Ketaki Mategaonkar

Ketaki Mategaonkar was born in the vibrant city of Nagpur, in an artistic family. Her passion for music and acting was imbibed from her parents Parag Mategaonkar and Suvarna Mategaonkar. Soon the family left Nagpur to settle down in Pune when Ketaki was just one year old.

Ketaki was constantly travelling with her parents for various contract shows and stage shows. Most of her early childhood was spent travelling from big cities to small towns all over Maharashtra. In the meanwhile, Ketaki started her musical training with her mother and later started learning Indian Classical music from Pratibha Karnik, from Gwalior Gharana.

Ketaki's childhood was the base of her musical journey, she missed having friends of her age-group as she was always moving around with her parents. Her friends were talented artists who guided and nurtured her talent. Born into a musically virtuous family, Ketaki's artistic upbringing paved the way and helped her bloom into her full potential as an artist.

Back then, she worked with respected and renowned composers Sudhir Moghe and Saleel Kulkarni. He recognised her true potential and gave her the very first break at the age of 4 when she recorded her first single song. She acted in her first short film Out of the Box at the age of six. The film went on to receive the Best Film award at the France International Film Festival.

Her amazing performance in Surtaal was a huge success as a child actor and singer. This was followed by another famous show Nakshatraache Dene. Her first solo album was recorded at the age of 7 years titled Aata Khela Naacha by Salil Kulkarni, which was released by Fountain music.

After the age of seven, there was no looking back for Ketaki, she was firmly established as a child prodigy by many of the senior and reputed artists hailing from the entertainment industry. At the age of seven, she received her first honorary award Shahu Modak Award in appreciation for her musical abilities at such a young age. Her popularity as a child artist outlived her teenage years and she had to work hard to break the tag!

She was a child contestant for the singing show called Sa Re Ga Ma Pa and also one of the finalists. Unfortunately, Ketaki fell ill with fever and had to back down from the prestigious show aired on the ETV Network channel. She quit Sa Re Ga Ma at the age of 14. It was another respected senior artist, Prabhakar Panth Panshikar, a legendary name in the field of Indian theatre who trained Ketaki for acting in plays and films. He offered a crucial role to young Ketaki in his most famous musical play called Avgha Rang Ekachi Zaala. Ketaki did seventy-five shows as character 'Jenny' for the show in a span of one year. She started getting a lot of film offers to play the lead role actress.

She was offered a lead role in the film Shala by Sujay Dahake who saw her performance in Sa Re Ga Ma. At around the same time, the director of Aarohi film, Pramod Joshi offered her lead role in his film. Ketaki was home-schooled after attending school for a few years so that she could focus on the great opportunities coming her way without compromising her educational learning.

Her first film to be released in India was Shala and it gave her overnight success and popularity as an actress.

1. Maharashtra State Marathi Film Festival Award (2012)
2. Maharashtra cha Favorite Kon Award for Popular Face (2012)
3. Naris Dutt Award (2013)
4. Sahyadri Face of the Year (2013)
5. Mirchi Music Awards for listeners choice (2014)
6. Filmfare Awards for Best Playback Singer female
7. Maharashtra cha Favorite Kon Award for Best Actress (2014)
8. Maharashtra cha Favorite Kon Award for Favorite Singer (2014)
9. MIFTA Award for Best Actress
10. Sakal Premier Award for Best Playback Singer (2017)

She is the daughter of Parag Mategaonkar and Suvarna Mategaonkar who are a musical family. Parag is music director and Suvarna is a singer.

• Ketaki Mategaonkar at IMDb