AUGUST 4 marks the 94th birthday of a versatile artiste of the subcontinent, Kishore Kumar, a playback singer, actor, comedian, film director, producer, music composer, lyricist, screenplay writer and what not. Born in a small village in Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Kumar was the youngest of his siblings. His eldest brothers Ashok and Anup Kumar were also a veteran actors and singers.

At the age of 19, Kishore visited Ashok in Bombay as he wanted to pursue a career as a playback singer, but Ashok wanted him to try his hand at acting. Around 1948, Kishore had also performed as a chorus singer in a few songs, luckily, one fine day Khem Chand Parkash, a celebrated music director of the era, happened to hear him sing where he came to visit Ashok to discuss their forthcoming film Ziddi.

Parkash asked Ashok to introduce him to his brother. Within minutes, it was decided that Kishore would sing a song for the film, thus kicking off his Bollywood career.

By 1949, Kishore had also started acting in films. For the next 21 years, he sang songs for his own films and any film Dev Anand was in. He worked with musical power houses such as Sachin Dev Burman, Salil Chaudhry and O.P. Nayyer who moulded his style and gave him his own form.

In 1969, Kishore’s second wife, Madhubala, passed away and he became depressed. S. D. Burman encouraged him to go on and this is how he ended up singing for the Rajesh Khanna starrer Aradhana. Kishore’s duets with Lata Mangeshkar including ‘Kora kaghaz tha yeh mera man’ and ‘Roop tera mastana’ became instant hits.

Kishore’s versatile career spreads over around 41 years, during which he acted in 113 films, sang a total of 2,905 songs in 11 languages, including 2,648 in Hindi-Urdu, 154 in Bengali and eight in Gujrati.

Yasir Qazi

Karachi

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2019