals in his books- so the similarity is seen only in a few stories - only in the parts of some plots. Horror writing is still not seen with the revernce, the way other types of writings are seen in Marathi literature- till date. However Dharap is loved by most of the marathi readers who have some interest in the horror genre.
Apart from being extremely interesting, the general characteristic of Dharap book includes "a victory of good over evil", "origination of the concepts in the book from Marathi culture", "keeping the story away from any kind of sexual references (which is considered an important factor in any "good" marathi literature)", "despite the books being of horror genre-- keeping the contents away from any kind of 'bloody and yucky' descriptions" His books give a good shiever expected out of any horror book - with a good taste!
Main characters that can be found in Dharap's stories are: Samarth: Samarth is one of the main characters that can be found in many of the Dharap's novels. He is a powerful saint like person, who helps people out of difficult situations- involving bad supernatural powers.He himself is a possessor of great supernatural power- which he has earned with the great efforts. He is generally assisted by Appa Joshi - who is a common man with a good heart and has love for Samarth in his heart. KrishnaChandra: Like Samartha, Krishnachandra too is a possessor of great supernatural powers - which he uses for helping people in trouble(again with bad supernatural powers/ possessors of those powers/people helping these bad powers). However, unlike Samartha, he enjoys worldly pleasures as well. He is sometimes assisted by a character called Omkar. Pant: Pant is another character that can be found in couple of Dharap stories. However, he doesn't appear in as many books as Samarth /Krishnachandra do. He is a great Tantrik - whose prayer room can appear anywhere he wants.. and there are some brutal forces hidden behind the statues of various animals in those rooms, which help him to fight against brutal evil in the story.
samartha - 1968 Kata 1970 Angarika 1976 Chaya 1971 Samarthanchi sahase 1970 Ubhe adave dhage 1969 Krishna 1971 Samarthanchi Shakti 1972 Kajli 1970 Bujagavane 1971 Krishnachandra samarthachiya sevaka chetakeen Dast Samarthancha Prahar Shapath Sathe Fayakas