Salil Chowdhury

Salil Chowdhury
সলিল চৌধুরী
Image of Salil Chowdhury
Salil Chowdhury (1922–1995)
Background information
Also known as Salil-da
Born (1922-11-19)19 November 1922
Harinavi, 24 Parganas, Bengal Presidency, British India
Died 5 September 1995(1995-09-05) (aged 72)
Calcutta, West Bengal, India
Genres bengali , folk , flim base
Occupation(s) Music director, Composer, Poet, Lyricist & Story-writer
Instruments harmonium

Salil Chowdhury (Bengali: সলিল চৌধুরী; 'Solil Choudhuri' in phonetic Wiki-Bengali; 19 November 1922[1] – 5 September 1995) was an Indian music composer , lyricist , writer and singer, who mainly composed for Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam film and other films. He was also a poet and a playwright. He is affectionately called Salilda by his admirers.

His musical ability was widely recognised[2] 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[2] for his inspirational and original poetry in Bengali.

Family members and relatives

Wife: Jyoti Chowdhury

Daughters: Aloka, Tulika and Lipika

Wife: Sabita Chowdhury

Sons: Sukanta and Sanjoy

Daughters: Antara and Sanchari

Salil Chowdhury was first married to Jyoti Chowdhury in July 1953 with whom he had three daughters, Aloka, Tulika and Lipika.

Later he married Sabita Chowdhury, with whom he has two sons [Sukanta and Sanjoy] and two daughters [Antara and Sanchari]. Sanjoy Chowdhury is a successful music composer himself and scored music for over a 100 feature films. Sabita Chowdhury was a singer and their daughter, Antara Chowdhury is a performing artist. Smt Sabita Chowdhury died on June 29, 2017.[3]

Career

Early influences

Salil Chowdhury was born on 19 November 1922[4] in a village called Harinavi in 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[2]. From an early age he listened to the Western Classical collection of his father[2]. During the second world war Salil Chouwhury got the opportunity to closely observe human sufferings, hunger and problem of the refugees[5]. He studied in Harinavi D.V.A.S High School and there after graduated 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.[2]

In 1944, a young Salil came to Calcutta for his graduate studies. He joined the IPTA[2] (Indian Peoples Theater Association) the cultural wing of the Communist Party of India. He started writing songs[2] and setting tunes for them.[2] 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[2] 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.[2] Almost every notable singer at the time from West Bengal had sung at least one of his songs. A few examples are Debabrata Biswas, Hemanta Mukherjee, Shyamal Mitra, Sandhya Mukherjee, Manabendra Mukherjee, Subir Sen and Pratima Banerjee.

Film career

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.

Salil Chowdhury's debut in the Hindi Film Industry came in 1953[2] as the Music Director for Do Bigha Zamin (based on Tagore's poem/narrative by the same name, but the story was different. The story was written by Salil Chowdhury himself. Directed by Bimal Roy, 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.

After working for about 20 years in Bengali and Hindi films, he entered Malayalam film industry and in 1964 composed music for the movie Chemmeen.[2]

He went on to compose for over 75 Hindi films, 41 Bengali films, around 27 Malayalam films, and a few Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati, Oriya and Assamese films.

Legacy

  • 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".[6] He dabbled in a lot of things and it was his ambition to achieve greatness in everything he did.[6] 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.[6]
  • 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, Tchaikovsky, 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.[6] 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".[7] 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.[2]
  • "The Salil Chowdhury Memorial Concert and Honors" was created in 2002 by Antara Chowdhury, singer and daughter of the late composer, to carry forward the legacy, ideas and concepts of "Salil Chowdhury Foundation of Music".[8]

Filmography

Discography

List of all songs for which Music or Lyrics were composed by Salil Chowdhury

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 (1954)[9] Winner – Best Film; Winner – Best Director – Bimal Roy;

1st National Film Awards[10] (India) Winner – All India Certificate of Merit for Best Feature Film

7th Cannes Film Festival (1954)[11] Winner – Prix International (International Prize) Nominated – Grand Prize (Best Film)

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival[12] 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

Received Filmfare Best Music Director Award along with eight other Filmfare awards[13] Madhumati won the National Film Awards for Best Feature Film in Hindi

1988 – Salil Chowdhury received Sangeet Natak Akademi Award

See also

References

  1. ↑ International who's who in music and musicians' directory. Melrose Press. 1977. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Chennai, Shaji (20 November 2005). "Flawless harmony in his music". The Hindu. Retrieved 6 September 2009.
  3. ↑ "Singer Sabita Chowdhury dies". outlookindia.com. 29 June 2017. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
  4. ↑ Surer Bhuban (6 December 2015). "Salil Chowdhury Long Interview with Kabir Suman Part 2" – via YouTube.
  5. ↑ Chumki, Bhowmik (19 November 2017). "ও আলোর পথযাত্রী". peoplesreporter.com. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
  6. 1 2 3 4 "Remembering Salil Chowdhury on his 22nd death anniversary". mediu,.com. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  7. ↑ "One of a kind". The Hindu. Retrieved 11 August 2012.
  8. ↑ "The Salil Chowdhury Memorial Concert and Honors". Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  9. ↑ Raheja, Dinesh. "Do Bigha Zamin: Poignant, stark, human". Rediff.com. Retrieved 4 December 2017.
  10. ↑ "1st National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Retrieved 21 August 2011.
  11. ↑ "Festival de Cannes: Do Bigha Zamin". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on 4 February 2012. Retrieved 25 January 2009.
  12. ↑ Raheja, Dinesh. "Do Bigha Zameen: poignant, stark, human". Rediff.com. Retrieved 9 May 2017.
  13. ↑ "The Winners 1958". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 9 July 2012. Retrieved 4 January 2012.

Further reading

  • Sabita Chowdhury (2015-09-05). "উজ্জ্বল এক ঝাঁক সলিল". Ananda Bazar Patrika. Retrieved 2017-11-16.
  • Salil Chowdhury. Salil Chowdhury Rachana Sangraha. Kolkata: Dey`s Publishing. ISBN 978-81-295-1952-8.
  • Samir Kumar Gupta (2011). Salil Chowdhury. Kolkata. ISBN 978-81-921-0890-2.
  • Samir Kumar Gupta, ed. (2016). Salil Chowdhury's First Life And Mass Songs. Kolkata: Miley Mishey. p. 391. ISBN 978-81-921-0890-2.
  • Suresh Rao (2008). Salil Chowdhury - The Non-Conformist Genius. Kolkata: Jain Book Agency. p. 391.
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