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Name
Kundan Lal Saigal
Date of Birth
11th April, 1904
Birth Place
Jammu
Father’s Name
Sh. Amar Chand Saigal
(Tehsildar
at the court of the Raja of Jammu & Kashmir)
Mother’s Name Smt.
Kesar Bai
Kundan Lal (K.L.) Saigalwas an
Indian Singer
and actor who is considered the first superstar of
Bollywood, the
Hindi film industry
which was centered in
Calcutta during
Saigal's time, but is currently centered in
Bombay
Kundan was the fourth-born child of
five and his formal schooling was brief and uneventful. As a child he
occasionally played Sita in the Ramlila of Jammu. Saigal dropped out of
school and started earning money by working as a railway timekeeper. Later,
he worked as a typewriter salesman for the
Remington Typewriter
Company He also briefly worked as a hotel manager. Meanwhile, his
passion for singing continued and became more intense with the passage of
time.
In the early 1930s, he was hired by
B.N. Sircar,
head of the
Calcutta-based
film studio,
New Theatres.
Here, Kundan met
R.C. Boral, the
highly respected music composer of the pioneering film company. R.C. Boral
took an instant liking to his talents. Saigal was employed by New Theatres
on a contract basis of Rs. 200/- per month. There he came into contact with
contemporaries like
Pankaj Mullick,
K. C. Dey and
Pahari Sanyal.
In a short span of time, he stood tallest among them with his brilliant
singing and popularity.
The first film in which Saigal had a
role was the
Urdu film
Mohabbat Ke Ansoo, followed by Subah Ka Sitara and Zinda Laash, all released
in 1932. However, these films did not do very well. It was in 1933 that his
four
bhajans for the
film Puran Bhagat created a sensation throughout India; thereafter, Saigal
never looked back. Films that followed were Yahudi Ki Ladki, Chandidas and
Rooplekha. In 1935, Saigal played the role that would come to define his
acting career: that of the drunken title character in
Devdas, based
on
Sarat Chandra
Chattopadhyay's novel of the same name and directed by
P.C. Barua. His
songs in the film, Balam Aaye Baso Moray Man Mein and Dukh Ke Ab Din Beetat
Naahi, became feverishly popular throughout the country.
He also acted in seven Bengali
films, produced by New Theatres.
Rabindranath Tagore
first heard Saigal before giving consent for the first time to a non-Bengali
singing his songs. Saigal endeared himself to the whole of Bengal through
his 30 Bengali songs.
In December 1941, Saigal moved to
Bombay to work
with
Ranjit Movietone.
Here he acted and sung in a number of hit films. His voice, music and songs
took him to even greater heights. Bhakt Surdas and Tansen were huge hits
during this period. The latter film is still remembered for Saigal's amazing
performance of the song Diya Jalao in
Raga Deepak; in
the same movie, he also sang a wonderful song Sapta Suran,Tin Gaa-o
Saba Guni Jan - which is about music, and is a special treat for all the
lovers of music. In the film songs category, there are 110 in Hindi/Urdu,
30 in Bengali and 2 in Tamil. In the non-film category, there are 37 in
Hindi/Urdu, and 2 each in Bengali, Punjabi and Persian. His non-film songs
comprise of Bhajans, Ghazals and Hori. He has rendered the creations of
legendary poets such as
Ghalib,
Zauq,
Seemab and
others. |
