Laxmikant and Pyarelal

Laxmikant–Pyarelal
Laxmikant (left) - Pyarelal (right)
Background information
Also known as	L-P, Laxmi–Pyare
Genres	Film score, Fusion music
Occupation(s)	Composer, music director, orchestrator, conductor
Years active	1963 (1963)–1998

Laxmikant–Pyarelal were a popular and successful Indian composer duo, consisting of Laxmikant Shantaram Kudalkar (1937–1998) and Pyarelal Ramprasad Sharma (born 1940). They composed music for about 635 Hindi movies from 1963 to 1998, working for almost all notable filmmakers, including Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, B.R. Chopra, Shakti Samanta, Manmohan Desai, Yash Chopra, J. Om Prakash, Raj Khosla, L V Prasad, Subhash Ghai, K Vishwanath and Manoj Kumar.

Laxmikant Shantaram Kudalkar was born on the day of Laxmi Pujan, Dipawali on 3 November 1937. Probably, because of the day of his birth, his parents named him Laxmikant, after the goddess Laxmi. He spent his childhood amidst dire poverty in the slums of Vile Parle (East) in Mumbai. His father died when he was a child. Because of the poor financial condition of the family he could not complete his academic education either. Laxmikant's father's friend, a musician himself, advised Laxmikant and his elder brother to learn music. Accordingly, Laxmikant learned to play the mandolin and his elder brother learned to play the tabla. He spent two years in the company of the well-known mandolin player Hussain Ali. He began organising and performing in Indian Classical instrumental music concerts to earn some money. Later, in the 1940s, he also learned mandolin from Bal Mukund Indorker and violin from Husnalal (of the Husanlal Bhagatram fame). Laxmikant began his film career as a child actor in the films Bhakt Pundalik (1949 film) and Aankhen (1950 film). He also acted in some Gujarati films.