Hemant Kumar

Book Review: “The Unforgettable Music of HEMANT KUMAR”

The Unforgettable Music of HEMANT KUMAR
By Manek Premchand
Pages: 441
First Edition: 2020
Blue Pencil, New Delhi
(With study of his Bengali repertoire by Antara Nanda Mondal and Sounak Gupta)

Salil Chowdhury once said if God wanted to sing, he would do it in the voice of Hemant Kumar. Lata Mangeshkar said about him, “Listening to Hemant Da songs, I feel as if a Sadhu is singing bhajan in a temple.” A darling of Bengal where he was known as “Chhoto Pankaj” (Little Pankaj Mullick), and one of the top singers of Rabindra Sangeet. There was something divine about his mellifluous voice. I have not met a person who is not deeply passionate about Hemant Kumar’s voice. This blog celebrated his centenary in a very comprehensive manner in 2020, anchored by two erudite articles by N Venkataraman – Hemantayan Part 1 and Hemantayan Part 2 and a number of other articles on Hemant Kumar’s music in different combinations. Thus SOY readers’ appetite whetted  by the capsules on him, they would lap up Manek Premchand’s exhaustive book on Hemant Kumar.

Hemant Kumar was a man of many parts. We love him as a singer, his non-film songs are as mesmerising as his film songs. If he ruled our hearts in Hindi, he was an icon in Bengal. He continued his professional commitments in both Bombay and Calcutta, shuttling between the two cities at a  frenetic pace. He was a composer par excellence where he didn’t show any partiality to his own voice, freely taking other male voices if he considered that more suitable. He also ventured into film production, which barring some exceptions, were a commercial failure. With all that he looked after and provided for a large family. All this, coupled with his smoking habit must have told upon his health. All this is captured in the book in sufficient detail.

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Dattaram Part 2: Breaking out of the Banyan Tree with ‘Other’ Singers

Second and final part of tribute to Dattaram (1929 – 8 June 2007)

DattaramWe saw in Dattaram Part 1 dealing with his songs for Mukesh and Manna Dey, how his association with the Big Banyan tree, Shankar-Jaikishan, made it difficult to get out of the comfort zone of SJ. The readers Mahesh and Hans Jakhar opined that Dattaram was himself part of the Banyan Tree. We need not presume that it was a millstone around his neck. The association gave him steady work and a sense of importance. Not everyone is entrepreneurial, he was contented with his station in life.

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Hemant Kumar’s Non-film Songs

Concluding the series of centenary tributes to Hemant Kumar (16 June 1920-26 September 1989) with his non-film songs

Hemant KumarMy introduction to the last post by Ashok M Vaishnav on Hemant Kumar’s solo songs under the baton of other music directors conveyed that that rounded off his centenary celebrations. But it rankled me that his centenary celebrations would be incomplete without a post on his non-film songs. Fortuitously, a slot made itself available in the calendar year, enabling me to fulfil my desire and round off the centenary celebrations with my favourite non-film songs (NFS) of Hemant Kumar.

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Hemant Kumar’s solo songs under ‘other’ batons

Guest article by Ashok M Vaishnav in the series of Centenary Celebrations of Hemant Kumar (16 June 1920-26 September 1989)

(SOY has launched a befitting Centenary Celebration of the much loved music and film personality Hemant Kumar, starting with N Venkataraman’s foundational article Hemantayan Part 1 on his Birth Centenary, 16 June 2020, which covered his life and career up to 1960. Venkataramanji anchored the post-1960 till the end part of his career with Hemantayan Part 2, published on his 31st Remembrance Day, 26 September 2020. In tandem with that, Ashok M Vaishnav took a closer look at Hemant Kumar’s career as music director with three articles covering his female playback singers, male playback singers and duets.

In the course of his exploration Ashokji felt that with this series, Hemant Kumar’s songs as a singer need a detailed separate post. His songs under his own baton are quite well-known. His songs under the baton of S D Burman and Ravi have been covered earlier in the series on these music directors. Ashokji never chooses the easy path. He expressed a desire to write another article on his songs under the baton of other music directors. I am happy to present it in this calendar year to round off the grand Centenary celebrations of Hemant Kumar. Thank you Ashokji. – AK)

Hemant Kumar with Kishore KumarEvery major article written on Hemant Kumar, invariably runs into a debate of his being more a complete music director or a singer. The discussion invariably moves to the question – whether he sang better under his own music direction or under the direction of ‘other’ music directors. As can be expected, most of such discussions end with the participants divided equally on either side. However, one view which emerges more often than not is that what he lacked in the range as a singer, he was able to more than compensate that by creating songs that other singers could do justice to. Moreover, it is also very commonly agreed that even when he had had some of the most outstanding songs under ‘other’ batons, use of his range as a singer was utilised in a very narrow band by other music directors.

