Sravanti Mazumdar

Sravanti Mazumdar is an Indian playback singer, songwriter, radio broadcaster and television host commonly known for singing the song "Aay Khuku Aay" along with Hemanta Mukherjee. Starting singing from the age of five, she currently composes songs and sings residing in Isle of Man, United Kingdom. She is also known as "Radio Queen". Mazumdar sings and likes songs in pure Bengali. She took radio presentation as her passion and a career. She left West Bengal in 2015 and came back in 2019, from after that going to the Isle of Man.

Early life and education Sravanti Mazumdar was born and raised in Darjeeling, West Bengal. She developed an interest in music through listening to contemporary singers of the time on the radio and going to Indian classical music concerts. From five years old, she started learning classical music from Sri Sudhir Bandopadhyay, a disciple of Pandit Jnan Prakash Ghosh. Mazumdar was discouraged from joining musical concerts or singing outside until her master thought so. She listened secretly to songs by Hemanta Mukherjee, Sandhya Mukherjee, Manna Dey, Mohammad Rafi, Mukesh and other musical artists of the time. She also began listening to music of the Western world like jazz, country, blues and R&B and would sing them to her classmates. She studied in Kamala Girls' High School, in South Kolkata. Mazumdar was helped by her Anglo-Indian friends for some English song words that were difficult to understand.

Musical career The company Living Sound by Colonel Rabindranath Bose brought four songs composed by and written by Pulak Bandyopadhyay for Mazumdar to sing. Bose approached HMV (Saregama) for publishing the songs. The manager at that time, A. C. Sen liked all the songs and asked Mazumdar to sing them as HMV's puja release for that year. Mazumdar agreed to sing for HMV's puja the next year, as she had work with Bose. Sen asked Balsara and Bandyopadhyay to compose two songs for Ranu Mukherjee, the daughter of Hemanta Mukherjee. Their song "Bushy Ball" was released in 1969 puja. Mazumdar was asked and sung in the next year's puja HMV release, in October 1970.

Kazi Sabyasachi, the third son of nationalist Kazi Nazrul Islam, hosted both a television and radio show named Binaca Rupkatha. Mazumdar partnered with him and they worked together for many years. Mazumdar sang the Alibaba jingle and Sabyasachi played the role of the character Alibaba. They came to be known as the Uttam-Suchitra of radio. The audience wanted Mazumdar to play the role of Marzina, a female character in the show, which she did after some time. Many of the listeners sent letters to them. The letters, which were not considered hateful by Mazumder, were sent after being processed by the Park Street post office. Aay Khuku Aay was first asked by theatres to be sung by Mazumdar two years later.

Rabindra Sangeet Mazumdar's home was influenced by Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam. She studied in Kamala Girls High School, where Rabindra Sangeet classes were compulsory. Bharatidi was the teacher of the class. After graduating, she learned Rabindra Sangeet from Maya Sen, who was the elder sister of Bharatidi. Mazumdar remembers all the songs from Bharatidi's class. Mazumdar was forbidden to partake in any Rabindra Jayanti. No one told her to sing.

Mazumdar started the composition of the album Tagore in Celtic in 2017, consisting of Rabindra Sangeet. For making the album, she learnt the influence of Celtic music on Rabindranath Tagore, which gave rise to some songs. After composing the album songs, she sent them for approval to the Isle of Man Arts Council, owned by the government. Many of committee members liked the song. She originally wrote the songs in Bengali with some Celtic language added. English narration was added to make the song able to be understood by non-Bengalis. For translation Mazumdar found the lyricist Bobs Carswell, who had knowledge of Tagore's works and had read English translation of his poems. She repeated the tune and melodies, and sung the song with Carswell. Carswell translated the album's first songs "Jodi Tor Daak Shune Keu Na Aase" and "Fulefule Dholaydholay." She presented the two songs to David Kilgallon, a Mens Traditional singer. Kilgallon having sung a lot of songs, agreed to publish them. Mazumdar's Rabindranath songs in Celtic are the first of its kind in history, which Mazumdar expressed. These songs were unable to be played on Kolkata's radio since new Bengali songs were no longer in circulation to be played, but they were played in foreign countries' radio.