Before entering the film industry in Bombay, Hemant Kumar Mukherjee had established himself as a singer and composer in Bengali films. He did playback singing for the first time in 'Nimaee Sanyas' - Bengali - HP Das - 1940. In Hindi, Kamal Dasgupta gave the chance to Hemant Kumar with 'Jawab' and 'Jameen Asman' . As a singer he becamce famous with 'Ye Raat Ye Chandani' - Jaal. As a music director, he established himself with 'Nagin'. After that, 'Bees Sal Baad', Anupama, Kabuliwala, Mis Mery, Kohara, Khamoshi & Sahab Biwi aur Gulam were proved more prestigious for him. Hemant Da also became film producer later on, and produced - Bees Sal Baad, Rahgeer, Khamoshi and Kohraa. He was a composer of multidimensional ability and he composed in Ravindra Sangeet, Folk and Western style simultaneously.
Hemant Kumar was born on June 16, 1920 in the city of Varanasi, India. His family hailed from a village named Baharu in West Bengal and migrated to Calcutta in the early 20th century. Hemant Kumar too grew up in Calcutta and attended a school in South Calcutta(Bhawanipore) named Mitra Institution. There he met his longtime friend, a celebrated Bengali poet, Subhas Mukhopadhyay. After passing the intermediate examinations (12th grade) Hemant Kumar was admitted to Jadavpur University to study engineering. However, despite parental objection, he quit academics to pursue a career in music. Hemant Kumar briefly tried his hand at literature and also published a short story in a prestigious Bengali magazine called 'Desh', but by the late-1930s he was committed entirely to music.
Early music career
Under the influence of his friend Subhash Mukhopadhyay, Hemant Kumar recorded his first song for All India Radio in 1933. The first line of the song was 'aamaar gaane te ele naba ruupe chirantanii'. Hemant Kumar's music career was mentored by the Bengali musician Sailesh Duttagupta. In an interview on television in the early 1980-s, Hemant Kumar had mentioned that he had also received training in classical music from Ustad Faiyyaz Khan, but his tutelage was cut short by Ustad-ji's untimely death. In 1937, he cut his first gramophone disc under the Columbia label. The songs (non-film) on this disc were 'jaanite jadi go tumi' and 'balo go balo more'. Lyrics were by Naresh Bhattacharya, music by Hemant Kumar's mentor Sailesh Duttagupta. Thereafter, every year Hemant Kumar continued to record non-film discs for the Gramophone Company of India(GCI) right till 1984. Hemant Kumar's first Hindi songs were 'kitanaa dukh bhulaaya tumane' and 'o priit nibhaabewaalii', released in 1940 under GCI's Columbia label. Music for these songs were composed by Kamal Dasgupta, lyrics were by Faiyaz Hashmi. Hemant Kumar's first film song was in the Bengali film 'Nimai Sanyas' released in 1941. Music for this film was scored by Hariprasanna Das. Hemant Kumar's first compositions for himself were the Bengali non-film songs 'katha koyonako shudhu shono' and 'amar biraha aakaashe priyaa' in 1944. Lyrics were by Amiya Bagchi. His first Hindi film songs were in Iraadaa in 1944 under Pt. Amarnath's music direction. Lyrics were by Aziz Kashmiri. Hemant Kumar is considered a foremost exponent of Rabindrasangeet(Tagore song) - songs (and lyrics) composed by the India's first Nobel laureate, Rabindranath Tagore. Hemant Kumar recorded his first Rabindrasangeet disc in 1944 under the Columbia label. The songs were 'prangane mor shiriishh shaakhaay' and 'he nirupamaa'. His first movie as a music director was the Bengali film 'Abhiyatri' in 1947. Although many of the songs Hemant Kumar recorded in during this time received critical acclaim, major commercial success still eluded him, right until 1947. Some contemporary male singers of Hemant Kumar in Bengali around that period were Jaganmoy Mitra(also called 'Jagmohan'), Robin Majumdar, Satya Chowdhury, Dhananjay Bhattacharya, Sudhirlal Chakraborty and Talat Mahmood.
