शंकरराव खातू

Shankarrao Khatu was a bhajan singer who worked as a music director in early Hindi talkie cinema. His documented film score is Grama Kanya (released internationally as Village Girl, 1936), a Sagar Movietone social melodrama directed by Sarvottam Badami and starring Surendra, Sabita Devi and Yakub. Contemporary accounts describe Khatu as a well-known devotional singer, and his music for the film found favour with the public: of its nine songs — rendered by Surendra, Rajkumari and Sabita Devi — "Tulsi Maat Pyari" and "Kanhaiya Bansiwale Re" became popular. His recordings for the film, including "Ras Bhare Nain Tore Balam", "Jhootha Hai Sansar" and "Kisne Hai Yeh Reet Banai", survive in the Saregama archive. Beyond this single score, biographical details about Khatu — his birth, musical training and later life — are not documented in accessible public sources, and he remains one of the many devotional musicians who briefly crossed into the film studios of 1930s Bombay.