Suresh Haldankar

♫ Raga Shankara

♫ Padmanabha Narayana

 

About Suresh Haldankar

Suresh Haldankar (1926-2000) of Goa was introduced to music by his family elders. Very early in his youth he excelled as an actor-singer in Marathi musicals and was offered a position in the Mahesh Natak Mandali of Pune. His initial musical mentors were Bapurao Ketkar and Govindrao Tembe, both senior musicians of the Atrauli-Jaipur school. Haldankar later took training under the Agra Gharana master, Jagannathbuwa Purohit (“Gunidas”), and still later, from Ganpatrao Dewaskar and Agrawale Anwar Hussain Khan. Suresh Haldankar’s rise in the 1950s musical world of Mumbai was dramatic but he failed to deliver on his promise and soon faded away from the mehfil platform. He spent the rest of his life as a teacher in a chawl in Mumbai. The music lovers in the Maharashtrian community remember him for the many immensely popular Natyageete records he cut.