Sangeet Manapman, one of the greatest Marathi entertainers will be 100 soon!

Sidney Poitier: “…One of the reasons Marlon Brando was so brilliant, particularly at his beginning, was that when you watched him on stage, you didn't think you were watching people on the stage. You would think you were peeking in on someone's life because what he did with the words, he made them so real that that audience gets swept up."

George Orwell:”The only true test of artistic merit is survival.”

“Sangeet Saubhadra” (संगीत सौभद्र) by Annasaheb Kirloskar (अण्णासाहेब किर्लोस्कर), the greatest Marathi entertainer of 19th/20th century combined, completed 125 years of its staging on November 18, 2007. Read more about it here.

(The only rivals of these two are Loknatya /Tamasha performed by the likes of Dada Kondke दादा कोंडके among a few others.)

Sangeet Manapman (संगीत मानापमान) was first staged on March 12 1911.

I have yet to hear a better music album than that...and one of the best songs ever 'Prem Seva Sharan' (प्रेम सेवा शरण) sung by Asha Bhosle (आशा भोसले) and earlier her father Dinanath Mangeshkar (दीनानाथ मंगेशकर)... (My father wrote the first biography of Mother Teresa in Marathi. Its title: 'प्रेम सेवा शरण' 'Love, Service, Surrender')

Writer- Krushnaji Prabhakar Khadilkar कृष्णाजी प्रभाकर खाडिलकर

Music- Govindrao Tembe गोविंदराव टेंबे (Read a post on him here.)

Cast- Joglekar जोगळेकर , Ganpatrao Bodas गणपतराव बोडस...Bal Gandharva बालगंधर्व

Baldanharva's only daughter died on the morning of March 12 1911 but the show went on...

Following is from one of the best Marathi books of 20th century that also won Sahitya Akademi Award in 1958: 'Bahurupee' ('बहुरूपी') by Chintaman Ganesh Kolhatkar (चिंतामण गणेश कोल्हटकर), first published October 1957.

Krushnaji Prabhakar Khadilkar


K P Khadilkar's hand writing