Sudhin Dasgupta

Sudhin Dasgupta with Manjusree Dasgupta

Born on 9 October 1929, Sudhindranath dasgupta, popularly known as Sudhin Dasgupta, was brought up at Darjeeling.[1] The ancestral house of his family was in 'Kalia' village, Jessore District, Bangladesh. His father, Mahendranath Dasgupta was a teacher at Darjeeling Govt. School. His mother was a social activist in those days.

Sudhindranath, alias Sudhin Dasgupta, was proficient in music from his early years. He could play various types of musical instruments with equal expertise, such as Sitar, Sarod, Harmonium, Piano, Mandolin, Piklu, Guitar, Violin, Esraj etc., along with percussion such as Tabla and Drums.[2] He graduated in music from Royal School of Music London.

Sudhin was also adept in playing various games. When he was in Calcutta (Kolkata) he was a member of the Hockey team in Bhabanipur Club.

It was 1949-50 when Sudhin and his family had to shift permanently to Calcutta (Kolkata), initially at Srinath Mukherjee Lane and then to the house at Sinthi. This was the time when he gradually delved into the world of Bengali modern music. Apart from working as music assistant to the legendary music director Kamal Dasgupta, he maintained his responsibility of creating songs for the Calcutta North Squad of IPTA (Indian Peoples Theatres' Association). And a day came when Sudhin met Khitish Basu of His Master's Voice (HMV) who gave him the opportunity to compose Bengali modern music. The first two modern songs composed by him was Kato Asha Kato Bhalobasha and Keno Akash Hote recorded by Bechu Dutta in 1953. Eventually the versatile musical journey of Sudhin Dasgupta began which was consistent till the last day of his life.

Sudhin Dasgupta was married to Smt. Majushree Dasgupta (Sengupta). Their son Soumya is an architect by profession, and daughter Saberi is a fashion designer.

Sudhin Dasgupta as the Station Master at All India Radio

The years of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s are considered as the golden era for Bengali modern song as well as Bengali basic song. During this period, Bengali music was enriched by contributions of numerous music directors and lyricists such as Gouri Prasanna Majumdar, Shaymal Gupta, Mintu Ghosh, Pronob Roy, Robin Chattopadhya, Pabitra Chattopadhya, Anol Chattopadhya, Anupam Ghatak, Anil Bagchi, Jnan Prakash Ghosh, Salil Chowdhury, Nachiketa Ghosh, Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay, Shyamal Mitra, Bhupen Hazarika and Sudhin Dasgupta. He was also known to be an excellent player of different Indian and Western musical instruments like Tabla, Sitar, Piano, Harmonium, Esraj, Violin and others.

Early years

Some time during early fifties, Sudhin Dasgupta was invited by Geeta Dutt and Guru Dutt to join their production house in Bombay (Mumbai). For some time Subir Sen and Sudhin Dasgupta stayed together in Tardeo Sonawala building in Mumbai when Sudhin composed a song "এত সুর আর এত গান" (Eto sur aar eto gaan), which was recorded by Subir Sen much later.[3] By this time the second record of Subir Sen appeared in 1956 containing two compositions of Sudhin Dasgupta, 'ঐ উজ্জ্বল দিন ডাকে স্বপ্ন রঙ্গীন' and 'স্বর্ণঝরা সূর্যরঙে'. These immortal creations made the Composer cum lyricist Sudhin Dasgupta famous and made a permanent place for him in the world of Bengali music.[4]

Since his early years Sudhin Dasgupta was associated with the activities of IPTA (Indian People's Theatre Association), where his was befriended with many stalwarts of that time, such as Salil Chowdhury, Sourindra Mohan Sengupta, Ritwik Ghatak, Utpal Dutt, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Salil Chowdhury, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Jyotirindra Moitra, Debabrata Biswas and others. During this time Sudhin Dasgupta composed music for Thikana, a famous poem written by Sukanta Bhattacharya, which was sang at IPTA meetings by Sourindra Mohan during the Teachers' Movement in 1954. However, later another version of the song with music composed by Salil Choudhury was recorded and became very popular.[5]

Sudhin had a professional voice too, and the lone record of his songs written by his close friend Subir Hazra was published in 1961 with two tracks: ‘কোকিল কাঁদে কেন ফাগুনে’ based on folk tune, and ‘লাল লাল চোখে দেখি একে ওকে’ with the tune of jazz.[1]

