Salil Chowdhury (19 November 1925 – 5 September 1995) was an Indian
music director
A music(al) director or director of music is the person responsible for the musical aspects of a performance, production, or organization. This would include the artistic director and usually chief conductor of an orchestra or concert band, the di ...
,
songwriter
A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music ...
,
lyricist
A lyricist is a songwriter who writes lyrics (the spoken words), as opposed to a composer, who writes the song's music which may include but not limited to the melody, harmony, arrangement and accompaniment.
Royalties
A lyricist's incom ...
,
writer
A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, ...
and
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...
who predominantly composed for
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
,
Hindi
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
and
Malayalam
Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...
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
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, na ...
,
Telugu
Telugu may refer to:
* Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India
*Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India
* Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language
** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode
...
,
Kannada
Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...
,
Gujarati
Gujarati may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India
* Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat
* Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them
* Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...
,
Odia
Odia, also spelled Oriya or Odiya, may refer to:
* Odia people in Odisha, India
* Odia language, an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family
* Odia alphabet, a writing system used for the Odia languag ...
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 flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedles ...
, the piano, and the
esraj. He was also widely acclaimed and admired
for his inspirational and original poetry in
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
.
The first Bengali film for which 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.
Career
Early influences – childhood and teenage
Salil Chowdhury was born on 19 November 1925, in a village called Ghazipur in
South 24 Parganas
South 24 Parganas (Pron: pɔrɡɔnɔs; abbr. 24 PGS (S)), or sometimes South Twenty Four Parganas and Dakshin 24 Parganas, is a district in the Indian state of West Bengal, headquartered in Alipore. It is the largest district of West Bengal by ...
,
West Bengal
West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...
. 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.
From an early age he listened to the Western
Classical collection of his father.
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
The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a public collegiate state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered one of best state research university all over India every yea ...
in
Kolkata
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...
, 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
The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedles ...
,
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 composed it in 1945 during the
Indian National Army trials when the freedom fighters had returned from Andaman jail. 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
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompan ...
. The famine was man-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
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...
. Subsequently, arrest warrants were issued in his name, and he went underground in the
Sunderbans
Sundarbans (pronounced ) is a mangrove area in the delta formed by the confluence of the Padma, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. It spans the area from the Baleswar River in Bangladesh's division of Khulna to the Hooghly ...
, 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
Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) is the oldest association of theatre-artists in India. IPTA was formed in 1943 during the British rule in India, and promoted themes related to the Indian freedom struggle. Its goal was to bring cultu ...
) the cultural wing of the
Communist Party of India
Communist Party of India (CPI) is the oldest Marxist–Leninist communist party in India and one of the nine national parties in the country. The CPI was founded in modern-day Kanpur (formerly known as Cawnpore) on 26 December 1925.
H ...
. 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
Debabrata Biswas (also known as George Biswas and George-''da''; 22 August 1911 – 18 August 1980), was an Indian Rabindra Sangeet singer.
Early life
Biswas was born in 1911 in Barisal and then later came to Kishoreganj of Mymensingh distri ...
,
Manna Dey
Prabodh Chandra Dey (May 1, 1919 − October 24, 2013), known by his stage name Manna Dey, was an internationally acclaimed and celebrated Indian playback singer, music director, and a musician. As a classical vocalist, he belonged to the Bhe ...
,
Hemanta Mukherjee
Hemanta Mukhopadhyay (16 June 1920 – 26 September 1989), known professionally as Hemant Kumar and Hemanta Mukherjee, was a legendary Indian music composer and playback singer who primarily sang in Bengali and Hindi, as well as other Indian ...
,
Shyamal Mitra,
Sandhya Mukherjee
Geetashree Sandhya Mukherjee (also spelled Mukhopadhyay; 4 October 1931 – 15 February 2022) was an Indian playback singer and musician, specialising in Bengali music. She received Banga Bibhushan, the highest civilian honour of the Indian sta ...
,
Manabendra Mukherjee
Manabendra Mukhopadhyay was an Indian singer and music composer in Bengali films. Coming to limelight in the early 1950s Manabendra was an innovative and stylish singer who had a strong foundation in Indian classical music. With his distincti ...
,
Subir Sen, and Pratima Banerjee.
Film career
![Salil Chowdhury with eminent personalities 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Salil_Chowdhury_with_eminent_personalities_1.jpg)
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.
In an interview with All India Radio, Salil Chowdhury described his coming to Bombay in 1953 as a "stroke of luck". He was writing the script for a Bengali film about a peasant who was disowned of his land and had gone to Calcutta to earn money as a Rickshaw puller.
Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Hrishikesh Mukherjee (30 September 1922 – 27 August 2006) was an Indian film director, editor and writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of Indian cinema. Popularly known as ''Hrishi-da'', he directed 42 films during his ca ...
, who heard of it from Chowdhury during a visit to Calcutta, liked it immensely and suggested that he narrate it to the director
Bimal Roy
Bimal Roy (12 July 1909 – 8 January 1966) was an Indian film director. He is particularly noted for his realistic and socialistic films such as '' Do Bigha Zamin'', '' Parineeta'', '' Biraj Bahu'', ''Devdas'', ''Madhumati'', '' Sujata'', '' ...
