K. K. Mahajan Biography 
K. K. Mahajan is a national award winning cinematographer, best known for his association with highly acclaimed film makers like Mrinal Sen, Kumar Shahani, Mani Kaul and Basu Chatterjee. He has worked in Bengali and Bollywood. He is a recipient of National award for best cinematography four times including one hat-trick. The movies are Basu Chatterjee's Sara Akash (1970), Mani Kaul's Uski Roti (1971), Kumar Shahani's Maya Darpan (1972) and Mrinal Sen's Chorus (1974) in a quick succession, missing only for the year 1973 when the award was given to Apurba Kishore Bir and Soumendu Roy. Since late 1960s he has been associated with Indian cinema for four decades and has worked in both main stream and offbeat movies. His contributions include 84 feature films, apart from a few documentaries, television serials and commercials. He was active in an era when Bengali film industry had some of the highly acclaimed movie makers.
Though associated with Bengali cinema, Mahajan was originally a Punjabi born in Gurdaspur in 1944. He completed his graduation from Panjab University, Chandigarh and joined FTII Pune. He graduated in Motion Picture Photography in 1966, with a gold medal and started his career with ad films and documentaries very soon. Shyam Benegal's Child of the Streets (1967) was one of his highly acclaimed documentary films.
He made his film debut as an independent cinematographer through the landmark movie of Indian cinema - Bhuvan Shome released in 1969. The movie bagged all the three elite awards at national award including best feature film, director and best actor. The movie proved to be his real career breakthrough as well. He has also been associated with Basu Chatterjee for many Bollywood classics like Swami, Piya ka ghar, Rajnigandha, Mqanzil, Chitchor and Choti is baat.
Published: N/A
Updated: July 23, 2014
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