Bhaskar Chandavarkar

Who was Bhaskar Chandavarkar?

Bhaskar Chandavarkar was an Indian sitar player, academic and film and theatre composer who worked with well known directors of Indian cinema like Mrinal Sen, Girish Karnad, Aparna Sen, K. G. George and Amol Palekar in various languages including Marathi, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali and Oriya and was known for his blending of Indian classical and western music.

He taught at FTII, Pune for many years, and during his career as a music composer he worked for 40 films, and is most known for his work in films such as Amol Palekar's Aakrit and Thoda Sa Rumani Ho Jaayen, Girish Karnad's Ondanondu Kaladalli, Jabbar Patel's Samna, Mrinal Sen's Khandhar, Vijaya Mehta's Rao Sabeb, Chitra Palekar's Maati Maay and K. G. George's Swapnadanam.

He has given music to films which are considered as classics in respective languages; like Vamsha Vriksha, Ondanondu Kaladalli in Kannada, Maya Darpan, Khandhar in Hindi, Swapnadanam in Malayalam, Paroma in Bengali, Maya Miriga in Oriya, Shwaas in Marathi, etc.

He received the President's National Film Award for Music direction in the Marathi short film Chaitra directed by Kranti Kanade in 2002.