It was an odd sunny day in 1972, music director Rahul Dev Burman seemed busy in his music sitting room. He was giving a final touch to his composition for a Bengali film which will introduce a young singer to the industry. Incidentally the lyrics of that song was Kato din aar boshe thakbo (How long shall I sit idle).So during rehearsal, BasudevChakrabarty – an associate of Pancham da, popularly known as Basu da in the musical fraternity, jokingly said to that singer Beta jab tak tera baap gayega, tujhe baithna hi padega (Son as long your dad sing, you have to sit idly). Actually Basu da was talking to Amit Kumar whose father Kishore Kumar by then was reigning over the industry as a singer after a grand success of Aradhana.As everybody knows that five decades back, in 1964, Kishore Kumar launched his son Amit as a child actor inDoor Gagan Ki Chhaon Mein where he played a boy who lost his voice.The popular song “Aachalketujhe, main lekechaloon” was filmed on Kishore Kumar singing to his eleven-year –old son Amit Ganguly, name as appeared on the screen. Following year Amit da recorded his first song, Main EkPanchhiMatwala Re, for another home production, Door KaRaahi. The song though pictured on him at the garden of their GouriKunj bungalow but that too was finally removedbecause of change in the screenplay. However the same song was re- recorded for MamtaKi Chhaon Mein in which he acted in the lead role with Ashok Kumar, Rajesh Khanna, LeenaChandavarkar and Deboshree Roy alongside.
During stays in Kolkata, Amit Da used to sing his father’s songs in the live shows called Jalsa. So in the early 70s, on his father’s advice, he shifted to Mumbai. By then he was just18.To introduce him to the industry in a grand way his father arranged a gala musical show titled Papa Kishore and Sunny Amit together at Mumbai where top-notch music directors like S D Burman, Kalyanji-Anandji, Laxmikant – Pyarelal etc were specially invited to witness. As soon the show gets over, Sachin Da came directly to the stage and awarded Amit by gifting his own garland. After that successful show Amit da got a break from the Music Director Sapan Jagmohan to make a debut as a playback singer in his forthcoming film Durwaza. Unfortunately that film never released so was the song. Again his solo song with Salil Chowdhury in ZindagiEkZua and a duet with Asha Bhosle in Madan Mohan’s Chalbaaztoo gotshelved as both the films never finished. Thus it took nearly five years for him to attain the national fame from Bade AchcheLagteHainin the ’76 filmBalikaBadhu. In spite of all odds Amit Da shared a special rapport with music composer SapanJagmohan forever. He sang most of the title track of the tele serials like Chunnauti, Campus &Neemv composed by them in the late 80s.
Meanwhile the music composer Laxmikant suggested Amit Da’s name to Raj Kapoor, who was then searching for a new male voice for his next directorial venture Bobbythat introduced Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia. Interestingly this was the first film of Laxmikant – Pyarelal with RK Films after the unceremonious exit of their very popular in house music composer Shankar after the death of his partner Jaikishanthat had a decade’s long association. So during the recording of Bade AchcheLagteHain Raj Kapoor was amongst the prominent who were present in the studio. Raj Saab liked Amit’s voice and after recording he offered him to sing for Bobby but Amit Da didn’t showed any interest. He returned back to Kolkata and thus missed the golden chance of singing for RK’s films forever. Later Laxmikant-Pyarelal signed Shailendra Singh for the most coveted male voice ofBobbyin spiteof their first choice Amit Kumar.
After registering the first hit of his career in BalikaBadhu, Amit Da became more active in singing for both Hindi and regional films like Bengali, Odia, Bhojpuri, Asamese, Marathi, Gujarati and Konkani. During these period he regularly sang for almost all music directors and actors. In the 1980s he was the second most preferred male playback singer in Hindi films with his father Kishore Kumar being the first choice to sing for the heroes. Among all music-directors, Amit Kumar as a playback singer was used more by Pancham from 1975-1994. He became the voice of Kumar Gaurav and their combination gave many hit songs. For the popular song ‘YaadAaRahiHai’ of Love Story, he won the first Filmfare Award of his career for the song which was hilariously commented as ‘MandirKaBhajan Lag RahaHai’ by none other than but by its own composer R.D.Burman. Recently on his 70th birthday, Amit Kumar released the same song in a new arrangement under the banner of his own online music company KBM (Kumar Bros Music) launched with his younger brother Sumit.
Music Statistics says that Amit Da recorded 170 Hindi songs under PanchamDa’s baton.
After the sudden death of his father Kishore Kumar in 1987 he rode through a sympathy wave and ruled over bollywood for nearly five years till 1992. During this phase he was considered to be the highest paid male singer and sang mostly `la ralappa’ songs for every top actors from successive generations ranging fromDilip Kumar, Rajesh Khanna, AmitabhBachchan to Bobby Deol and RiteshDeshmukh (including Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan). Amit Da admitted that though most of the songs of that period were commercially hit but that could not brought him out of the lean face of his career. Because by then the whole scenario of the industry got changed so rather than competing in the rat race and he decided to leave the arena to the Kishore Kumar clones who survived longer than him. From 1995 onwards he mainly concentrated on live shows and public appearances
In 2000 Amit Kumar made a comeback on the public demand. This time he is overwhelmingly welcomed by the music composers of new generations like Vishal &Shekhar, PritamChakrabarty, Sajid-Wajid, Anand Raj Anand, ShameerTandon, Nitin Shankar to oldies like JatinPandit, LalitPandit, Uttam Singh, AnandMilind. His last release; a remake of Naino Mein Sapna for Himmatwala was a massive hit. It is really an irony that even afterattaining the national fame from Bade AchcheLagteHainto innumerable successive hits,Amit Kumar had to live in the shadow of his illustrious father throughout his 60-year of musical career for which he has no regrets at all.Although during this period he emerged as a talented artist who could hold his own and evolve a distinct style of rendering songs. Amit Kumar, during his self-exiled period, brought three albums for his admirers unfortunately none of them worked.
Abhijit Roy
An Indian Entertainment
Columnist