Composer of Basic Songs

The first Bengali song recorded in Sudhin's composition were in Bechu Dutta's voice: 'কত আশা কত ভালোবাসা'[6] and 'কেন আকাশ হতে'[7] in 1953. In basic Bengali song, Sudhin Dasgupta gifted the audience a number of super-hit tracks, including “Ei Jhir Jhir Batase”, “Bhanga Torir Sudhu E Gaan”, “Ami Taar Thikana Rakhini”, “Ekta Gaan Likho Amar Jonno”, “Oi Ujjwalo Din”, “Saat Ronga Ek Pakhi”, “Akash Eto Meghla”, “Naam Rekhechi Bonolata” and many others. Again, he contributed both as composer and lyricist in many of the items. He worked extensively with all the legendary singers like Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay, Manna Dey, Dwijen Mukhopadhyay, Shyamal Mitra, Manabendra Mukhopadhyay, Satinath Mukhopadhyay, Sandhya Mukhopadhyay, Pratima Bandopadhyay, Arati Mukhopadhyay, Talat Mahmood, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhonsle, Mohammed Rafi etc. In the year 1967 itself both Sudhin and Salil presented Puja Albums containing ten songs each, such was the popularity of the duo.[8]

Composer/Music Director in Movies

In 1957, Sudhin Dasgupta entered the Bengali Film industry as the music composer for film called “Ulka”. His second film was “Dak Harkara” (1958), where famous Bengali novelist, Tarashankar Bandopadhyay contributed the lyrics. Sudhin never looked back and Bengali film industry got a series of mega hits from him like “Antaral”, “Shankhabela”, “Tin Bhuboner Pare”, “Prothom Kodom Phul”, “Chaddabeshi”, “Picnic”, “Har Mana Har”, “Basanta Bilap”, “Hangsaraj”, “Amrito Kumbher Sondhane” and many more. In many of the films he acted both as the lyricist and the composer. He worked for around fifty Bengali films. While composing music for the film "Goli Theke Rajpoth" Sudhin inducted Manne Dey for the first time to make play back song in the lip of Uttam Kumar, in the song "লাগ লাগ লাগ ভেল্কির খেলা". The great trio, Sudhin Dasgupta, Uttam Kumar and Manna Dey produced several magical songs in films “Shankhabela”, “Kokhono Megh”, “Manjari Opera”, “Chhadmabeshi”, "Har Mana Har", "Raater Rajanigandha" etc. afterwards.

Experimentation

Sudhin Dasgupta experimented with different forms of music all through his musical career. He used Baul, South Indian Tunes, Folk, and Western Chorus in his various creations. Sometimes he adopted tune of various origin into his creations. In Shyamal Mitra's voice "Kato dur kato dur" he used the tune of "Jingle bells". One such song was "I come from Alabama" which inspired the Bengali song Oi meghe meghe, sang by Gayatri Basu in 1954. In the same year Sudhin composed Mor gaan shishirer khora sure go, sang by Sandhya Mukherjee, which could be inspired by Tchaikovsky's composition Danse Choinoise (1882), having a faint resemblance in the first line only.[9] He created the song "হারিয়ে ফেলেছি মন জানি না তো কোথায় কখন" based on "Casanova".[2]

Advertisement jingles

Sudhin Dasgupta also worked for commercial advertisement jingles. One such composition by Sudhin has become a legend: “Mathar Ghonochul Jokhon, Morubhumi Hoye Jai…”.

Music for Children

Bengali song has got a rich episode for the world of the kids and Sudhin Dasgupta contributed in that field too. He contributed to the music albums for the children, titled “Hingsute Doitto” and “Chotoder Ramayan”.

He also composed music for many of the well-known Bengali poems from authors like Sunirmal Basu, Jogindranath Sarkar, Jatindranath Sengupta (‘থই থই শাওন এল ওই’ by Sandhya Mukherjee), Batakrishna Dey (‘কৃষ্ণচূড়া আগুন তুমি’ by Geeta Dutt) and Jatindra Mohan Bagchi (‘বাঁশবাগানের মাথার ওপর’ by Pratima Bandopadhyay) etc.[1]

Sudhin as a poet

Sudhin Dasgupta wrote lyrics for many songs. Immense popularity of these songs itself speak of the poetical values of these lyrics with their literary value. One of the first of his creations was the song he wrote for Subir Sen in 1954, Eto Sur Ar Eto Gaan, which had become a milestone in Bengali music world:

Sudhin as a social worker and reformer

Sudhin Dasgupta actively responded through his pen to the distress of people in the time of partition in 1947 and afterwards. He created a few motivational songs during that time for the IPTA. During the Bangladesh war in 1971 too he created unforgettable songs paying homage to the birth of the New Nation and its founder Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman: Bangabandhu phire ele.

