Baidyanath Bhattacharya

Baidyonath Bhattacharya (23 November 1907 – 15 August 1978) popularly known as Bani Kumar was a radio broadcaster, playwright, composer, radio script writer from Kolkata, India and a contemporary of Pankaj Mallick and Birendra Krishna Bhadra. He worked for the All India Radio, India's National Radio broadcaster for several years during its early, starting 1930s, and during this period he produced and adapted several plays songs etc.

He is most known for his script writing and composition of India's oldest radio programme, Mahishashura Mardini (1931), a collection of shlokas and songs broadcast by All India Radio Calcutta (now Kolkata) at 4:00 am, in the dawn of Mahalaya.

Early life Bani Kumar's original name is Baidyanath Bhattacharya. He was born on 26 November 1907 in Kanpur village of Howrah. His father, Bidhu Bhushan Bhattacharya was a sanskrit scholar and historian and mother Aparna Bhattacharya. Bani Kumar was the eldest son of their two sons and two daughters. Their ancestral house was at Antpur in Hooghly district.

Academic life Bani Kumar received his primary education at Howrah Zilla School. There he concentrated on poetry with the influence of a teacher and poet Karunanidhan Bandyopadhyay. He then graduated in English from Presidency College. His father and grandfather had a knowledge of Sanskrit, so he studied Sanskrit and got the title Kābya Sarasbatī. Baidyanath joined as a writer staff artist and began his radio career under the name of Bani Kumar. He is best known as the creator and compositor of the Mahisasuramardini radio program.