However, this time around, happily for all Nazrul Sangeet lovers, the tide has turned. Recently, the Nazrul Institute has taken a far-reaching initiative to revive and re-launch many of the long lost tracks that made Nazrul famous. In the first stage, a series of 13 CDs was launched, with a few more in the pipeline. When completed, the series would boast a collection of 1,000 songs, many of them dating back to the 1930s.

As I listened to a few tracks, I noted, in awe, the names on the cover - Juthika Rai, K Mallick, Bechu Dutt, Indu Bala, Angur Bala, Mina Bandyopadhyay, Ganendra Prasad Goswami, Sachin Dev Burman and Deepali Talukdar--who later was known as Deepali Naag Chowdhury.

The last name in that list was special to me. I had first met Deepali Nag Chowdhury at a concert. I was in my late teens and had been invited to perform at a solo concert at her New Delhi home. Far from being nervous in front of an artiste held in so much reverence across the region, I was in fact quite excited!

After the two-hour concert, I was in for a surprise when she told me that one of the songs that I had sung, a very popular Nazrul song, Megho Medur Boroshay kotha tumi was actually dedicated to her. "The song is inspired by a Hindi song, the melody and rhythm being same, the genre falls under bhanga gaan composed in khayal form," she added.

Nazrul, through such personal touches and his undoubted talent had influenced a generation of artistes. Nazrul's platform for associating with the lyricists, tuners, trainers and singers was the Gramaphone Company better known as HMV. Once Nazrul joined the HMV as the chief trainer, it gave him the opportunity to work with the talented group of musicians of that period (1928-1932). His musical career truly flourished in the 1930s. He had also recorded for Senola, Pioneer, Regal and Twin.

But, as is well documented in history, Nazrul's journey in the music world was rocky from the start. Being fiercely rebellious and anti-British, he stood out amongst many of his peers who were not as confrontational as him. Naturally many of his songs reflected his brand of fiery emotion and patriotism, a far cry from the standard-formulaic commercially successful songs. In fact, even his romantic songs, his ghazals, bore his signature touches, the artful play of words and tone that set it apart from the rest.

Despite lack of interest from producers in recording his songs in the beginning, word of his impressive musical output spread quickly. Bowing to popular demand, it was not long before one of his first songs was recorded by Harendra Dutt, a reputed singer of those days. His popularity grew by the day, and Nazrul's prolific writing ensured that his work encompassed not only patriotic songs, but also ghazals, Hamd, Naat, bhajan, kirtans and love songs or kabya geeti.

The group of talented artistes drawn to Nazrul grew spontaneously. Celebrated singers of the golden era of Bengali music such as Angur Bala, Hari Mati, Kamala Jharia, K Mallick, K C Dey, Abbas Uddin, Satya Chowdhury, Sachin Dev Burman, Jaganmoy Mitra, Kundanlal Saigal and many more recorded songs under Nazrul and gained immense popularity. The brightest composer of the modernist trend of Bengali songs, Nazrul had exploded into the music world.

Pranab Rai in his memoir wrote, "If only Kazi Shaheb had a pen and a paper placed before him he could compose songs of different genres at a given time. There are instances when he wrote five Shyama Sangeet in a space of less than half-hour."

The damage to our heritage of losing a treasure of such works through sheer indifference would have been incalculable. So the initiative to revive Nazrul's work at such a juncture is all the more critical. Artistes and music lovers of the new generation can only be thankful that the flame that they had only heard of from their elders is once more burning for them to experience.