Family
Hemant Kumar had three brothers. Elder brother Tarajyoti was a short story writer in Bengali. Youngest brother Amal composed music for some Bengali movies, most notably 'Hospital' and 'Abak Prithibi'. He also recorded a few non-film Bengali songs in the 1960s. In 1945, Hemant Kumar married Bela Mukherjee, a singer from Bengal. Although Bela had sung several popular songs in a Bengali movie titled 'Kashinath'(1943) with music by Pankaj Mullick, she did not actively pursue her musical career after marrying Hemant Kumar. They had two children - son Jayant and daughter Ranu. Ranu pursued a music career in the late 1960s and early 1970s with limited success.
Hemant Kumar Mukherjee's son Jayant is married to Mousumi Chatterjee, an Indian film actress who was most prolific in the 1970s.
Success and Migration to Bombay
Hemant Kumar in the early 1950sIn the mid 1940-s, Hemant Kumar became an active member of the Indian People's Theatrical Association (IPTA) and started an association with another active IPTA member - songwriter and composer - Salil Chowdhury. One of the main driving forces behind the establishment of IPTA was the Bengal famine of 1943 and the inaction of the British administration and wealthy Indians to prevent it from happening. In 1948, Hemant Kumar recorded a non-film song called 'gaaNyer badhu' (literally translates to 'The rural bride') that had music and lyrics by Salil Chowdhury. The six minute song recorded on two sides of a 78 rpm disc was sung at a varying pace and lacked the conventional structure and romantic theme of a Bengali song. It depicted an idyllic, prosperous and caring rural woman's life and family, and how it gets ravaged by the demons of famine and ensuing poverty. This song generated an unforeseen popularity for Hemant Kumar and Salil in eastern India, and, in a way, established Hemant Kumar ahead of his male contemporaries. Hemant Kumar and Salil paired again in several songs over the next four years and almost all these songs proved to be very popular. Around the same period, Hemant Kumar started receiving more assignments for music composition for Bengali films. Some of these films were for a director named Hemen Gupta. When Hemen moved to Bombay a few years later, he called upon Hemant Kumar to compose music for his first directorial venture in Hindi titled 'Anandmath' under the Filmistan banner. Responding to this call, Hemant Kumar migrated to Bombay in 1951 and joined the Filmistan Studios. The music of Anandmath(1952) was a moderate success. Perhaps, the most notable among 'Anandmath' songs is 'vande mataram' sung by Lata Mangeshkar, which Hemant Kumar set to a marching tune. Following Anandmath, Hemant Kumar scored music for a few Filmistan movies like 'Shart' in subsequent years, the songs of which received moderate popularity. Simultaneously, Hemant Kumar also gained popularity in Bombay as a playback singer. Hemant's songs playbacked for actor Dev Anand under music director Sachin Dev Burman in movies like 'Jaal', 'House No. 44', and 'Solva Saal' became quite popular.
Career Rise
By the mid-fifties Hemant had consolidated his position as a prominent singer and composer. In Bengal, he was one of the foremost exponents of Rabindrasangeet and perhaps the most sought after male singer. In Bombay, along with playback singing, Hemant also carved a niche as a composer. A Hindi film called Nagin(1954) with music by Hemant became a major success owing largely to its music. Songs of Nagin remained chart-toppers continuously for two years and culminated in Hemant receiving the prestigious Filmfare Award for best music director in 1955. The very same year, Hemant scored music for a Bengali movie called 'Shapmochan' in which he also played back four songs for the Bengali actor Uttam Kumar. This started a long partnership between Hemant and Uttam as a playback singer-actor pair that contributed to their becoming the most popular singer and actor respectively, in Bengal, over the next decade.
In the latter part of the fifties decade Hemant Kumar composed music and played back for several Bengali and Hindi films; recorded several Rabindrasangeets and Bengali non-film songs. Almost all of these, especially his Bengali output became very popular. This period can be termed as the zenith of his career and lasted for almost a decade. He sang songs composed by the major music directors in Bengal such as Nachiketa Ghosh, Robin Chatterjee and Salil Chowdhury. Some of the notable films Hemant Kumar himself composed music for during this period include 'Harano sur', 'Marutirtha Hinglaj', 'Neel Akasher Nichey', 'Lukochuri', 'Swaralipi', 'Deep jwele jaai', 'Shesh Parjanta', 'Kuhak', 'Dui bhai', and 'Saptapadi' in Bengali, and, 'Jagriti' and 'Ek hi raasta' in Hindi.
