A tribute to Kishore Kumar on his 81st birth anniversary.
Kishore Kumar Ganguly treated life as a foolish game, wherein rules were made to be broken. "In this avaricious world, every creative person is bound to be lonely. How can you deny me that right?" he asked. Yet, he married four times!!!!
He could not read the notations. Nor could he name more than three classical singers without prompting. Yet, he sang as if he was possessed!
He complained of his filmmakers "who know nothing". But when Satyajit Ray offered him a role in the famous comedy, 'Parash Pathar', he literally ran away."I was so scared," he said. He loved to live life, Kishore-size! As with all other great men, it was contradictions that made Kishore Kumar.
When he arrived in Bombay in the 1940s, Abhas Kumar Ganguly (the real name) had four idols: K.L. Saigal, Marlon Brando, Boris Karloff and Topol (the star of 'Fiddler on the Roof'). And he had a superstar for a sibling: Ashok Kumar! His greatest wish was to meet the legendary Kundan Lal Saigal. He also wanted to be a singer. "The younger brother of Ashok Kumar" was, however, coerced into acting. And soon, he found himself doing cameos on screen. He hated acting but was too scared to communicate this to his brother. Singing was confined to the toilet. Kishore hit the silver screen with a new brand of comedy that bordered on insanity. He tried his best to shrug off the actor's robes. He troubled his directors to the ends of the world -- He filled his eyes with romance while on an action routine. He looked into the eyes of his heroine like a monster on the prowl. The more he tried to escape, the more he was loved. And he became the second biggest draw after Dilip Kumar!
Paradox: He was so busy that Mohammed Rafi was assigned to sing for him in 'Sharaarat'.
The comic roles he played in films such as 'Half Ticket', 'Chalti ka Naam Gaadi', 'Padosan' and 'Jhumroo' made him popular, but he remained a prisoner of slapstick. This forced him into film-making. In films such as 'Door Gagan ki Chaon Mein' (1964) and 'Door ka Rahi' (1971), Kishore did what he always wanted to do - "sing sad songs and do serious roles".
After a long wait of almost three decades, Kishore struck gold as a singer.
Rejected by almost all major music directors in the dawn of his career, Kishore found his mentor in S. D. Burman and a lifelong friend in R. D. Burman. He had no guru who could teach him the nuances of music. But when he sang, his voice transformed the song into an emotional entity.
Arguably, Kishore was the only Indian playback singer, who acted out his songs. His renditions were earthy, if not ethereal. Constantly bullied by the music critics of his age, Kishore was looked down as a symbol of irreverence that marked the Hindi movies of the Seventies. But he outlived the critics, and went on yodelling into the hearts of thousands of admirers the world over. The Kishore, who we remember today, is only a fragment of the phenomenon he actually was. Nobody could say they knew the real Kishore Kumar. Not even the protagonist himself. He kept the world guessing. He acted, he sang, he wrote, he made music, he directed films...
Kishore Kumar constantly complained about the world he found himself in. "In this crazy world, only the truly sane man appears to be mad," he said, a few days before his death. He used to keep a skull in the bedroom, with red light emerging from its eyes, just to keep himself posted on "the futility of life". He braved the emotional disasters in his life with the mind of a clown. The sadness, he invested in his songs.
The world called Kishore Kumar "crazy". He sang innumerable songs that carried his answer to the world: "Rote hue aate hain sab, hansta hua jo jaayega, woh muqaddar ka sikander kehlayega...!"
Kishore Kumar. Rock star. Maverick. Genius.
