Salil Chowdhury

Salil Chowdhury (19 November 1925 – 5 September 1995) was an Indian music director, songwriter, lyricist, writer and poet who predominantly composed for Bengali, Hindi and Malayalam films.

He composed music for films in 13 languages.

This includes over 75 Hindi films, 41 Bengali films, 27 Malayalam films, and a few Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati, Odia and Assamese films.

His musical ability was widely recognised and acknowledged in the Indian film industry.

He was an accomplished composer and arranger who was proficient in several musical instruments, including flute, the piano, and the esraj.

He was also widely acclaimed and admired for his inspirational and original poetry in Bengali.

Salil Chowdhury was born on 19 November 1925, in a village called Ghazipur in South 24 Parganas, West Bengal.

Salil's childhood was spent in the Tea Gardens Region of Assam.

His father was reputed to stage plays with coolies and other low-paid workers of the tea-gardens.

While his father, Dr Gyanendra Chowdhury, was the Medical Officer at Hathikuli Tea Estate near Kaziranga in Assam, between 1931 and 1951, the Chief Medical Officer was Dr Maloni, an Irish national.

During his early years, he used to listen to western orchestral music on Dr Maloni's gramophone.

To date, this information stands engraved in black granite in Hathikuli Tea Estate in his memory.

During the second world war Chowdhury got the opportunity to closely observe human sufferings, hunger and problem of the refugees.

He studied in Harinavi D.V.A.S High School and there after graduating from Bangabasi College, affiliated to the University of Calcutta in Kolkata, and during this period his political ideas were formulated along with a considerable maturity in his musical ideas.

As a teenager in school, Chowdhury already had an interest in music, and played the flute, harmonium and esraj.

He learnt to play the piano from his elder brother at the age of 6.

Once in college, he also began to compose tunes.

His first popular song was "Becharpoti tomar bichaar" (lit. the days of new judgement have come because people are now awake), set to a kirtan tune.

Chowdhury shifted to a village in 24 parganas to live with his maternal uncles, when he was witness to a big peasant uprising there in 1943.

He got involved with them and began writing songs for the peasant movement.

In 1944, while studying for his MA, Chowdhury witnessed people dying on the streets of Calcutta, as 50 lakh Bengalis died during the famine.

The famine was human-made as local rice was instead directed to Britain's war effort overseas, leading to scarcity, aggravated by black marketeers and hoarders.

This led Chowdhury to become fully involved in the peasant movement, and he became a full-time member of IPTA and the Communist Party.

Subsequently, arrest warrants were issued in his name, and he went underground in the Sunderbans, hiding in paddy fields and supported by local peasants.

During this time, he continued writing plays and songs.

In 1944, a young Salil came to Calcutta for his graduate studies.

He joined the IPTA (Indian Peoples Theater Association) the cultural wing of the Communist Party of India.

He started writing songs and setting tunes for them.

The IPTA theatrical outfit travelled through the villages and the cities bringing these songs to the common man.

Songs like Bicharpati, Runner and Abak prithibi became extremely popular with the general population at the time.

Songs like Gnaayer bodhu (গাঁয়ের বধূ), which he composed at the age of 20, brought about a new wave of Bengali music.

Almost every notable singer at the time from West Bengal had sung at least one of his songs.

A few examples are Debabrata Biswas, Manna Dey, Hemanta Mukherjee, Shyamal Mitra, Sandhya Mukherjee, Manabendra Mukherjee, Subir Sen, and Pratima Banerjee.

Chowdhury composed it in 1945 during the Indian National Army trials when the freedom fighters had returned from Andaman jail.

The first Bengali film for which Chowdhury composed music was Paribortan, released in 1949.

The first Bengali film in which Salil Chowdhury composed music was Paribortan, released in 1949.

Mahabharati, released in 1994, was the last of the 41 Bengali films where he rendered his music.

He is affectionately called Salilda by his admirers.

He mentored famous music directors like R. D. Burman and Hridaynath Mangeshkar.

Mahabharati, released in 1994, was the last of the 41 Bengali films where he rendered his music.