Birth centennial of Hemanta Mukherjee today
Today marks the birth centennial of legendary musician Hemanta Mukherjee. Born on June 16, 1920, in Varanasi India, the singer is also known as Hemanta Kumar. His family shifted to their ancestral home Baharu of West Bengal. His family soon migrated to Kolkata, where Mukherjee attended Nasiruddin School and later Mitra Institution school of Bhawanipore area. He grew up in the company of his two best friends, renowned poet Subhas Mukhopadhyay and noted writer Santosh Kumar Ghosh. With their influence, the artiste started writing short stories.
After completing high school, Mukherjee went on to pursue his academics in engineering in the Bengal Technical Institute of Jadavpur. However, he dropped out soon and began looking up to a career in music.
His first tutelage began with mentor Sailesh Duttagupta and at the beginning of his career, the artiste followed the famous Bengali singer Pankaj Mullick and was nicknamed Chhoto Pankaj. In an interview on television in the early 1980s, the singer mentioned that he has also received classical music training from Ustad Faiyaz Khan's student Phanibhusan Banerjee but could not complete his training due to his unexpected death.
In 1935, he sang the song Amar Ganete Ele Nabarupi Chirantanii for All India Radio. A couple of years later, his first gramophone record came out under the Columbia level. The album consisted of songs like Janite Jadi Go Tumi and Balo Go Balo, written by Naresh Bhattacharya and composed by Sailesh Duttagupta.
Hemanta's career made a breakthrough during the 1940s. He debuted the film industry as a playback singer in 1941 with the film Nimai Sanyasi. The maestro is also known as an exponent of Rabindra Sangeet. His first recorded Rabindra Sangeet, Pather Sesh Kothaye for the Bengali film Priyo Bandhobi (1944).
He was associated with the left-oriented Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA). Noted songwriter and music composer Salil Chowdhury was also a member of the association. Their partnership produced the ever-popular song on Bengal famine of 1943 in 1947 – Ganyer Badhu.
Soon, filmmaker Hemen Gupta invited Hemanta to Mumbai for his Hindi film Anand Math (1952). The film was a moderate success and the singer soon paired up with Lata Mangeshkar for the romantic number Dekho O Chand for the film Shart (1954). He soon became popular as a playback singer and his collaboration with Sachin Dev Burman in movies like Jaal (1952) House No. 44, Solva Saal (1958), Funtoosh, and Baat Ek Raat Ki were well received by the audience.
Hemanta Mukherjee breathed his last on September 26, 1989.
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