Focusing Kishore Kumar from a different angle!

An all time legend, time-tested baritone, singer with ever-reigning heroism balanced with cool spiritual Sufism, worshiper of never ending joy in life, vocal for lyrical philosophy, dramatic expressionist with confident utterance – and so on. To describe Kishore Kumar in words is quite tough job  Kishore Kumar’s elder brother Ashoke Kumar once said that India has seen many talented playback singers in past and in future will also see but like her brother nobody would come in even next thousand years of time.  Kishore was a real versatile.  Eminent singer Asha Bhosle thinks singer like Kishore Kumar comes once in thousand years.  According to Asha, Kishore Kumar’s voice is god gifted.  According to Lata Mongeshkar, in spite of having no formal training in music, Kishore Kumar has sung all type of songs even some classical based numbers, which has been possible only as the person is Kishore Kumar.
Born in a rich cultured Bengali family in 1929, Kishore has been brought up in a musical environment.  In childhood, he often imitated songs of Sachin Dev Burman
and Kundan Lal Saigal, and dreamt to have become a singer like Saigal some day.  A big follower of K.L. Saigal, Kishore had set a big oil-painted portrait of Saigal Saab on his living room’s wall.
Though Kishore had to start his career as an actor in 1946 in the film ‘Shikari’, but he was destined to become a singer, so he didn’t have to wait for a long.  In 1948, Kishore got a chance to playback for actor Devanand in ‘Ziddi’.   ‘Ziddi’s “Marne ki duayen kyon mangu" was his first playback song – its Khemchand Prakash’s music.
It was music director S.D Burman, who recognized the talent in Kishore and until S.D stepped in Bollywood’s music arena, there was not many takers for Kishore in the film industry.  At that time Kishore was only invited to sing light-hearted comedy songs.  After S.D, his son R.D Burman used Kishore even more.  R.D even made Kishore Kumar sing classical based songs as in film ‘Mehbooba’ – ‘Mere Naina Shawan Bhado’ which was on the basis of rag Shiv Ranjani.  After ‘Aradhana’ happened in early 70s of previous century, Kishore became the craze.  And it’s not finished yet, even after so many year of his death.
He was not only a actor-turned playback singer, but he has given music to many hit songs, he has written some superb lyrics, he has produced films, directed films and written scripts.  
Besides Hindi, Kishore Kumar sang in several regional languages like Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Bhojpuri, Malayalam and Oriya.  Though Kishore won eight Filmfare Awards for Best Male Playback Singer and also awarded the "Lata Mongeshkar Award" by the Madhya Pradesh government, but these awards had never made him happier than he became getting love and respect from his millions of fans in returns of his emotion-plunged heartfelt songs.
In personal life, he never led a blissful life; marriages have been broken in short gap, first wife Ruma Guha Thakurta, after break-up with Ruma, he married actress Madhubala, after Madhubala’s death, he married Yogeeta Bali but it lasted only two years. In 1980, he married Leena Chandavarkar; till his death in 13^th October, 1987, Kishore-Leena had not been split.  He’s survived with two sons, Amit Kumar (Playback singer) with Ruma and Sumit Kumar with Leena Chandavarkar.
It will remain incomplete, if I don’t say about Kishore Kumar’s ever-joyous madness. Whether it’s in studio or on the film’s set, nobody has seen Kishore in off mood ever.  He’s like a clown, whose every move makes people laugh.  Actually Kishore Kumar tried to hide his wounded heart by doing all the madly things all time.
Capturing Kishore Kumar in one article is not easy, because he was truly a colorful person with millions of mysterious sub-shades, which attracted peoples to him like anything. As per latest director Anurag Basu has set to make a film on Kishore, where he’s zeroed in on Ranbir Kapoor for depicting Kishore Kumar’s role.