. Roy heard it, and asked him to meet him again the next morning. However, when Chowdhury went to meet him the next day, he learnt that Roy had rushed to Bombay on an urgent call. A week later, he received a telegram from Roy that he wanted to turn his script into a movie. This resulted in Chowdhury's debut in the
Hindi film industry
Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...
in 1953
as the music director for ''
Do Bigha Zamin'' (1953). The movie was based on Tagore's poem by the same name, but the story was different and was written by Salil Chowdhury himself. Directed by
Bimal Roy
Bimal Roy (12 July 1909 – 8 January 1966) was an Indian film director. He is particularly noted for his realistic and socialistic films such as '' Do Bigha Zamin'', '' Parineeta'', '' Biraj Bahu'', ''Devdas'', ''Madhumati'', '' Sujata'', '' ...
, this film took his career to new heights when it became the first film to win the
Filmfare Best Movie Award and won the international Prize at the
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films ...
.
After working for about 20 years in Bengali and Hindi films, he entered the
Malayalam
Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...
film industry and, in 1964, composed music for the movie ''
Chemmeen''.
He went on to compose music for films in 13 languages. This includes over 75
Hindi
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
films, 41
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
films, around 27
Malayalam
Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...
films, and a few
Marathi,
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, na ...
,
Telugu
Telugu may refer to:
* Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India
*Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India
* Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language
** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode
...
,
Kannada
Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...
,
Gujarati
Gujarati may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India
* Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat
* Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them
* Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...
,
Odia
Odia, also spelled Oriya or Odiya, may refer to:
* Odia people in Odisha, India
* Odia language, an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family
* Odia alphabet, a writing system used for the Odia languag ...
and
Assamese films. Asked about his method, Chowdhury described it thus – He would usually ask the film maker to explain the situation to him, then Chowdhury would compose a tune to suit the mood, and the lyric writer would set in words. This remained his practice for most of his films including Madhumati, in which Shailendra wrote the lyrics subsequently.
During the
1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, Chowdhury contributed to the programmes of the ''
Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra'' based in Kolkata. His 1971 album ''Bangla Amar Bangla'' was meant for the liberation struggle. Later, when Chowdhury visited
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mo ...
in 1990, he was given the welcome of a mass leader in
Dhaka
Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), List of renamed places in Bangladesh, formerly known as Dacca, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bangladesh, largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest ...
. Chowdhury was
posthumously awarded the Muktijoddha Maitreye Samman in 2012.
Poet, Playwright, Short story writer, Salil also directed a film Pinjre Ke Panchhi starring Meena Kumari, Balraj Sahani and Mehmood based
on his own story and screenplay in 1966.
Salil Chowdhury was the Founder of Bombay Youth Choir, the first ever Secular Choir in India in 1958 as its composer and conductor -
he inspired scores of secular choir groups to be formed throughout India formulating a new genre of music using vocal polyphony for
Indian Folk and Contemporary Music.
Personal life
Salil Chowdhury married the painter Jyoti Chowdhury in July 1952 in a temple. He had three daughters with her – Aloka, Tulika and Lipika. Later, he had a court marriage with singer
Sabita Banerjee, with whom he had two sons, Sukanta and Sanjoy, and two daughters, Antara and Sanchari.
Sanjoy Chowdhury is a successful music composer and has scored music for over 100 feature films. Sabita Chowdhury was a legendary singer and their daughter
Antara Chowdhury
Antara Chowdhury (born 2 June 1970, in Mumbai, India) is an Indian singer and composer. She is a daughter of Late renowned Composer and Poet Salil Chowdhury and famous singer Late Sabita Chowdhury. She started singing at the age of 7. Her fir ...
too a known singer. Smt. Sabita Chowdhury died on 29 June 2017.
Legacy
![Salil Chowdhury 2013 stamp of India](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Salil_Chowdhury_2013_stamp_of_India.jpg)
*Salil's music was a blending of Eastern and the Western music traditions. He had once said: "I want to create a style which shall transcend borders – a genre which is emphatic and polished, but never predictable".
He dabbled in a lot of things and it was his ambition to achieve greatness in everything he did.
But at times, his confusion was fairly evident: "I do not know what to opt for: poetry, story writing, orchestration or composing for films. I just try to be creative with what fits the moment and my temperament", he once told a journalist.
*Salil's love for Western classical music started when he was a young boy growing up in an Assam tea garden where his father worked as a doctor. His father inherited a large number of western classical records and a gramophone from a departing Irish doctor. While Salil listened to
Mozart,
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...
,
Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
,
Chopin, and others everyday, his daily life was surrounded by the sound of the forest, chirping of the birds, sound of the flute and the local folk-music of Assam.
