Celebrated music composer Vanraj Bhatia died on Friday at his residence in Mumbai. He was 93. He had been facing medical issues for the pas...
Celebrated music composer Vanraj Bhatia died on Friday at his residence in Mumbai. He was 93. He had been facing medical issues for the past several years on account of his advanced age.
Trained in Western classical music and equally steeped in Indian traditions, Bhatia’s career spanned cinema, advertising, television and the stage. He composed over 7,000 advertising jingles (including for Liril and Dulux) and created the scores for many Indian arthouse films, most notably by Shyam Benegal, as well as television shows.
“Taken as a whole, Bhatia’s work across these films is a testament to both his versatility and his technique,” music composer and Bhatia’s archivist Shwetant Kumar wrote in Scroll.in in 2020. “Each score inhabits a unique soundworld appropriate to the film’s setting, and each is unified by one or more themes that are incorporated into either the titles or a song that encapsulates the film.”
Bhatia was born on May 31, 1927, in Mumbai. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Paris Conservatory. After his return to India in 1959, he worked as a Reader in Western musicology at the University of Delhi alongside creating advertising jingles. In 1972, he composed the background score...
