Mi Marathi

WE ARE PROUD TO SAY "Mi Marathi"

FACTS ABOUT MAHARASHTRA:

Maharashtra: Land of Great Marathi People
1.Marathi Origins
2.Some of The Notable Marathi People
3.Historical Rulers
4.Reformers
5.Academics
6.Science & Technology
7.Cinema & Theatre
8.Literature
9.Music


Maharashtra: The land of Great Marathi People


The name Maharashtra first appeared in a 7th century, its name may have originated from rathi,

meaning "chariot driver" and referring to builders and drivers of chariots who formed a maharathis,

a "fighting force." This region seems to have attained prominence as early as 90 A.D., when king

Vedishri made Junnar the capital of his kingdom, thirty miles north of Pune. For the 900 years

ending in the early fourteenth century, with the overthrow of the Devgiri Yadavs by the northern

Muslim powers, no historical information in this region is available. In 1526, first Mughal king,

Babar, established his prominanace in Delhi and soon the Mughal power spread to the southern

India. The Mughals were to dominate India till the early eighteenth century. The Marathi people

are also known as Maharashtrians. In the Marathi language, they refer to themselves as marathi

manoos. They are called Marathi people because of the language they speak, Marathi. The

Marathi people have a long literary tradition which started in the ancient era. There are many

different castes & communities of Marathi people, with variant forms of traditions




Do you know this about "MARATHI"?

Marathi is the language spoken by the native people of Maharashtra. Marathi belongs to the group

of Indo-Aryan languages which are a part of the larger of group of Indo-European languages, all of

which can be traced back to a common root. Among the Indo-Aryan languages, Marathi is the

southern-most language. All of the Indo-Aryan languages originated from Sanskrit. Three Prakrit

languages, simpler in structure, emerged from Sanskrit. These were Saurseni, Magadhi and

Maharashtri. Marathi is said to be a descendent of Maharashtri which was the Prakrit spoken by

people residing in the region of Maharashtra.

The saint poet JNAneshwar proudly said about Marathi that 'MAjhA MarAThAchi bolu kavatuke,

amRitAtehi paijA jinke, aisI akshare rasike meLavIn' which means that 'I will speak my Marathi

(language) only with pride and I will give such arathi words to the ardent listeners which will even

win bets against the nectar (amRit).' The script currently used in Marathi is called 'bALbodh'

which is a modified version of Devnaagari script. Earlier, another script called 'moDI' was in use till

the time of the Peshwas(18th century). Today only the Devnaagari script is used which is easier

to read but does not have the advantage of faster writing.




Some of The Notable Marathi People

RULERS:

Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj - 1630 - 1680A revolutionary leader and the founder of the Maratha

Empire

Shrimant Maharaja Sir Sayajirao III Gaekwad - Ruler of Baroda

Shrimant Sardar Malharrao Holkar - Ruler of Indore

Rajmata Ahilyabai Holkar - Queen of Malwa

Peshwa Bajirao - Prime minister of the Maratha Empire

Chattrapati Sambhaji Maharaj - Son of Shivaji; Second Emperor of Maratha Empire; Dharmaveer.






REFORMERS:

Gopal Krishna Gokhale - He established the Servants of India Society and represented Indian

interests in the imperial legislative council. Mahatma Gandhi considered him his Guru.

Dhondo Keshav Karve - Maharshi Karve fought for the upliftment of women, started a college for

them and established the first Indian University for women, named SNDT Women's University. He

was awarded Bharat Ratna in 1958.

Raghunath Karve - Pioneer of Family Planning and Birth Control clinics in India.

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar - Freedom Fighter; Revolutionary; Creator of political "Hindutva".

Lokmanya Tilak - National leader of pre-Gandhi era.

Gadge Maharaj - He dedicated his life for fight against social evils. He built inns, schools, animal

shelters and medical centres. Cleanliness was his mantra.

Jyotiba Phule - Mahatma Jyotiba Phule started education for women and struggled hard for the

upliftment of the depressed classes.

Tatya Tope - Great freedom fighter.

Rajarshi Shahu Maharaj - Prince of Kolhapur, known for his social work.




ACADEMICS:

Ajit Rangnekar - Deputy Dean, International School Of Business, Hyderabad.

Dr. Pandurang Vaman Kane - Sanskrit scholar. He served as the Vice-Chancellor of Bombay

University. Recipient of Bharat Ratna 1963.

Irawati Karve - Doctorate in Anthropology from Berlin University in 1930.

Professor Pramod Khargonekar - Dean, College of Engineering at the University of Florida, and

well known researcher in the field of control systems.

Wrangler R.P. Paranjpe - First Indian to become a senior Wrangler at Cambridge University. He

sacrificed higher salaries and worked as the principal of Fergusson College for over twenty years.

Professor Suhas Patankar - Inventor of the groundbreaking SIMPLE algorithm for solution of

Navier-Stokes equation that revolutionalized the world of Computational Fluid Dynamics.

Dr Pramod Pandurang Vitkar - Director, RS College of Engineering, Pune. Prominent Soil

Technologist.




SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY:

Shreeram Shankar Abhyankar - Mathematician. Known for his contributions to singularity theory

and Abhyankar's conjecture.

Dr. Vijay P. Bhatkar - Founder and Former Executive Director of the Center for Development of

Advanced Computing (C-DAC), member of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet of the

Indian government and recipient of the prestigious Padma Shri award. Instrumental in developing

India's first supercomputer.

Ashok Gadgil - Inventor of UV-disinfection method.

Anil Kakodkar - Director of BARC and Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary

to the Government of India, Department of Atomic Energy.

D. R. Kaprekar - Mathematician. Famous for his work on Number Theory.

Narendra Karmarkar - Mathematician. Renowned for developing Karmarkar's algorithm.

Dr. Raghunath A. Mashelkar - Director, CSIR.

Dr. Jayant Narlikar - Prominent Astrophysicist His work on conformal gravity theory with Sir Fred

Hoyle, called Hoyle-Narlikar theory, demonstrated a synthesis can be achieved between Albert

Einstein’s theory of relativity and Mach's principle.

S.V Kogekar - A renowned professor and a scientist in Fergussion college in Pune university.

Raj Yavatkar - Intel Fellow.




CINEMA & THEATRE:

Amol Palekar - 70s Bollywood's thinking man's actor and then critically acclaimed director

Bhagwan Dada - Film director, producer and actor

Bhalji Pendharkar - Revolutionary maratha filmmaker

Dada Kondke - Revolutionised Marathi comedy

Dadasaheb Phalke - Directed the first Indian feature film

Dilip Prabhavalkar - Leading stage artiste. Last seen as Gandhi in Lage Raho Munnabhai

Gautam Rajadhyaksha - Photographer

Laxmikant Berde - Leading Marathi actor of 80s and 90s

Madhur Bhandarkar - Bollywood director

Mohan Joshi - Popular Bollywood villain of the 90s

N Chandra - Bollywood director

Ramesh Deo - Popular villain of 60s Bollywood

Reema Lagoo - Acted in various Marathi dramas, Marathi movies, Bollywood movies and Hindi

and Marathi TV

Sachin Pilgaonkar - Bollywood and Marathi actor, director and producer fondly known as Sachin.

Sai Paranjpe - A noted film-director, scriptwriter and theatre personality, Director of movies like

Sparsh, Katha, Chashme-Badoor, Drishti and Saaz. Grand daughter of Wrangler R.P. Paranjpe

and daughter of Shakuntala Paranjpe

Shobhana Samarth - Actress and mother of Nutan and Tanuja.

Sulochana - Popular Character actress

Vikram Gokhale - Reputed actor

V. Shantaram - Award winning film Director

Sudhir Joshi - Late Marathi actor

Dr.Shriram Lagu - Popular Marathi actor






LIERATURE:

Acharya Atre - Popular satirist, poet, editor, activist, writer, also known for his work in

"Maharashtra Ekkikaran Chalwal".

Jaywant Dalvi - Acclaimed playwright

Hamid Dalwai - Acclaimed novelist and social activist

P.L. Deshpande - Famous Marathi writer

Gangadhar Gadgil - Popular writer

V. P. Kale - Famous writer

Vinda Karandikar - Jnanapeeth awardee

V.S. Khandekar - Jnanapeeth awardee

Arun Kolatkar - Celebrated bilingual poet.

Ga Di Ma - Modern Valmiki of India

Na Dho Mahanor - Popular poet, known for taking up the Dalit cause

Shahir Sable - Famous "Shahir", known for his popular song "Jai Jai Maharashtra Mazaa"

Shahir Shaikh - Famous poet and "Shahir", known for his work in "Maharashtra Ekkikaran

Chalwal".

Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar - Jnanapeeth awardee

Vijay Tendulkar - Controversial but acclaimed playwright

Ratnakar Matkari - Supernatural story writer




MUSIC:

Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande - (August 10, 1860 – September 19, 1936) was an Indian classical

musician widely acclaimed to have brought in a renaissance in Indian music.

Asha Bhosle - (born September 8,1933)- Belongs to the legendary Mangeshkar family.

Lata Mangeshkar (born September 28, 1929)- Recipient of Bharat Ratna in 2001.

Hridayanath Mangeshkar - Music director (and brother of Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar).

C. Ramchandra - ( or Ramchandra Chitalkar), (1918-1977)- Hindi film Music director.

Laxmikant Kudalkar - (1937-1998) - of the duo Laxmikant-Pyarelal.

Sudhir Phadke - (25 July 1919 Kolhapur - 29 July 2002)- Legendary Marathi music composer,

composed music for "Geet Ramayan".

Ramlaxman - Music composer of hits like Maine Pyar Kiya and Hum Aapke Hai Kaun.

Ashok Patki - Popular Marathi music composer

Suresh Wadkar - Popular trained classical singer

Anuradha Paudwal - Popular devotional and Bollywood playback singer
Ajit Kadkade - Popular folk vocalist

Kishori Amonkar - (born April 10, 1931) - Classical singer

Arun Date - Legendary Marathi playback singer