This left a lasting impression in young Salil. He became a self-taught flute player and his favourite composer was Mozart. His compositions often used folk melodies or melodies based on Indian classical
ragas but the orchestration was very much western in its construction. According to his daughter Antara, (Ref.: Ek Fankar @ Vividbharati Radio Programme at 10.00 pm on 19 November 2013), Salil himself once joked that he was Mozart, reborn.
*Salil being a composing exponent, he even sensed the talent of a guitarist who played in his orchestra and uttered that, "I think he’s going to be the best composer in India".
The guitarist eventually turned out to be
Maestro Ilaiyaraaja.
A. R Rahman's father, R. K Shekhar used to conduct Salil Chowdhury's arrangements in South Indian film music. Rahman once said that his musical understanding was greatly influenced by the musical sessions conducted by Salil Chowdhury.
*"The Salil Chowdhury Foundation of Music, Social Help & Education Trust" was created in 2002 by Sabita Chowdhury, wife, and Antara Chowdhury, daughter of the late composer, to carry forward the legacy and preserve the works of Salil Chowdhury. In 2015 the Salil Chowdhury Memorial Concert and Honours were established in memory of the Genius to honour some of the greatest Indian singers and musicians.
Filmography
Hindi
Bengali
Malayalam
Others
Discography
List of some songs for which music or lyrics were composed by Salil Chowdhury (in alphabetical order)
IPTA:: Indian People's Theater Association
Awards and recognitions
;1953 – ''
Do Bigha Zamin''
A Hindi film directed by Bimal Roy based on a story in Bengali "Rikshawalaa" written by Salil Chowdhury.
1st Filmfare Awards
The 1st Filmfare Awards were held on 21 March 1954, honoring the best in Hindi cinema in 1953.
That year they were known as the Clare Awards, after Clare Mendonça, a film critic of '' The Times of India'' who had died in the same year.
'' ...
(1954)
Winner –
Best Film
This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards.
Best Actor/Best Actress
*See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...
; Winner –
Best Director Best Director is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards. It may refer to:
Film awards
* AACTA Award for Best Direction
* Academy Award for Best Director
* BA ...
–
Bimal Roy
Bimal Roy (12 July 1909 – 8 January 1966) was an Indian film director. He is particularly noted for his realistic and socialistic films such as '' Do Bigha Zamin'', '' Parineeta'', '' Biraj Bahu'', ''Devdas'', ''Madhumati'', '' Sujata'', '' ...
;
1st National Film Awards (India)
Winner –
All India Certificate of Merit for Best Feature Film
7th Cannes Film Festival (1954)
Winner – Prix International (
International Prize The Fyssen Foundation (French: Fondation Fyssen) is a French charitable organization that was established and endowed in 1979 by H. Fyssen. The aim of the foundation is to stimulate research into the processes underlying and leading to cognition, i ...
)
Nominated –
Grand Prize
A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people (such as sporting teams and organizations) to recognize and reward their actions and achievements. (Best Film)
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
Winner – Prize for Social Progress
;1965 – ''
Chemmeen''
A Malayalam film directed by Ramu Kariat, based on a novel of the same name written by the renowned writer Thakazhy Shivshankar Pillai, where Music Direction was done by Salil Chowdhury.
Recipient of president's gold medal in 1965.
;1958 – ''
Madhumati
''Madhumati'' is a 1958 Indian Hindi-language paranormal romance film directed and produced by Bimal Roy, and written by Ritwik Ghatak and Rajinder Singh Bedi. The film stars Vyjayanthimala and Dilip Kumar in lead roles, with Pran and John ...
''
Received
Filmfare Best Music Director Award
The Filmfare Best Music Album Award is given by the ''Filmfare'' magazine as part of its annual Filmfare Awards for Hindi films, to the best composer/arranger of a soundtrack. This category was first presented in 1954. Naushad Ali was the fir ...
along with eight other Filmfare awards
''Madhumati'' won the National Film Awards for Best Feature Film in Hindi
The Uttar Pradesh Film Patrakar Sangh Puraskar in 1966 for his only Hindi directorial film 'Pinjre Ke Panchhi'
The Bengal Films Journalist Award, Kolkata in 1973
The Allauddin Smriti Puraskar in 1985 from the Govt of West Bengal
;1988 – Salil Chowdhury received
Sangeet Natak Akademi Award
The Maharashtra Gaurav Puraskar Award in 1990
Posthumously he was awarded the Mukti Judhho Maitreyi Samman Award by the Govt
Bangladesh in 2012.
Poet, Playwright, Short story writer, he also directed a film Pinjre Ke Panchhi starring Meena Kumari, Balraj Sahani and Mehmood b
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
External links
A comprehensive website on Salil Chowdhury*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chowdhury, Salil
1925 births
1995 deaths
People from South 24 Parganas district
Bengali musicians
Bengali Hindus
Filmfare Awards winners
Hindi film score composers
Assamese film score composers
Indian male composers
Indian People's Theatre Association people
Malayalam film score composers
Musicians from Kolkata
20th-century Indian composers
Kannada film score composers
Bengali film score composers
Bangabasi College alumni
University of Calcutta alumni
Recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award
Male film score composers
20th-century male musicians