Vidushi Saraswati Rane

Saraswati Rane was born at Miraj on 4 October 1913 to Ustad Abdul Karim Khan and Tarabai Mane, and named Sakina. After her parents separated, her mother renamed all five children, and Sakina became Saraswati Mane. She was initiated into music by her brother Sureshbabu Mane, and from about 1930 also learned from her sister Hirabai Barodekar. To widen her knowledge she took taleem from musicians of other gharanas: Ustad Natthan Khan of the Jaipur gharana, a nephew of Alladiya Khan; Professor B. R. Deodhar; and Master Krishnarao Phulambrikar of the Gwalior gharana.

She began on the musical stage at about seven, in plays such as Sangeet Saubhadra, Sangeet Sanshaykallol and Sangeet Ekach Pyala, and from 1929 acted in major roles alongside artists including Balgandharva. She started broadcasting on All India Radio in 1933 and remained a top-grade radio artist until she retired from public performance in 1990, taking part in Radio Sangeet Sabhas from Kanyakumari to Peshawar between the early 1940s and the mid-1980s.

She was among the first women to sing playback for Hindi and Marathi films, beginning with the Marathi film Payachi Dasi and continuing until 1954; her song "Bina Madhur Madhur Kachu Bol" from Ramrajya sold in such numbers that His Master's Voice gave her an award for it. She also sang in Sargam (1950) and in Shyam Benegal's Bhumika (1977), under music directors including C. Ramchandra, Shankarrao Vyas and Sudhir Phadke, and became a popular singer of Marathi bhav-geet. She sang at the first Independence Day celebrations in Delhi, appeared often at the Sawai Gandharva festival in Pune, and performed jugalbandi with her sister Hirabai. She married Sunderrao Rane, taught classical music, and died in Mumbai on 10 October 2006.

She sang khayal, thumri, bhajan and abhang in the Kirana manner, with the light-classical and stage repertoire that her family had always carried alongside it. Her career spanned the concert platform, the radio studio, the musical stage and the film soundtrack, an unusually wide range even among her generation.