Fans celebrates Kishore Kumar's 86th birthday
Kumar, who breathed his last on Oct 13, 1987, was born as Abhas Kumar Ganguly to lawyer Kunjalal Ganguly and Gouri Devi at Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh, was the youngest of the four children. He and his brothers, Ashok Kumar (Dadamoni) and Anoop Kumar all made a mark in Bollywood.
The man, loved by his fans, often ran into trouble with the law. His various antics, some of which were highly publicized were met with negative criticism.
Kishore, a fan of playback singer K L Saigal, started out as a chorus singer at Bombay Talkies. He had no formal training in music and was rather reluctant. It is said that music director S D Burman heard Kishore imitating Saigal and advised him to develop his own unique style rather than follow someone. That led to the famous yodeling, a trademark of Kumar’s.
Though he started out as a singer, Kumar acted, wrote lyrics, composed music at times, produced some of the movies, wrote the screen play and the script at times. His illustrious singing career saw him sing in different regional languages which include his native Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Bhojpuri, Malayalam, Odia and Urdu.
Some of his works includes ‘Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi’, ‘Half Ticket’, ‘Musafir’, ‘Padosan’. ‘Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi’ had all the three Kumar brothers working in it. He later produced and directed a movie ‘Door Gagan Ki Chhaon Mein’ in which his first born Amit Kumar played his son.
He play-backed for some of the biggest names in Bollywood which include actors Dilip Kumar, Rajesh Khanna, Dev Anand, Amitabh Bachchan, Mithun Chakraborty, Dharmendra to name a few.
With eight wins under his belt, he holds the record for most Film fare Award wins in Best Male Playback Singer category. He was nominated another nineteen times. Other wins includes the BFJA Awards in the year 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1975.
Last year Google celebrated Kumar’s 85th Birthday with a special doodle. This year fans and followers have poured in their messages through micro blogging site Twitter and social networking site Facebook to remember Kumar on his birthday.
Radio stations are paying their tribute by playing out Kumar’ hits.
Kumar died of cardiac arrest on October 13, 1987 in Mumbai.
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