Sudhin Dasgupta

Sudhin Dasgupta (9 October 1929 – 10 January 1982) was an Indian music director, lyricist and singer. He primarily worked in Bengali music, but also contributed to various other Indian languages, such as Hindi, Assamese and Oriya.

Personal life Sudhin Dasgupta with Manjushree DasguptaBorn into a Baidya family on 9 October 1929, Sudhindranath dasgupta, popularly known as Sudhin Dasgupta, was brought up at Darjeeling. 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, Piccolo, Guitar, Violin, Esraj etc., along with percussion such as Tabla and Drums. 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.

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, 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 sung 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.

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. and 'কেন আকাশ হতে' 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.

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. He created the song "হারিয়ে ফেলেছি মন জানি না তো কোথায় কখন" based on "Casanova".

Memoirs 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 the Gramophone Company of India as Puja Album in 1959. 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 .. Dwijem Mukhopadhyay recalled that he was introduced to Sudhin Dasgupta in 1954 by Kshitish Basu of the Gramophone Company of India. 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.

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

Legacy Rabindra Bharati University paid homage to this him by creating an archive, where life and works of three legendary personalities of Bengal would be portrayed which includes Soumitra Chatterjee, Salil Chowdhury and him.