Veteran music composer Vanraj Bhatia passed in Mumbai on Friday after a brief illness. He was 93. The composer, who carved his niche with his distinct notes in the art cinema circuit of the seventies and the eighties, lived alone at his apartment at the Rungta Housing Colony on Napean Sea Road.

Born into a family of Kutchi businessmen on May 31, 1927, Bhatia attended the New Era School in Bombay and learnt Hindustani classical music as a student at Deodhar School of Music. After graduating from Elphinstone College, Vanraj Bhatia trained in western classical music in London and Paris. A recipient of Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1989, Bhatia studied western classical music at Royal Academy of Music, London. Well, there is a back story for learning western classical music. On hearing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 as a teenager, Bhatia became interested in Western classical music and studied the piano with Dr. Manek Bhagat for four years.