ITC Awardee Shrimati Saraswatibai Rane passes away

93-year old classical and natyasangeet exponent Shrimati Saraswatibai Rane passed away at Pune on Tuesday October 10, 2006. This year she had won the ITC award presented at the ITC Sangeet Sammelan in Delhi. Youngest daughter of the legendary maestro of the Kirana gharana, Ustad Abdul Karim Khan Sahib, she was initiated into music by her illustrious brother Shri Sureshbabu Mane. She had also learnt from such celebrities as her sister Shrimati Hirabai Barodekar, Ustad Nathan Khan of the Jaipur gharana and Pandit B R Deodhar of the Gwalior gharana.

Working on stage in her mother’s ‘Nutan Sangeet Natak Mandali’, with luminaries like Bal Gandharva, Master Krishnarao, Vinayakbuwa Patwardhan, Sawai Gandharva and Meenakshi Shirodkar, musicals like ‘Soubhadra’, Sanchaya Kollo’ and ‘Ekacha Pyala’ brought her fame. She also acted in a Marathi film ‘Savitri’ and later took to playback singing for Marathi and Hindi films. However, in order to concentrate on the performance of Hindustani classical music, she had to virtually stop accepting offers for playback singing. By then she was a regular performer for All India Radio and had also made several gramophone records with ‘His Master’s Voice’, apart from her countrywide concert tours. Her renderings of Ragas Chandrakauns, Basant Bahar, Yaman and the immortal numbers ‘Ghanashyam Nayani Aalaa’, ‘Jaa Ghevuni Sandesh Pakhara’, the duets with her sister Shrimati Hirabai Barodekar remain ever popular. She also had the honour of singing the Maharashtra Geet on the very first Maharashtra Day, the 1st of May, along with her sister. Younger listeners will probably remember her rendering Raga Shudh Kalyan with her grand daughter Shrimati Meena Faterpekar in the movie ‘Bhumika’ by the renowned director Shyam Benegal.