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Pu. La. Deshpande

Purushottam Lakshman Deshpande
Suresh Joshi with P L Deshpandey (cropped).jpg
at Vadodara, Gujarat
Born (1919-11-08)8 November 1919
Mumbai, Maharashtra
Died 12 June 2000(2000-06-12) (aged 80)
Pune, Maharashtra
Nationality Indian
Education M.A., LL.B.
Occupation Writer, actor, music composer, film and television producer, film director, music director
Spouse(s) Sunita Deshpande
Website puladeshpande.net

Purushottam Lakshman Deshpande (8 November 1919 – 12 June 2000), popularly known by his initials ("Pu. La.") or as P. L. Deshpande is regarded as a colossus among 20th century Marathi writers.He was also an accomplished film and stage actor, music composer, harmonium player, singer, and orator.

Purushottam Lakshman Deshpande was born on 8 November 1919 in Gaodevi area (Krupa Hemraj Chawl) in Mumbai in a GSB-Gaud Saraswat Brahmin family to Lakshman and Lakshmibai Deshpande. Deshpande’s maternal grandfather, Vaman Mangesh Dubhashi, was a poet and connoisseur of literature. He had translated Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali into Marathi under the title Abhang Gitanjali The family used to stay at Kenway house (opposite Robert Money School), Proctor road, Grant Road. His family then moved to Jogeshwari where he stayed at the newly formed Saraswati Baug Colony till he was 8 years old. His first 8 years and Saraswati Baug is nicely described in his story "Balpanicha Kaal Sukhacha" in his book Purchundi. The family then moved to Vile Parle. He lived in many places like Pune, Belgaum, Varli, Santacruz, and Delhi. Finally, Pu La Deshpande settled in Pune.

Deshpande studied at Parle Tilak Vidyalaya.He attended Ismail Yusuf College after high school and then Government law college for LLB. Later he attended Fergusson College in Pune and obtained his Masters in Arts, (M.A.) in 1950. He also took lessons in playing harmonium from Dattopant Rajopadhye of Bhaskar Sangitalaya.

His first wife (the former Ms. Sundar Divadkar from a family in Karjat) died soon after the wedding in the early 1940s. On 12 June 1946, Deshpande married his teacher colleague,Sunita Thakur.Sunita Thakur was an accomplished writer in her own right.

Both P L Deshpande and his wife served as teachers in Orient High School, Mumbai. He also worked for some years as a college professor in Rani Parvati Devi College Belgaum, Karnataka and Kirti College, Mumbai. He also worked for newly founded Doordarshan, the state owned Indian TV. He was the first person to interview the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on Indian television. He was deputed to the BBC in UK for a year-long training. After which he spent some time in France and in West Germany. It was this specific period and stays in these countries that his later travelogue "Apoorvai" was to be based upon. His other travelogue include Poorvarang" and Jave tyanchya Desha


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