Dinkarrao Amembal

Dinkarrao Amembal, a Hindi Composer born in 1909. He belonged to South Kanara Chitrapur Community from Guwahati. He is also known as D'Amel. His family has been known for its love of music and the performing arts. The Amembal brothers were self-taught musicians. His eldest brother, A. Sundar Rao, was a harmonist and a wing commander of the IAF. But due to some circumstances, he chooses the flute for the rest of his life. His younger brother, A. Bhaskar Rao, was also a tabla player, composer, stage director, music director, and a former director in the Films Division. But only D'Amel has chosen the field as his career. While pursuing his B.Sc. final examination at Fergusson College in Pune, he decided to take music as a career. He was already known for his singing and harmonium learning in college. He started singing devotional songs and had discs for HMV in those days.

In 1927, he came to Mumbai and joined the privately-owned Indian Broadcasting Company as an informal vocalist and harmonist. In 1937, the Indian Broadcasting Company had controlled by the government. D'Amel was in charge as a Programme Executive of Indian music. He composed innovative and attractive classical ragas. He started his program "Saptah Geet Mala," with 21 compositions in Marathi and Gujarati. Dinkarrao Amembal is the inspiration behind the signature tune of AIR on the violin. Dinkar created his 500 musical creations and composed some ragas himself. "Ameli Todi," one of the most famous ragas created by him. Rao gave his 30 years of life to AIR Bombay till his retirement in 1967. He is honorably called the Father of the Orchestration of Hindustani classical music. But in 1977, on the occasion of the golden jubilee of Indian Broadcasting, Dinkarrao was honored by then-prime Minister Moraji Desai with a small memento representing the AIR's emblem. In 1989, he became deaf, and suddenly in 1990, he died in Bombay.