Cineplot Music

Hemant Kumar – Part 3

Hemant Kumar

But it was as a singer that Hemant Kumar obtained an unique berth in the hall of fame. Like Anup Jaiota says, Hemantda’s voice conveyed both the depth of the ocean and the heights of the skies. It is a voice that communicates a profound romance. It is the voice of experienced articulation rather than eager romance. In songs like Main garibon ka dil hoon watan ki zubaan and Hai apna dil to awaara, Hemantda’s seriously reflective vocals soar to the heavens in search of the most exquisite answers to the riddle of life. He was both the riddle and the solution, the singer and the song simultaneously typifying the given experience in a song as well the universal truths underlining the specific song.

Today as we look back on the profound career graph of this expressive singer composer we encounter a never-ending terrain of beauty and harmony helmed by a man who could sing like an angel because he came close to being one in real life.

Hemantda’s career as a singer began in his teens when he sang on radio. In 1937 he recorded his first Bengali songs Janine janite jadi and Balogo more. He began training as a Rabindra Songeet singer under the well‑known practitioner of the style Aanadi Dastidar. Early vocal influences of Pankaj Mullick soon gave way to his own distinctive style.

So pervasive was the `Ilemant Kumar style’ in Bengali films and such was his indomitable powers as a vocalist that all the vocalists in Bengal who followed him modelled their vocals on the singing style of Hemantda.

His compositions in Bengali films like Bhulai Naai and ’42 in the 40′s pioneered a neoclassical movement in Bengali popular music. Hemantda kept opening new frontiers in Bengali cinema with his singing in the 50s. As a composer he shifted base to the mecca of national popularity (Mumbai) where he made an instant impact with the everlasting patriotic strains of Vande mataram in Anand Math. As a singer in Mumbai, Hemantda became a voice to `record’ with in 1952 when he sang Yeh raat yeh chandni phir Kahan in the thriller Jaal for the debonair Dev Anand. Though Dev Anand preferred the voice of Kishore Kumar he still regards the acutely romantic Yeh raat (filmed by Guru Dutt among the fishing nets of a Goan beach) as a favorite.

The association with Guru Dutt continued. In 1957 Hemantda sang one of his career’s best solos Jaane woh kaise log for Guru Dutt in Pyaasa. Songs like these branded Hemantda as the melancholic romantic. However there was a lighter equally persuasive side to Hemantda’s vocals tapped in flirtatious evergreens like Zaraa nazro se keh do jee nishana chuk na jaya and Dil ki umangein the duet with Geeta Hutt, which joyfully exemplifies the vocal genius of Hemant Kumar.

The singer’s special status as a composer-singer hasn’t gone unnoticed by musicologists who have recorded Hemantda’s ability to impart minute details into his renditions. Hemantda’s colleagues like Sachin Dev Burman from Bengal and C.Ramchandra from Maharashtra liked to sing their compositions. But only Hemant Kumar could make an equally successful career as a singer and composer.

It’s hard to say which of the two capacities provided Hemantda with maximum satisfaction. If he excelled as a composer in the Kohraa charmer Yeh nayan dare dare did he fare any lower on the scale of excellence as a singer in the same song? On two songs – Oh zindagi ke denewale and Tere dwar khadaa ek jogi from Nagin. Hemantda could assume two disparate personas of the heartbroken lover and the singing mendicant.

The booming baritone that Uttam Kumar refused to part with no matter what the occasion, communicated the distinct flavour of middle-class romanticism. Hemantda’s vocals were seasoned in the ovigerous vinegar of life’s most precious experiences. The vocalist could express these experiences with an honest and tuneful transparency. He didn’t believe in vocal jugglery, nor did he attempt to sound greater than the sum-total of the composition.

The abiding appeal of Hemant Kumar’s songs is attributable to his expression of the common man’s desires with uncommon genuineness. While Kishore Kumar and Mohd Raft’s vocals represent velvety romance, Hemant Kumar’s chosen thread of expression is cotton– homespun,natural, comfortable subtle and very middle-class in its appeal.

Hemantda was a traditionalist as well as an innovator. If he brought the strains of the Rabindra Sangeet to Hindi music he also introduced electronic music into Hindi cinema through Man dole in Nagin. So popular was the music in Nagin and such was the singer-composer’s sway in the charts that Vyjanthimala was catapulted to instant stardom singing Man dole. To this day the orchestra plays Man dole each time thedancing actress enters a restaurant or a public function.

An unassuming beauty characterized Hemantda’s melody -motivated compositions. Heroines loved the chance to lip-sync Hemantda’s tunes. Did Vyjanthimala ever look more captivating than she did in Nagin’s Man dole? Waheeda Rehman and Sharmila Tagore were infinitely beautified through Hemantda’s O beqaraar dil and Kuch dil ne Kaha in Kohraa and Anupama, respectively.

If as a composer Hemantda elevated feminine beauty to poetic heights as a singer he qualified the subtly rugged side of screen heroism. His songs for Dev Anand ( Yeh raat yeh chandni, Dil hi umangein, Aaya toofan, Teri duniya mein jeene se ), Biswajeet (Beqaraar karke humein, Zaraa nazron se keh do jee, Raah bani khud manzil ) and Dharmendra (Ya dil ki suno, Tum pukar lo) lent a supple poetic romanticism to the image of the actors without interfering with their rugged he-man images.

Bollywood . Music Directors