Vanraj Bhatia (1927-2021) *93

was an Indian composer best known for his work in Indian New Wave cinema. He was also one of the leading composers of Western classical music in India.

Bhatia was a recipient of the National Film Award for Best Music Direction for the television film Tamas (1988), the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Creative and Experimental Music (1989) and India's fourth-highest civilian honour, the Padma Shri (2012). He died in Mumbai in May 2021. Born into a family of Kutchi businessmen, Bhatia attended the New Era School in Bombay and learnt Hindustani classical music as a student at Deodhar School of Music. On hearing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 as a teenager, he became interested in Western classical music and studied the piano with Dr. Manek Bhagat for four years.

After earning his M.A. (English Honours) from Elphinstone College, University of Bombay in 1949, Bhatia studied composition with Howard Ferguson, Alan Bush and William Alwyn at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where he was a recipient of the Sir Michael Costa Scholarship (1951–54). After graduating with a gold medal in 1954, Bhatia won a Rockefeller Scholarship (1954–58) as well as a French Government Scholarship (1957–58) that allowed him to study with Nadia Boulanger at the Conservatoire de Paris for five years.