Hemant Kedar

Hemant Kedar was a classic music composer. His real name was Ramakrishna Shinde. He was born on 19 April, in a Maratha family in the Malwan area, Western Maharashtra. He was the eldest among two brothers and two sisters. When he was just nine years old, his father passed away, therefore, his uncle brought his whole family to Mumbai, where he spent his childhood in the Nana Chowk area.  His family was never involved in a tradition of music, but still, he developed a natural interest in it.

He began to learn vocals from Pandit Sitaram Pant Modi and also took sitar lessons from Pandit Madhav Kulkarni. He even participated in various musical events. He also had to work for a well-known industrial family to financially support his family. He got married in 1944 to Nalini, who was the daughter of the Manjrekar family, residing in Mumbai's Opera House The show is telecasted on Saturday Night. It has a >> Read More... . After his marriage, he got the opportunity to meet the famous Tabla player Ramakant Parsekar. After that, he decided to pursue music as a career.

Initially, Ramakrishna composed music for Marathi plays, which made him immensely popular among the audience.  Due to the success of his music in plays, a movie manager offered him to compose music for a film, directed by I.P Tiwari, starring Jaiprakash, Gobind, Poornima, Sarla, Aziz, Ameena, and Tiwari. At the same time, he also got the opportunity to compose music for the film,  Bihari in 1948, along with Naresh Bhattacharya.

This film was directed by K.D. Katkar and A.R. Zamindar. Besides, Marathi theatre, he composed music for ballet dances at the Indian National Theatre. In his career, he composed music for 27 ballet dances which were performed across the world. Later, composer Amiya Chakkarboty approached him to compose dance music for his film Gauna in 1950. He was specially called to compose dance music for the actress Usha Kiron.

After a short gap, Ramakrishna made a comeback to the film industry in the 1950s with a new name, Hemant Kedar. Hemant and Kedar were two of his favorite Ragas, therefore he decided to change his name to Hemant Kedar. With this name, he composed music for various movies of the 1950s, such as Khaufnak Jungle (1955), Captain India (1960), and Police Station (1959).

In the 1960s, Shinde also composed music for some Marathi films such as To Chi Sadhu Olakhawa (1966) and Aai Aahe Shetaat (1970) which he produced himself. Moreover, he also worked for All India Radio and composed music for programs like Honaji Bala, Billi Mausi Ki Fajeehat, Sona Aur Saat Baune, Mansi, and Usha Muskaayi. These were widely appreciated by the people. Shinde passed away on 14 September 1985.