Geet Ramayana is a musical epic penned in Marathi by poet G.D. Madgulkar , which turns 60 in 2015. It was broadcast for the first time on AIR, Pune starting from April 1, 1955 which was a Ram Navmi day. It has been thus celebrating its diamond jubilee. The epic has been set to music by Sudhir Phadke. Geet Ramayana is the climax of the collective geniuses of Madgulkar and Phadke.

Geet Ramayana consists of 56 ( Marathi ) songs describing the events from the epic chronologically. Its broadcast on AIR continued between 1955 and 1956. Each week there was a new song. They were aired on Friday mornings and were repeated on Saturdays and Sundays.

Though based on the Valmiki Ramayan, the format is totally different. It showcases 32 characters. The lead character Rama gets 10 songs and Sita gets 8 songs Ravana has not been assigned any song.Valmiki the writer, gets one song. The narration is that of Lava and Kusha, the two sons of Rama.

It has been widely translated — in nine languages. There are five Hindi translations. It is available in Braille.

The ‘raga’ and ‘taal’ of the song are dictated by the time and narrative mood of that song. Each character gets a unique tone.

There is a Facebook page — https:// www.facebook.com/egeetRamayana. There is one Android mobile application too.

Many singers have contributed — Manik Varma, Lata Mangeshkar, Yogini Joglekar, Vasantrao Deshpande, Suresh Haldankar, Appasahab Inamdar, Gajanan Watve and Sudhir Phadke himself.