Uttam Tupe (28 December 1932 – 26 April 2020) was a writer and poet from Pune, India.[1] He wrote several hundred short stories and 16 novels.[2] One of his books was made into a successful play, and another into a feature film. Tupe also wrote about the social ills of the caste system and issues with Devadasi.[3][4]
Tupe wrote a series of novels with a Devadasi theme that were released into the Marathi literary scene in the 1980s.[3] Tupe began writing in the rustic dialect of his native Satara district. He crafted a short story on the evils of the dowry system. It was immediately published, and a few months later, Tupe got Rs 501 as a cash prize from the Marathi Maharashtra Sahitya Parishad.[5]
Other authors have called Tupe a "noted subservient writer".[4] Naik goes on to say that Tupe as well as Sri Patange, Texas Gaekawad, and Namedeo Kamble[8] all "are harmful in the sense that they depict life artificially and deliberately and mislead life."[4]
In all his works Tupe was concerned with the crushing burden poor villagers carry. Zulva, the most popular novel, deals with the plight of devadasis. Other themes include: Villagers superstitions,[9] dowry murders, and the problems of unemployed youth and migrants.[citation needed]