Madhu Kambikar (Marathi: मधु कांबीकर / मधू कांबीकर), born Madhu Vaman Jadhav on 28 July 1953 in Malegaon (Malegaon Khurd) in Georai taluka of Beed district, Maharashtra, was a leading Marathi film and theatre actress and one of the most recognised lavani artists of her generation. She died in Pune on 12 October 2026 at the age of 73 after a long illness that followed a stroke on stage in 2016. Across more than four decades she moved from tamasha and folk theatre into mainstream Marathi cinema, television, and cultural advocacy for traditional lavani, earning a Filmfare Marathi Award and multiple Maharashtra State Film Awards along the way.
Born into the Kolhati community, whose livelihood has long been tied to tamasha and folk performance, Kambikar left formal schooling early and followed her father, himself a performing artist, onto village stages. She completed early primary schooling in Malegaon and studied through the seventh standard in the village of Kambi. As a child she trained in Kathak in Pune (sources name Balasaheb Bhosale / Balasaheb Gokhale) and, in her early teens, studied lavani under Pandurang Ghotikar and Lavani Samragni Laxmibai Kolhapurkar. That twin grounding in classical footwork and folk repertoire shaped the poise audiences later associated with her stage and screen work.
Her professional career opened on Mumbai's folk-theatre circuit. In 1973 she began performing at New Hanuman Theatre in Lalbaug, a historic home of Maharashtra's popular stage. She acted in roughly a dozen folk plays, among them Dadu Indurikar's Gadhavacha Lagna, Shankar Patil's Bhangadishivay Pudhari Nahi, Ashok Paranjape's Ude Ga Ambe Ude, Vasant Sabnis's Viccha Mazi Puri Kara, and Atmaram Sawant's Mujra Ghya Sarkar, as well as her own Sakhi Mazi Lavani, directed by Upendra Limaye. Contemporary stage credits included Tumcha Amcha Sem Asta, Vastraharan, Putrakameshti, Paying Guest, and Ajab Nyaya Vartulacha. In Prabhakar Panshikar's production of Putrakameshti (1980) she won the Natyadarpan special attention actress award, an early signal that folk-trained performers could command serious dramatic respect in the city.
Film breakthrough came with Rajdutt's Shapit (1982), adapted from Snehalata Dasnurkar's novel Vajradeep. Cast as Bijli, a rural woman whose life hardens under poverty and social pressure, Kambikar prepared by returning to village life to study gesture and speech. The performance won her the Filmfare Award for Best Actress (Marathi) and a Maharashtra State Film Award for Best Actress. The same period brought Raghu Maina and, soon after, Hech Majhe Maher (Sakhu), which earned another state best-actress honour. She became a familiar presence in mother and mother-in-law roles, including Parubai Bolke (Lakshya's mother) in Mahesh Kothare's hit comedy Zapatlela (1993) and its 2013 sequel, Manjula Devgaonkar in Jabbar Patel's Ek Hota Vidushak (screenplay by P. L. Deshpande, lavani lyrics by N. D. Mahanor), and memorable turns in Bin Kamacha Navra, Mukta, Raosaheb, Debu, Majha Chakula, and dozens more. Industry tallies place her in well over seventy films between the late 1970s and the mid-2010s, spanning Marathi social drama, comedy, and occasional Hindi appearances such as Shola Aur Shabnam and Hum Dono.
Alongside cinema she founded Madhupritam (1996) to present Sakhi Mazi Lavani, a programme that assembled written sources and living performers to recount lavani's history for urban audiences, and she helped establish a trust in Laxmibai Kolhapurkar's name. She was frank about commercialised "fancy lavani," arguing that stitched sarees and nightclub styling were not the courtly and folk tradition she had inherited. That insistence on authenticity, combined with Kathak training, made her a bridge between village tamasha and metropolitan stages.
On 27 November 2016, during Lavanya Sangeet at Yashwant Natya Mandir in Matunga, Mumbai, she returned to the stage after roughly twelve years away. Mid-performance she felt unwell yet finished a bhairavi rather than leave the audience mid-act. In the makeup room she suffered a stroke that affected her right side. She was hospitalised and later lived with lasting impairment; from then on she remained largely away from cameras and ghungroos. In 2018 Zee Chitra Gaurav named her for a Lifetime Achievement Award; her daughter-in-law Sheetal Jadhav accepted it on her behalf because Kambikar could not attend. Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University later announced a lifetime achievement honour (2023). Other distinctions include the Natvarya Keshavrao Date Puraskar, Lokashahir Patthe Bapurao Puraskar, Maharshi Shankarrao Mohite-Patil Lavani Kalavant Puraskar (2007), Gadima lifetime recognition (2016), and chairing the 2013 Mahila Lokakala Sammelan in Nagpur.
Kambikar published the autobiographical Madhurang (Sanskruti Prakashan, 2012), reflecting on artistry, stigma against folk performers, and the discipline of stage craft. She was the aunt of writer-doctor Kishor Shantabai Kale, and helped him enter Grant Medical College in Mumbai. She died in Pune on 12 October 2026. Tributes across Marathi news and public life described silenced ghungroos and a cultural loss for lavani, theatre, and cinema. Her body of work remains a primary record of how Maharashtra's folk stage entered the film frame without abandoning its own grammar.
From social media
7Posts by Madhu, and posts about them, kept here so they are not lost.