Birthday: Hemant Kumar Mukhopadhyay gave these great songs to the industry

Hemanta Mukhopadhyay (aka Hemant Kumar) provided a distinctively melodious playback voice to superstar Uttam Kumar for over two decades. That's a woefully incomplete (if glamorous) description of the man's staggering and manifold achievements in music. 

Sanjeev Mehra It would not be wrong to place him at par with Debabarta (George) Biswas in the pantheon of Rabindrasangeet. Similarly, his musical scores for Hindi films (Bees Saal Baad, Shat, Saheb Bibi Aur Ghulam, Kohra, Anupama) go way beyond the 1954 superhit Nagin for which he received a Filmfare Award. In Tollywood, he was not only a composer-singer in films like Harano Sur, Deep Jale Jaye and Saptapadi but also worked as a notable playback singer for other music directors of his time, including Salil Chowdhury and S D Burman. He composed non-film Bengali song albums continuously till the late seventies.

Hemant-da composed the music for Conrad Rooks' film Siddhartha, in which he also gave playback for O Nodi Re (earlier recorded for a Bengali film 'Nil Akshar Niche'), thus becoming the first Indian composer and playback singer in Hollywood! The US government also conferred on him honorary US citizenship.

In 1979, Hemant re-recorded his earlier hits from the 1950s-60s with Salil Chowdhary in an album called Legends of Glory. He suffered a heart attack in 1980 and was never the same again. He continued his musical pursuits as a sport, appearing frequently on TV programmes, felicitations and philanthropic events. The deep, meditative and beloved baritone voice of Indian music fell silent after a second attack in September 1989.

 Here are just five of his many hit songs...

“Tumhe Yaad Hoga” (A haunting duet from the early fifties composed by Kalyanji Anandji)

“Chandan ka Palna” (One of the greatest lullabies, rare occasion when Hemant sang for Naushad)

"Yeh Raat Yeh Chandni" (Dev Anand and Geeta Bali's red hot romance on screen was a huge hit for Dada Burman)

"Beqarar Karke Humein" (Song sung and composed by Hemant for 'Bees Saal Baad')

“Kuch Dil Ne Kaha” (A haunting song from ‘Anupama’ sung by Lata. This song is an expression of Hemant’s creative genius in full bloom)

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