Kishore Kumar

The soulful voice behind many of the hit Bollywood songs of yesteryears’ superstar Rajesh Khanna, playback singer Kishore Kumar was a unique and eccentric personality. A multifaceted personality, he was not just a playback singer, but also an actor, comedian, lyricist, composer, producer cum director. One of the most recognized and well loved male voices of Hindi cinema, Kishore Kumar was also a much emotionally unstable personality, a genius troubled by the weights of his own talents. Born as the youngest among the siblings into a wealthy Bengali family, Kishore’s venture into filmdom simply happened by chance. In fact, it is nothing but a quirk of fate that the man who would one day become the voice of India’s superstars did not even receive a basic training in music! He was just a young boy when his elder brother became an actor in Bollywood and the youngster followed his brother to Bombay where his brother helped him find work. How would a young boy without any training in acting or music face up to the challenges of the colorful world of Bollywood? He need not have worried. As fate would have it, Kishore soon became the darling of the masses and still reigns over their hearts years after his death.

Major Works:
Considered to be one of the most successful male playback singers of Indian cinema , Kishore Kumar was a class apart. He sang not only in the Hindi language, but also in several other languages including Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Oriya and Urdu.

Awards & Achievements:
He was the proud recipient of eight Filmfare Awards for Best Male Playback Singer, the first of which he had won for the song ‘Roop Tera Mastana’ from the movie ‘Aradhana’ in 1969. The song was picturised on Rajesh Khanna, associating the voice of the singer with the superstar actor.