Madhuri Purandare

Madhuri Purandare is an Indian painter, illustrator, singer and popular writer. She was born on April 29, 1952, to Nirmala Purandare, an activist and Babasaheb Purandare Balwant Moreshwar Purandare, who is also known as >> Read More... , a writer and famous theatre personality. After graduating GD Art at the Sir. J.J. School of Art in Mumbai, she went to Paris to pursue her studies in Painting and Graphic Arts. Madhuri also had her diploma in French, which she took from the University of Pune. For over 18 years, she became a teacher of French at the Alliance Francaise. Later on, she rose to fame in the fields of music, theatre and cinema. She is working at the Su-Darshan Art Gallery as a Chief Art Advisor.

Madhuri edited the Vanasthali, a bi-monthly for an organization called Vanasthali Rural Development Centre, which was founded by her mother. This organization aims to help the children in their education and emancipation of the Indian women. Those were the days when children find it hard to cope with their classes, which results in a high drop-out rate. She and her mother decided to train the local women to teach in their schools, but they still find it hard to stay up-to-date to what was happening in the outside world since they have no newspapers in their place. So she was assigned by her mother to issue a bi-monthly that will be sent to the teachers. She started reading and researching and realized what the children in the rural areas needs; some stories and poems. That’s when she decided to write books for children as she thought of helping the Bawaldi teachers in rural areas and give the kids something to read.

She has written more than 23 books for children, and some of the popular are the Yash Series, Radhacha Ghar, Chitravachan, Vachu Anande Series and more. Madhuri illustrated several books as well including the Kothavale awardee, Picasso: The Biography of Picasso in Marathi & Hindi. Besides writing stories and poems and illustrating books, she has also translated them from French to Marathi languages, and some of it include L'homme qui plantait des arbres, Waiting for Godot, La voix Humaine and more. She earned the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award for her outstanding work in the children’s literature. Madhuri penned and illustrated the books, Aunty Jui’s Baby and Daddy’s Mo. She was active in the Marathi theatre and also had some stints in the film industry.

Madhuri sang few songs from the Hindi film Aakrosh in 1980. In 1983, she played as the mother of actor Om Puri Om Rajesh Puri is one of the widely noted senior a >> Read More... in the film, Ardh Satya, which was also directed by Govind Nihalani Born on 19 August 1940, Govind Nihalani hails from >> Read More... .