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Hemantayan – Part 2

A tribute to Hemant Kumar on his 31st Remembrance Day (16 June 1920 – 26 September 1989) in his Birth Centenary year by guest author N Venkataraman

(N Venkataraman launched the Centenary Celebration of Hemant Kumar with his superb article Hemantayan Part 1 on his Birth Centenary, 16 June 2020. This gave a comprehensive overview of Hemant Kumar’s early life, his rise as a singer and composer of great repute in Hindi and Bengali films and non-film songs, up to 1960.

In this second and concluding part of his tribute, Venkatarmanji carries on his excellent work and covers his remaining career post-1960. The special aspect of this article is his focus on Hemant Kumar’s forays into production of films, which is not highlighted much as his heavenly voice left such a powerful impact. This aspect is also important because it became Hemant Kumar’s hubris, sucking him into deep financial troubles. But the multifarious talent that he was, he was able to come out of it as he had become an icon in Bengali music as a singer and composer. That became his main arena, where he was the Monarch.

This two-part tribute by Venkataramanji is the most comprehensive you can find on any blog. It is not only a chronicle of Hemant Kumar’s life and his professional achievements, it also provides insight into the ecosystem of Hindi and Bengali films of the era, his strength of character, simplicity and generosity and also his foibles, and his ups and downs. We are passionately fond of his singing and music direction, our awareness being primarily limited to Hindi. Thanks to Venkataramanji now we know that Hemant Kumar was much larger than that.  We can’t thank Venkataramanji enough for this. – AK)

Hemant Kumar 1“It was now time to build up on this success and reputation. Was he able to consolidate his position and career in Bombay and also in Calcutta? I will leave that for another post, the second part of this write-up. I would be covering his career post-1960 in the second part of my article”.

I had concluded the first part, Hemantayan – Part1 with the above lines.

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Hemantayan – Part 1

A tribute to Hemant Kumar on his Birth Centenary (16 June 1920 – 26 September 1989) by guest author N Venkataraman

(Lata Mangeshkar once said in an interview about Hemant Kumar, “Listening to Hemant Da, I feel as though a sadhu sitting in a temple is singing a bhajan.” But a more endearing observation was made by Salil Chowdhury: If God had to sing, he would do it in the voice of Hemant Kumar. After you read this article, you would say, if Hemant Kumar wanted someone to write a tribute on his Centenary, he would have N Venkataraman do the honours.

Venkataramanji needs no introduction to the regular readers of SoY. He is a management professional based in Kolkata, but on SoY we know him for his scholarship and breadth of knowledge. Truly a Renaissance Man from Bengal. I am grateful that he has agreed to write a superb tribute to Hemant Kumar on his Centenary in two parts. In the first part he covers Hemant Kumar’s career up to 1960, giving us a broad panorama of his family roots, his early life to his emergence as a singer and composer of great repute in both Hindi and Bengali, including films and non-film songs. This article also gives a summary of his output in other regional languages. Thank you Venkataramanji for your great effort. – AK)

Section-1: 1920 – 1940

Hemant Kumar 1The Mathurapur- Laksmikantapur railway tracks pass through South 24 Parganas, leaving in its trail many old-world, sleepy stations. One such station is BAHARU. BAHARU, one of the many janapadas, that grew up along the old Bhagirathi offshoot from the ancient times, finds a mention in Bipradas Pipilai’s Manasavijaya, composed in 1495; BAHARU, the place where the Dewan of the East India Company, Nandakumar Bose, in the beginning of the 19th century, built a temple for Shyamsundar, acquiring stones from Chunar and requisitioning architects from Jaipur, to recreate Mathura-Vrindaban for his aged mother; BAHARU, the origin of Joynagarer Mua, a sweet well-known all over Bengal, made of Kanakchur, a sweet-smelling variety of rice (popped or puffed) grown in this region, mixed with good quality of liquid palm jaggery and desi ghee; BAHARU, the place where the famous singer and music director Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay spent eight years of his childhood and the village his ancestors originated from.

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Ravi’s many-splendoured genius with the ‘other’ singers

RaviWe now come to the end of the series on Ravi. In my opening post in the series we saw him as a many-splendoured genius with a large number of songs for themes and occasions, which have acquired an iconic status, many of which made the readers exclaim, Oh, this is also composed by him! Yet when some of us hesitated in bracketing him among the ‘greats’, Hans Jakhar was not pleased and challenged that at the end of the series we would concede that Ravi deserves to be called a ‘great’ music director. Without getting stuck on the semantics, please recall subsequent posts in the series: Rafi’s solos, Rafi’s duets, Asha Bhosle’s songs by him, Ravi’s special partnership with Shakeel Badayuni, Ravi’s songs for Lata Mangeshkar, and Mahendra Kapoor. That is a massive list of superhit songs with most of the major playback singers. But that is not the end of his work. He composed great songs for other playback singers too, and in this respect he ranks with those music directors whose special strength was their diversity in working with different playback singers, unlike some who were fixated on a couple of their favourites.

