Veteran B'wood editor Waman Bhonsle dies at 87

National Award winner and Bollywood editor Waman Bhonsle passed away in Mumbai on April 26 due to age-related issues. He was 87. Bhonsle's nephew Dinesh Bhonsle said his funeral will take place at Mumbai's Goregaon East.

"He was keeping unwell for around a year. He had diabetes for many years and in the last year, he had also started losing his memory. He was not able to walk around much either and had stopped eating in the last four-five days. He passed away at his home in Goregaon, Mumbai at 4:00 am on April 26. His funeral will be held in the afternoon," said Dinesh.

Waman Bhonsle was born in Goa and came to Mumbai in the early 1950s to complete his studies. He worked with the editor DN Pai at 'Bombay Talkies' for six months and later as an assistant editor at 'Filmistan'.

Bhonsle landed his first Hindi film assignment as an independent editor with Raj Khosla directorial 'Do Raaste' (1969). He remained active during the 1960s-1970s period, working as an editor for several popular hits like 'Mera Gaon Mera Desh', 'Inkaar', 'Dostana', 'Ghulam', 'Agneepath' and many others.

Bhonsle won a National Award for 'Inkaar' (1977), apart from other awards for films like 'Saudagar' and 'Ghulam'.

In a career spanning over four decades, Bhonsle collaborated with almost every big director of that time, including Gulzar, Shekhar Kapur, Ravi Tandon, Subhash Ghai and many more.

Though Bhonsle retired from active editing, he continued to mentor several aspiring editors and assistants. His innovative techniques are still a benchmark in Bollywood.

Actor-filmmaker Viveck Vaswani took to 'Twitter' to pay his tribute to the veteran film editor and wrote, "RIP Waman Bhosle. It is a sad day for cinema!"

"RIP Waman Bhonsle sir. As a genius film editor in my first film 'Kalicharan', he remained my editor teacher in all my films till 'Khalnayak' and inspired me to edit my film like 'Taal'. He was a great teacher," filmmaker Subhash Ghai condoled.