Of many words

Musical genius

His sudden, premature death on October 13, 1987, shook the entertainment industry.

Incidently, all the three dominant male singers of Hindi cinema — Mukesh, Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar — passed away when they were in their 50s. An untrained singer, Kishore Kumar took playback and stage singing to great heights. He rendered his first solo song for Ziddi in 1948 and his last duet was with Asha Bhosle for Waqt ki Aawaz in 1988. In a career span of 40 years, he recorded 2,905 film and non-film songs, of which, 2,661 were in Hindi and 221 in Bengali.

He idolised K L Saigal and found inspiration in yodeling from Australian singer Jimmy Rogers and Swiss crooner Tex Norton, but in the process, he still carved an individual style for himself. He was nominated for the Filmfare Award 27 times, and won the coveted trophy eight times, mostly for lending his voice to Amitabh Bachchan and Rajesh Khanna. He never won an award as the voice of Dev Anand, though his first break as a playback singer was for Dev Anand. Reportedly, there are 500 websites dedicated to him, most importantly, Yoodleeyoo.com.

Eccentric being

A reluctant actor who went on to act in 102 films, Kishore Kumar, in the process, presented a new dimension to comedy, though his favourite actors were Marlon Brando and Danny Kaye. As an actor, he performed in 98 Hindi films and four Bengali movies. Following in the footsteps of the highly successful Ashok Kumar, 19 years his senior, he came to Bombay, though he neither wanted to emulate his brother nor seek his help in any manner, and began to do odd jobs in the city. His last appearance as an actor was in his home production, Door Wadiyon Mein Kahin in 1982. 

Labelled a miserly person, Kishore Kumar wrote and produced 14 films (of which six were never completed), is credited with the screenplays of five (two incomplete, and Mamta ki Chhaon Mein was censored two years after his death but unreleased till date) and directed 12 films, of which four were abandoned at various stages of completion.

Although all his ventures were box-office disasters, a few were appreciated for their content, treatment and musical scores. The immortal Chalti ka Naam Gadi was made under the banner of Ganguly Bros and Satyen Bose was credited with direction but the film bore the inimitable stamp of Kishore Kumar.

Interestingly, Kishore Kumar composed the music of all his home productions, except Zameen Aasman. However, he did not understand the intricacies of playing various instruments and their coordination, for which he depended on other musicians. He also
wrote 24 songs for his own productions, with the exception of a solo co-authored by Anand Datta for a Shankar-Jaikishen flick, Love in Bombay, in 1975.

He was dubbed as troublesome, eccentric and notorious for absences and disappearances from shootings and recordings, ostensibly for non-payment of dues. To quote Dev Anand, “It would happen when he was not ready to sing a song and when a difficult song made him nervous.”

Money-mindedness notwithstanding, he reportedly not only quietly performed in numerous concerts, recorded and did stage shows to raise funds for meaningful causes, but also did a lot of charity work. He is known to have recorded for free even when producers could and were willing to pay him. Rajesh Khanna and Danny Denzongpa are two notable examples. It is also said that behind the mask of a mimic and a comedian, Kishore Kumar hid a very serious persona, some of which was reflected through the kind of films he made and the characters he portrayed in them.

He was a romantic whose personal life, to a large extent, remained tragic. He had begun to find some happiness in his fourth marriage with actress Leena Chandavarkar when destiny cut short the bliss, and that too soon after the birth of their second son. His other marriages had been to actresses Ruma Devi (mother to Amit Kumar), Madhubala and Yogeeta Bali.

To this day, Kishore Kumar continues to be an enigma. He died young due to a cardiac arrest. He was born on August 4, 1929 in Khandwa where his funeral also took place.

There have been some books on him, notably Vishwas Nerurkar’s Kishore Kumar: The Many Faces of a Genius and Derek Bose’s Method in Madness, which relies heavily on the former. They contain some rare photographs, comments and observations about Kishore Kumar by Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna, Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Asha Bhosle, R D Burman, Gulzar, Sandeep Ray, Khayyam, Ashok Kumar, son Amit Kumar, his first wife Ruma Guhathakurta, and his last, Leena Ganguly.
Kishore Kumar had an eventful life. Although he is no more, his legacy lives on.