Introduction
Hemant Kumar Mukhopadhyay, widely known as Hemant Kumar (HK), was a multi-faceted Bengali and Hindi film personality who started off as a singer, became a composer and music director in both the languages and ended up producing films in the last phase of his illustrious career. HK had a rich baritone voice that excelled in both solos and duets. In terms of appearance, he was tall and well-built and looked more a bhadralok professor than someone connected with the film world. 16th June 2024 was his 104th birth anniversary. Vividh Bharati devoted its Bhule Bisre Geet and Geet Gaata Chal programs that morning to his Hindi film songs. In this blog, I pay tribute to HK by combining a few songs from these two programs.
As his life and career are well documented, I am skipping those details and going straight to HK’s songs. Following his success in Bengali films, HK moved to Bombay in 1951. Anand Math (1952) was the first Hindi film for which he scored music. After that, he was a popular playback singer. Nagin (1954) was his first major success as a composer and fetched him the Filmfare Best Music Director Award in 1955. Thereafter, he scored music and sang in many successful films and began making Hindi movies in the 1960s. The collection of songs in this blog are mostly from the 1950s and 1960s. Almost all his hits are available as audios or videos on YouTube and other platforms. So rather than use those sources that can be easily accessed by anyone, I have chosen to present only live recordings of HK’s songs in this blog.
O Nodire – HK – Neel Akasher Neechey(1959)
This is a haunting melody composed and sung by HK for Mrinal Sen’s Neel Akasher Neechey. The song was such a hit that HK used the same tune for Lata’s O Bekaraar Dil in Kohraa in 1964 and reused the original song in Conrad Brooks’ Siddhartha in 1972. The recording presented here is obviously much later but the voice of an older HK has not lost any of its magnetic quality.
Yeh Raat Ye Chandni – S D Burman – Jaal (1952)
This is one of the early hits of the HK-SDB combination. In the film, HK’s voice blends so well with the tune and instrumental score that this song went on to become a hit. The live recording gives us a good feel of the original.
Jagat Bhar Ki – Laxmikant-Pyarelal – Harishchandra Taramati (1963)
Na Tum Hamen Jano – S D Burman – Baat Ek Raat Ki (1962)
Bekarar Karke Hamen – HK – Bees Saal Baad (1962)
Girado Purdah – HK – Non-Film
These four songs are from the same live recording of Doordarshan Sahyadri. The first is an early film of Laxmikant-Pyarelal duo and one of their few featuring HK. His evocative rendering does justice to Kavi Pradeep’s lyrics and elevates the song into a benediction. HK renders the other two hits effortlessly and apparently without referring to any notes. The last song is a nazm of Gulzar that seems to be part of a non-filmi collection.
Ganga Aaye Kahan Se – Salil Chowdhury – Kabuliwala (1961)
Kabuliwala is a poignant film based on Tagore’s short story about an Pashtoon fruit seller who is compelled by circumstances to live in Calcutta away from his daughter and mother in Afghanistan. Prem Dhawan’s lyrics and HK’s voice combine to give us an idea of the inner turmoil in the mind of a foreigner living in forced exile in an alien country.
Zindagi Kitni Khoobsoorat Hai – HK – Bin Badal Barsaat (1963)
This is a lovely song composed and sung in Raag Yaman by HK himself. I present a rare live recording of the song sung by HK with a minimal harmonium, instrumental and percussion support. The sound quality is not very good but HK’s relaxed rendering more than makes up for it.
I conclude with a collection of a dozen songs and geets of that were live recorded in London between 1969 and 1977 at the residence of a music lover. It is a private collection available on the internet. Please do a Google search on Hemant Kumar Live at London and select this private recording from the drop-down options.
Summing Up
To assess HK on a sample twenty of his Hindi film solos – completely ignoring his work in Bengali and the many lovely duets he had sung with Geeta Dutt, Lata, Asha and others – is hardly fair. I was struggling for an appropriate word to sum up HK as a singer-composer. It then struck me that his work had a lot of what in Kannada would be called ‘Ganathe’ that has several shades of meaning – dignity, majesty, decorousness, grandeur, gravity, etc. Every one of these descriptions will apply to one or the other songs of HK. No wonder Salil Chowdhury felt that HK’s was the voice of God while Lata was reminded of a saint singing whenever she heard him. For Gulzar, his was the voice of Ganga Mata.
HK was a gifted singer and accomplished musical composer. Though he did not have the all-round dexterity and range of Rafi or Kishore, he did not let this become a limitation. He was a niche artist with his own following. As a singer, I would rate him on par with Talat. As a composer, particularly in how he brought out the melodious best of Lata, he was in the same league as Roshan and Madan Mohan.
With its rich archives and using tools of modern sound technology, I wish Prasar Bharati restores his live recordings and telecasts them again. They could also collaborate with connoisseurs of music to acquire private recordings and make them more widely accessible to music lovers all over the world.
S. Krishna Kumar
28th June 2024
Berkeley
Blog # 96
Talk the Walk 