Born to Radhabai and her husband Dr Gopal Pendharkar in a Brahmin family,[1] Bhalji was related to a number of personalities from the Indian film industry. They include his elder brother, Baburao Pendharkar, maternal half-brother and actor-Director, Master Vinayak Karnataki, and maternal cousin V Shantaram.
Personal life
Bhalji had two wives. One of whom, Leela Chandragiri, acted and sang in Hindi and Marathi films in 1930s under the name Miss Leela. Leela-bai already had two children when she first met Bhalji. Bhalji adopted both of them, a boy (Jayasingh) and a girl. The girl later married novelist Ranjit Desai and she is better known as Madhavi Desai (died in 2013); she wrote the book 'Naacha Ga Ghumaa'. His second daughter's name was Saroj Chindarkar.
Bhalji's son with his first wife, Prabhakar Pendharkar (1933–2010), was associated with making of Do Aankhen Barah Haath in 1950s, wrote the book रारंगढांग, and was author-director of noteworthy documentaries. Bhalji named his studio Jayaprabha, combining in it the names of Leela's son Jayasingh (whom Bhalji had adopted) and his own son Prabhakar.
^Patil, Kavita. ""FILM INDUSTRY OF KOLHAPUR: A HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE." Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, vol. 64, 2003": 1197. JSTOR44145547. Baburao Painter was a carpenter, Bhalji and. Baburao Pendharkar were Brahmins{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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