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Sharan Rani Quick General Knowledge

NameSharan Rani (Sharan Rani)
Real nameSharan Rani Backliwal
Date of Birth09 April 1929
Birth PlaceDelhi, India
Date of death08 April 2008
Achievement1930 - World's First Woman Sarod player
Profession / CountryFemale / Musician / India

Sharan Rani - World's First Woman Sarod player (1930)

Sharan Rani was an Indian classical musician and music scholar. Sharan Rani was the first woman who gave full height to the masculine instrument like Sarod.

Sharan Rani was born as Sharan Rani Mathur on 09 April 1929 in the walled city of Old Delhi into an orthodox Hindu family of eminent businessmen and academics. As a young girl, Sharan Rani learned to play the sarod from maestro musician Allauddin Khan and his son Ali Akbar Khan.
In 1974, they had a daughter, Radhika Narayan. He died on 8 April 2008, a day before his 79th birthday, after battling cancer for some years.
In the year 1953, she did her MA from the University of Delhi, and studied at the Indraprastha Women's College. She also learned the Kathak form of classical Indian dance from Achchan Maharaj and Manipuri dance from Nabha Kumar Sinha.

Sharan Rani was the country's first female artist in the field of instrumental music and sarod playing. Backliwal started his music career in spite of many family oppositions. During this period in Indian history, a musician's form was the profession of dancing girls or baiji which was not suitable for the daughter of a respectable, non-musician. Because of which he had to face opposition from his family.

From the late 1930s, Sharan Rani presented her sarod recitals on the concert stage in India for more than seven decades. She was one of the first to record for UNESCO and to release musical recordings with major record companies in the United States, Britain and France. According to Jawaharlal Nehru, she was the "cultural ambassador of India" and Dr Zakir Hussain said of her, "Sharan Rani has achieved perfection in music.

Rani was one of the early artistes of All India Radio and Doordarshan. She was popularly known as 'Sarod Rani' (Queen of Sarod). Sharan Rani was the first female instrumentalist from India to achieve international fame.


In 2004, the Government of India honored selected artists with the title of 'National Artist'. Sharan Rani was the only female instrumentalist to receive this title. Other awards and honors he has received include:

YearAward Name
1953Vishnu Digambar Parithoshik
1968Padma Shri
1974Sahitya Kala Parishad Award
1979Acharya' and 'Tantri Vilas'
1986Sangeet Natak Akademi Award
1993Rajiv Gandhi award for Vocational Excellence
1997Distinguished Alumni award by Delhi University
1999National Excellence award
2000Padma Bhushan
2000Lifetime Achievement award
2004Maharana Mewar Foundation award
2005Kala Parishad award from Bhopal

Sharan Rani FAQs:

Sharan Rani is to be known as the World's First Woman Sarod player in 1930.

Sharan Rani full name was Sharan Rani Backliwal.

Sharan Rani died on 08 April 2008.

  Last update :  Tue 28 Jun 2022
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