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SD Burman: ‘The Courage of His Convictions’ (Has his way on Hemant Kumar)

Guest article by Moti Lalwani as a tribute to SD Burman (1 October 1906 – 31 October 1975)

‘Ye raat ye chandni phir kahaan’ by Hemant Kumar, lyricist Sahir Ludhiyanavi, composed by SD Burman

(When I wrote a review of HQ Chowdhury’s book ‘Incomparable Sachin Dev Burman’ sometime back, I had mentioned that an acknowledged authority on SD Burman, who has spent his lifetime studying him, and interviewing people associated with him, had sent me some of his articles. The time has come to disclose his name.  Anyone who has seriously studied SD Burman would be familiar with Moti Lalwani. Mr Chowdhury has referred to him eight-nine times in his book; Sathya Saran’s ‘Sun Mere Bandhu Re’ is largely based on his material. Mr Lalwani was always a fan of SD Burman’s music. That became a serious passion to counter some RD Burman-fanatic on a music forum, when he spoke sarcastically of SD Burman.

Mr Lalwani’s channel on the YouTube has over 150 short videos of interviews and other materials associated with SD Burman. He manages a Facebook group on the maestro which has 7600 members.

By profession he was a Mechanical Engineer with L&T, and after working with them for 29 years, he took voluntary retirement long back. Thereafter, he ran his own company for ten years. Even as an octogenarian, his zest for life has not waned, and now he continues serious study and research on SD Burman.

SD Burman is known to have his own methods for choosing which singer would best suit a particular song he was composing, and in this he would brook no interference. His choices were at times against conventional wisdom, but the final product turned out to be outstanding. I am happy that Mr Lalwani’s debut article on the SoY is on this theme, and it shows how the maestro had his way on Hemant Kumar for ‘Ye raat ye chaandni phir kahan’, overriding the doubting voices. I have decided to celebrate October as SD Burman-month as it begins with him and ends with him, all with Mr Lalwani’s articles. – AK)

SD Burman and Hemant KumarAfter a successful career in Calcutta, Hemant Kumar (1920-1989) shifted to Bombay (Mumbai) in 1951 to work for Filmistan Studios. He had sung very few Hindi songs till then, and his voice was unknown to the Hindi/Urdu music lovers. Composer SD Burman had already established himself, with successes in Do Bhai (1947), Shabnam (1949), Mashal (1950), followed by Baazi, Bahar, Naujawan and Saza, all released in 1951 and doing very well.

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Hemant Kumar’s duets with ‘other’ singers

A tribute to Hemant Kumar on his 99th birth anniversary (16 June 1920 – 26 September 1989)

Hemant Kuma-Asha Bhosle-Geeta Dutt

I had written on the best duets of Hemant Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar in my first year of blogging. Then I had said: “Hemant Kumar in his voice brought the beauty of Bengal and melody of Rabindra Sangeet. When he joined with Lata Mangeshkar the effect was magical. Easily the best duets of Hindi films are of Hemant-Lata”. I further described these duets as the ultimate in melody. Now Songs of Yore has entered the tenth year, and Hemant Kumar would have entered his centenary year today. All this while I have been struck by the beauty of his fascinating duets with ‘other’ singers like Geeta Dutt and Asha Bhosle, and was looking for some opportunity to write a post on them. While Lata Mangeshkar personified melody and sweetness with Hemant Kumar, the ‘other’ singers brought their own unique verve and joy, and combining with his deep melodious voice created a different kind of charming effect.

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Hemant Kumar’s songs by SD Burman

SD Burman and Hemant KumarHemant Kumar, a singer-composer par excellence, and SD Burman, a Titan among singer-composers. And the former was quite open to singing for other composers too. That brought the two great Bengalis together. Hemant Kumar was another name for melody and sweetness – he is among those who never sang anything which was less than extremely melodious. SD Burman’s motto seemed to be ‘give me the singer and I would give you a great song’. So, you know what happened when they combined. Even with a handful of songs (14 songs including 10 solos) they left an everlasting impact. I put Ye raat ye chaandni phir kahan at the very peak of Hemant Kumar solos (along with Naushad’s Chandan ka palnaa). Its duet version with Lata Mangeshkar has also figured in their best duets in my earlier post. Aa gup chup gup chup pyaar karein, Hai apnaa dil to aawara, Jaane wo kaise log the jinke – you can name one after another, each is a landmark song.

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