Movie Production
In the late fifties, Hemant Kumar ventured into movie production under his own banner Hemant Kumar-Bela productions. The first movie under this banner was a Bengali film directed by Mrinal Sen, titled 'Neel Akasher Nichey'(1959). The story of this film was based on the travails of a Chinese street hawker in Calcutta in the backdrop of India's freedom struggle. The movie went onto win the President's Gold Medal - the highest government honour for a movie. In the next decade, Hemant Kumar's production company was renamed Geetanjali productions and it produced several Hindi movies such as 'Bees Saal Baad', 'Kohraa', 'Biwi Aur Makaan', 'Faraar', 'Rahgir' and 'Khamoshi' - all of which had music by Hemant Kumar. Almost all of these, except 'Bees saal baad' and 'Khamoshi', weren't major commercial successes. Back in Bengal, Hemant Kumar scored music for a movie titled 'Palatak' in 1963 where he experimented with merging Bengal folk music and light music. This proved to be a major success and Hemant Kumar's composition style changed noticeably for many of his future films in Bengal such as 'Baghini', and 'Balika Badhu'. In Bengali films 'Monihar' and 'Adwitiya', both of which were major musical as well as commercial successes, Hemant Kumar's compositions had a light classical tinge. In 1961, for commemorating Rabindranath Tagore's birth centenary, Gramophone company of India featured Tagore songs by Hemant Kumar in a large portion of its commemorative output. This too proved to be a major commercial success. Hemant Kumar also went on several overseas concert tours in this period including his trip to the West Indies and Trinidad and Tobago. Overall, in the sixties decade Hemant Kumar retained his position as the major male singer in Bengal, and, as a composer and singer to be reckoned with in Hindi films.
Latter Part of Career
By the seventies decade, Hemant Kumar's output in Hindi films had become nominal. He scored music for a handful of his home productions, none of which were successes movie or music-wise. In Bengal, however, he remained the foremost exponent of Rabindrasangeet. His non-film output was popular in the early part of the decade. In 1971, Hemant Kumar debuted as a film director in for his self-produced Bengali movie titled 'Anindita'. The movie didn't fare exceedingly well at the box office. In the early to mid 1970s, two major music composers in Bengal, Nachiketa Ghosh and Robin Chatterjee, who had worked closely with Hemant Kumar(for playback and singing non-film songs) since the early 50's passed away. Simultaneously, music composed by Hemant Kumar for Bengali films like 'Fuleswari', 'Raag Anurag' and 'Dadar Kirti' established Hemant Kumar as the major film music composer in the Bengal movie scene. In 1979, Hemant Kumar re-recorded some of his earlier works with composer Salil Chowdhury from the 1940s and 1950s. This album titled 'Legend of Glory, vol. 2' was a major commercial success, despite Hemant Kumar's aged and slightly tired voice.
In 1980, Hemant Kumar suffered a major cardiac arrest that severely affected his vocal capabilities, especially his breath control. He continued to record songs in the early eighties, but his voice was a shade of its rich baritone past. In 1984, Hemant Kumar was felicitated by different organizations, most notably by the Gramophone Company of India, for completing 50 years in music. Ironically, that very year Hemant Kumar released his last album with Gramophone Company of India - a 45 rpm extended play disc with four non-film songs. Over the next few years, Hemant Kumar released non-film songs under various small-time labels that had cropped up in the nascent cassette-based music industry. Only a few of these were commercially successful. He composed music for a handful of Bengali movies and one Bengali and one Hindi tele-series. However, by this time Hemant Kumar had become an institution, a beloved personality, courteous and friendly and gentleman, and, for his voice and songs of the fifties through the seventies decade. He continued to feature regularly on All India Radio, Doordarshan(TV) and live programmes/concerts during this period.
In September 1989, Hemant Kumar travelled to Dhaka, Bangladesh to receive the Michael Madhusudan Award. He performed a concert in Dhaka as well. Immediately after returning from this trip, Hemant Kumar suffered a major cardiac arrest on September 26th and breathed his last at 11:15 pm in a nursing home in South Calcutta. Interestingly, even 15 years after Hemant Kumar's death, Gramophone Company of India releases at least one album by Hemant Kumar every year, repackaging his older songs, because of the commercial viability of his songs. Hemant Kumar's legacy still lives on through the numerous songs he has recorded, music he has composed and through many male singers in Bengal and the rest of India who continue to imitate his singing style.
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