Sudhir Phadke

Born: 25 July 1919

Died: 29 July 2002

He was an accomplished Marathi singer-composer from India.
He was regarded as an icon of the Marathi film industry and Marathi Sugam Sangeet (light music) for five decades.
Apart from Marathi, Phadke sang and composed songs in several Hindi films as well.
His nickname was Babuji.
Geet Ramayana, based on poet GD Madgulkar’s verses, is one of his most popular works.
The program ran on All India Radio for a year, 1955–56.
Stage performances of the program continue to draw huge crowds even today.
He set to music all 56 songs, and they were sung by different singers for radio (Manik Varma, Lalita Deulkar, Lata Mangeshkar, Phadke himself, Vasantrao Deshpande, Ram Phatak, Usha Atre).
All 56 songs were also recorded in his own voice.
In the last days of his life, he was involved in producing a Hindi film on the life of the Indian freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
The movie Veer Savarkar was funded by public donations.
He last sang and composed music for this movie.
He was also actively involved with Goa Freedom Movement and in the post freedom fight of India, he was connected with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh for over 60 years.
He was the main inspiration and founder member of the India Heritage Foundation in the United States.