List of all Films for which Music or Lyrics were composed by Sudhin Dasgupta

List of all songs for which Music or Lyrics were composed by Sudhin Dasgupta

• Manna Dey recalled his first meeting with Sudhin Dasgupta during 1959, which was published in the book, Sudhin Dasgupta - A Collection of Music Essays. During those days Manne Dey was heavily engaged in Bombay (Mumbai) Film Industry. He came down from Bombay (Mumbai) and met Sudhin for his first record in Sudhin Dasgupta's composition that contained two songs (Ek-i onge eto rup and Meghla meye megher-i) released by HMV as Puja Album in 1959.[2] Sudhin made another daring experiment for which Bengal will be ever thankful to him. He inducted playback voice of Manna Dey in the lip of the legendary hero Uttam Kumar in the movie "Goli theke raajpoth" in 1959, which was never thought of before. After this successful pairing became a super hit, Manne Dey sang many famous songs in the lip of Uttam Kumar in later years. However, it was again in 1966 Manna Dey got a proposal from Sudhin Dasgupta to sing for Uttam Kumar in the Bengali film Sankyabela. “I am eternally indebted to Sudhinda for the song 'Ke Prothom Kachhe Esechhi' which started my career in Bengali films,” said Manna Dey in an interview[12]..
• Dwijem Mukhopadhyay recalled that he was introduced to Sudhin Dasgupta in 1954 by Kshitish Basu of HMV. Sudhin composed two songs for him. The record has two tracks: 'ভাঙা তরীর শুধু এ গান' and 'এই ছায়া ঘেরা কালো রাতে'. Later, when Salil Chowdhury was composing songs for Madhumati in Bombay, he requested Sudhin to lend him the tune of "Ei chaya Ghera Kalo Raate" for his new song of Madhumati. Sudhin gladly agreed, and a memorable song was created: "Suhana Safar Yieh Mousam Hain Haseen". Such was the friendship between Salil and Sudhin, as remembered by Dwijen Mukhopadhyay in his memoirs.[2]
• Arun Kumar Basu, who used pseudo name Bhaskar Basu while writing and publishing lyrics of Bengali modern songs, placed Sudhin Dasgupta as one of the noted lyricists of Bengali modern songs, in his memoirs on Sudhin. The poems written by Sudhin Dasgupta could be described as the epitome of imagery poems, rich in its form, content, mood and rhythm.[2]
• Jatileswar Mukherjee recalled his frequent visits to the house of Sudhin Dasgupta at D Gupta Lane, SiNthi, on most of the Sundays during the 1960s. Regular visitors of these Majlis were Jatileswar Mukherjee, Sukumar Mitra, Ashok Roy, Debdulal Bandyopadhyay, Ashishtaru Mukherjee, Sunil Baran, Prashanta Choudhury and Parimal Dasgupta (alias Polu, Sudhin's younger brother), among others.[2]
• Salil Mitra, younger brother of Shyamal Mitra, vividly described various incidents showing the deep friendship between contemporary artists of that time, such as Sudhin, Shyamal, Manabendra, Subir Hazra etc., in his reminiscence. One such incident occurred on the day of the marriage of Sudhin Dasgupta with Manjushree. Lyricist Subir Hazra went to the marriage venue at Paikpara in Shyamal Mitra's car. On the way coming back after attending the party, Subir asked Shyamal to stop the car near Wellington square. After a while when Subir did not return, Shyamal got off his car and went in search of Subir, only to find him writing a song sitting on a bench in the park. The subject of the song was the newly-wed bride, Manjushree and her glamorous dress for wedding. Next day both friends went to Sudhin's house, and after the music was composed by Sudhin, a great song was recorded by Shyamal Mitra: লাল চেলি পরনে কার (Laal cheli parone kaar).[13]

Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards for best Best Music Director for the film Picnic (1972)

Rabindra Bharati University of West Bengal, India, paid homage to this great musician by creating an archive, where life and works of three legenderay personalities of Bengal would be portrayed, Soumitra Chatterjee, Salil Chowdhury and Sudhin Dasgupta.[14]

• Sudhin Dasgupta at IMDb