Once, Pt Ravi Shankar had come to perform at a concert at the Basusree cinema. Some 10,000 people waited outside just to get a glimpse of the sitar maestro and Shankar’s exit has remained in their memory — sitting in a lotus pose, being carried overhead from person to person in a circle. Decades later, not too many can say if any artiste will ever experience such adulation in Kolkata now. But this city’s passion for good music remains a constant.
“The joy of performing in Kolkata compares to no other city in the world,” said singer Iman Chakraborty.
From Hindustani classical and resistance songs of the Indian People Theatre’s Association to jazz and film numbers — Kolkata has cultivated an ear for various genres. Growing up in Kolkata in the 70s, music director Prabuddha Banerjee noticed a prevalence of Rabindra Sangeet and Nazrulgeeti, as well as ‘adhunik’, film songs and ‘pujorgaan’. People would eagerly wait for songs by Sudhin Dasgupta, S D Burman, Salil Chowdhury, R D Burman, Nachiketa Ghosh, Hemanta Mukherjee, Sandhya Mukherjee, Arati Mukherjee, Asha Bhonsle, Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey and Md Rafi. Western music was popular too. “But it was a bit esoteric. There was also live Hindi music that saw the likes of singer P Lal performing Mohammed Rafi numbers,” Banerjee said.
That was also when Louis Banks, Bobby Banks, Pam Crain, Usha Uthup and Carlton Kitto regularly performed at Trincas. “The culture of Western music was mostly nurtured by the Anglo-Indians. Western classical was more of a personal choice. Popular songs of Abba, Boney M or The Beatles were generally restricted to those studying in English-medium schools,” Banerjee added.
(L-R) Gautam Chattopadhyay; Bhupen Hazarika
In 1971, singer-songwriter Dilip Balakrishnan composed one of India’s earliest rock albums titled ‘White Knight’s Tale’. He formed the rock outfit High alongside bassist Lew Hilt, drummer Nondon Bagchi and guitarist Adi Irani in 1974. In 1975, Mohiner Ghoraguli took the world by storm. In 1980, Nogor Philomel was formed to render independent non-film Bengali contemporary songs. Moushumi Bhowmick’s ‘Ami shunechhi sedin’, Kabir Suman’s ‘Tomake chai’, Nachiketa’s ‘Nilan- jana’ and Anjan Dutt’s ‘Bela Bose’ were followed by Rupam’s ‘Neel rong chhilo bhishon priyo’, Cactus ’ ‘Ami shudhu cheyechhi tomae’, Chandrabindoo’s ‘Mon’, Krosswinds’ ‘Poth geche benke’, Pota’s ‘Holud Pakhi’ and Bhoomi’s ‘Barandae Roddur’. All through this, folk remained a favourite. “During various points in time, singers and composers gravitated towards folk and connected it with listeners. Tagore did it with Lalan Fakir’s songs, introducing them to Bengali listeners,” said composer, songwriter, music producer and singer Upali Chattopadhyay.
Songs by Abbasuddin, Nirmalendu Chowdhury, Pratima Baruah, Dinendra Chowdhury, Purna Das Baul and Bhupen Hazarika had a massive draw. “Satyajit Ray used folk forms in ‘Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne’ and ‘Hirak Rajar Deshe’; Goutam Ghose did so in the Lalan Fakir biopic ‘Moner Man ush’,” Chattopadhyay added. Bands like Dohar and Bhoomi also popularized the form while TV took it to drawing rooms. In ‘Potol Kumar Gaanwala’, Bengal’s first musical on TV, Chat- topadhyay highlighted folk. Kaliprasad Bhattacharya’s folk segment in the music reality show ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ gave it a big boost too.
Contemporary Bengali cinema wasn’t far behind. In 2019, there was a surge in interest in folk with ‘Rangabati’ for Nandita Roy and Shiboprosad Mukherjee’s ‘Gotro’. In 2022, Upali, with Iman Chakraborty and Ananya (Khnada) Bhattacharjee, sang ‘Tapa tini’, written and composed by Anindya Chatterjee, for ‘Belashuru’. “Many mistook this original composition as a folk song,” Chattopadhyay said.
(Clockwise from top left) Arijit Singh, Iman Chakraborty, Lagnajita Chakraborty and Anupam Roy
The popularity of Bengali film songs was at its pinnacle with numbers like ‘Toofan mail’, ‘Ei poth jodi na shesh hoy’, ‘Ei raat tomar amar’, ‘Hoyto tomari jonnyo’, ‘Jibone ki pabona’ and ‘Nijhum sondhaye’. Some say Bengali film music’s popularity was revived with movies by Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury and Srijit Mukherji, among others. “Shantanu Moitra’s compositions in ‘Antaheen’ were hits. I got calls from non-Bengali listeners who loved ‘Jao pakhi’ and ‘Pherari mon’,” said Roy Chowdhury.
Anupam Roy’s ‘Amake amar moto thakte dao’ from ‘Autograph’ was a game-changer in 2010. So was Arijit Singh’s ‘Asatoma Sadgamaya’ from ‘Khaad’ in 2014. Music directors like Debojyoti Misra, Prabuddha Banerjee, Jeet Gannguly, Indraadip Dasgupta, Anupam Roy, Bickram Ghosh and Anindya Chattopadhyay have come up with many such memorable compositions. Bollywood has revived roping in Bengal’s musical talents, a reminder of a phase in playback that was once dominated by the likes of Hemanta Kumar, S D Burman, Salil Chowdhury, Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey, Shyamal Mitra, R D Burman, Geeta Dutt, Arati Mukherjee, Usha Uthup, Sandhya Mukherjee, Ranu Mukherjee, Bappi Lahiri and Amit Kumar. Later, there were Kumar Sanu, Abhijit, Babul Supriyo, Shaan, Pritam, Shantanu Moitra, Jeet Gannguly, Shreya Ghoshal, Arijit Singh, Monali Thakur and Antara Mitra.
(From top) SD Burman, RD Burman with Lata Mangeshkar; Manna Dey, Hemanta Mukherjee; Sandhya Mukherjee with Salil Chowdhury; Kishore Kumar; (above right) Pt Ravi Shankar
What is heartening is the growing demand in Bollywood and OTT platforms for contemporary music directors with roots in Kolkata. Anupam Roy scored for Shoojit Sircar’s ‘Piku’ while Alokananda Dasgupta’s background scores for the web series ‘Jubilee’ and ‘Sacred Games’ are also hits. For Kolkata’s music lovers, this scorecard is music to the ears.
