In later years as a writer, Phadke was commonly known by his first and middle initials in Marathi, 'Na Si'.
He wrote about 150 books, including 74 novels, 27 collections of short stories, 22 reviews, 7 plays,[1] and the autobiographical Maje Jeevan: Ek Kadambari.
For many years he also publicly feuded with another well known Marathi author, Acharya Pralhad Keshav Atre.
The Indian government honoured him with the Padmabhushan, India's third-highest civilian award, in 1962 for his literary accomplishments.
He had Margaret Sanger, an American birth control advocate, write the foreword for his book published in 1927 on the subject called "Sex problem in India".