Gajānan Digambar Mādguḷkar (1 October 1919 – 14 December 1977) was a Marāthi poet, lyricist, writer and actor from India. He is popularly known in his home state of Mahārāshtra by just his initials as Ga Di Mā. He was awarded Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1951[1] and Padma Shri in 1969.[2] He has written 157 screen plays and over 2000 songs in his career.[3] He was called Ādhunik Valmiki (the modern Valmiki) of current era due to his composition of Geet Rāmāyan (lit. Ramayana in Songs) as the most notable work. 2019 is celebrated as his Birth Century year. Government of Maharashtra hosts various events and festivals to grace the occasion.
Career
Madgulkar wrote poetry, short stories, novels, autobiographies and scripts, dialogues and lyrics for Marathi as well as Hindi movies. His poems have been adapted to a wide range of musical forms such as Sugam-Sangeet (light music), Bhāwa-Geet (emotional songs), Bhakti-Geet (devotional songs), and Lāwani (a genre of folk songs in Maharashtra). Madgulkar entered the world of movies in 1938 at Kolhāpur. He contributed to 157 Marathi and 23 Hindi movies.[citation needed] He was also an artist. He loved to draw nature scenes.
He had knowledge of 10 languages including Marathi, Hindi, English, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu.
He was the elder brother of Marathi writer of poetry and novels Vyankatesh Madgulkar.
Geet Rāmāyan (lit. Ramayana in Songs) is considered his most notable work. A lyrical version of the Valmiki Ramayana in Marathi,[5] it consists of 56 songs chronologically describing events from Ramayana. Sudhir Phadke composed the music for Geet Ramayan. Though it is based on sage Valmiki's epic Ramayana, Madgulkar chose a different narrative format and was praised for the lyrics, and was called Ādhunik Valmiki (the modern Valmiki).[6]
Screenwriting
जीवनज्योती Jeewan Jyoti 1953: Screenplay and Dialogs
P.L. Deshpande, Hansa Wadkar, Kusum Deshpande, Vivek, Mohammed Hussain, D. S. Ambapkar, Bal Chitale, Raja Paranjpe, Shakuntala Jadhav, Suman, Ravindra, Baby Neela
1952
लाखाची गोष्ट (Lākhāchi Goshta)
Marathi
Rājā Parānjpe
Chitra, Rekha, Raja Gosavi, Indira Chitnis, Ravindra, Sharad Talwalkar, Raja Paranjpe, Madan Mohan
Madgulkar was born in a Deshastha Brahmin family.[8] He was married to Vidya (née Patankar, from Kolhapur) and they had 3 sons (Shridhar, Anand, Sharatkumar) and 4 daughters (Varsha, Kalpalata, Deepa, Shubhada). The popular Marathi writer, Vyankatesh Madgulkar was his younger brother.[9]
His home in Pune ('Panchavati Bungalow') has become a place of attraction for his fans.[10]
^The Illustrated Weekly of India, Volume 95. Bennett, Coleman & Company, Limited, at the Times of India Press. 1974. p. 31. ARATHI literature is strewn with the names of Deshastha writers.The popular classical and light musician, DrVasantrao Deshpande, also from this community. Other schools of music are well represented by such veterans as Pandit Narayanrao Vyas, Meera Khirwadkar, Gururao Deshpande and musicologist Vamanrao Deshpande G. V. Bhonde, popularly known as " Nakalakar", gave mimicry the status of an art in Maharashtra. Famous actor and director Gajanan Jagirdar, Prabhakar Panshikar, magician Raghuvir Bhople all belong to this community.
