Hemant Kumar

Born as Hemanta Kumar Mukherjee, Hemant Kumar brought a profound yet ardent vocal delivery and an innate melodic intuition to the reshaping of Indian music after World War II. His stature rested equally on acclaimed performances of Rabindranath Tagore’s songs and on his work as a composer who supplied scores for more than 150 Bengali films and 50 Hindi films while writing an estimated 2,000 songs altogether.

He first broadcast on Indian radio in 1933 and issued his debut record, the coupling “Janite Jadi Go Tumi” b/w “Balo Go Balo More,” six years afterward. At that stage he showed scant interest in a musical livelihood, instead entering a four-year engineering curriculum at Jaduvpar Polytechnic and harboring ambitions as a writer; one of his stories appeared in Dash magazine in 1937.

The force of his voice nevertheless prevailed. Columbia Records signed him after Senola and Megaphone had declined, placing him under the guidance of staff trainer Sailesh Dattagupta. Although he had already begun classical Hindustani lessons with Ustad Faiyaz Khan, those studies ceased abruptly upon the ustad’s death.

Columbia’s releases earned immediate critical praise. Following his second single he bought his first harmonium; after the next release he abandoned his studies to concentrate on music.

Wider commercial acceptance arrived more gradually. Several years passed before he secured playback assignments in films, an opportunity that materialized when he was selected for the hit Nimai Sonyas. In 1944 he composed the complete score for Heman Gupta’s Abhijatri and resumed work for the same director on Anandamath in 1951. He then moved to Bombay, where S. Mukherjee’s Filmistan Studios engaged him as a staff composer. Although he later launched his own Geetanjali productions in an attempt to direct, his strongest achievements continued to be realized for other filmmakers.

Beginning in 1948 he collaborated with lyricist-composer Salil Chowdhury on a fresh idiom called Kavya-geeti, characterized as “ballad but not necessarily romantic.” Kumar attained his summit in 1955 by receiving the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director for the film Nagin.