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 and Padma Shri in 1969. He has written 157 screen plays and over 2000 songs in his career. 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. 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.

Works

Collections of poems

Collection of short stories

Autobiographies

Novels

Plays

Monthly magazines

Geet Ramayan

Geet Rāmāyan (lit. Ramayana in Songs) is considered his most notable work. A lyrical version of the Valmiki Ramayana in Marathi, 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).

Screenwriting

Popular Songs

The following is a short list of some of the popular Marathi songs which "गदिमा" wrote:

Acting

Awards and recognitions

Personal life

Madgulkar was born in a Deshastha Brahmin family. 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. His home in Pune ('Panchavati Bungalow') has become a place of attraction for his fans.