{"id":10295,"date":"2025-11-26T06:39:37","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T01:09:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/?p=10295"},"modified":"2025-11-26T06:39:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T01:09:37","slug":"salil-chowdhury-the-unpredictable-genius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/salil-chowdhury-the-unpredictable-genius\/","title":{"rendered":"Salil Chowdhury: The Unpredictable Genius"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Music will always be dismantling and recreating itself, and assuming new forms of reaction to the times. To fail to do so would be to become fossilized. But in my push to go forward I must not forget that my heritage is also my inspiration.”<\/em> – Salil Chowdhury.<\/p>\n

\"A

A young Salil Chowdhury<\/p><\/div>\n

This musical genius was born in Sonarpur, 24 Parganas, just south of Calcutta in Bengal on 19th November 1923. His father Gyanendra Chowdhury was professionally a doctor, but passionately a music lover. At home, the doctor would forever listen to Western classical symphonies and also folk songs of Bengal and Assam. This sort of music pervaded the atmosphere. Subconsciously, young Salil would imbibe all those different sounds, as also pick up the contrasting styles of using the orchestras and instruments. This would also help him bring about an integration of Indian and Western melody in the future.<\/p>\n

There was a piano at home, and soon enough the precocious boy was learning to play it well. He also learned to play the flute and spent many a day playing it in the tea gardens of Assam where his father practised medicine. By the time he was 8, Salil was an ace flautist. Singing too was happening to him now. To add to all that, Salil also had an elder brother called Nikhil who had formed a music group called Milan Parishad<\/em>. The programmes this group arranged were exerting much influence on Salil. Seeing all that, his father started teaching him classical music and folk songs.<\/p>\n

Turbulent times<\/strong><\/p>\n

As he was finishing school, things were turbulent all around. World War II was on, and there was famine in Bengal. The British were unpopular, and to add to things, there was just too much poverty around, especially among the oppressed workers in the tea gardens he knew so well. Salil went to school in Calcutta, which was at a distance of 30 kilometres from Sonarpur. These travels from his small village to the big city brought him close to the naked realities of the discontent that existed everywhere. He was disturbed enough by the unfairness in all sections of society to join farm groups and student protests etc. He also joined the army for a brief spell, and while in it, was shocked to see how one day the army vehicle dumped food grains on a slippery road, so as to pass over safely. This was at a time when there were so many people going without food. These and similar experiences were fuelling his system with the passion to create his music. As such, he got involved with the communist movement, which was promising a balanced society and golden tomorrows. He was drawn naturally towards this thinking and he travelled through farms and lived with peasants, writing, singing Bengali songs for them. Mainly songs of hope and courage. Many of these things he did after joining the Indian People’s Theatre Association, which he did as a flautist, and later for the Communist Party.<\/p>\n

\"The

The writer, poet, composer, and singer<\/p><\/div>\n

Independence came, and the battle was won against the oppressive British, but other battles remained. He thus continued his writing, singing, and song-making for the oppressed. By 1950 Salil had created a healthy new style of music which judiciously used Western and Indian instruments and styles of composition. He also became very popular for the integration of choral singing in his songs, no doubt inspired by what was consistent with the communist thought: glory for the masses versus glory for the individual. And yet another thing he specialized in were background scores, where the music helped support a mood or even create one, without the assistance of words. In this area he would become a specialist, with background scores in a number of films. With his new forms and specialities, he became very popular in Tollygunge in Calcutta, the centre of the Bengali film industry. This was the first phase in his life, the writer, poet, composer, and singer of Bengali songs in Calcutta, before his move to Bombay.<\/p>\n

About this first phase, many years later he gave an exclusive interview to Sandhya Sen in Nabakallol<\/em> magazine (Issue #9, 1995). In response to a question about his early years, he said, “When with some maturity I came to regard this world and my place\u2014among countless others\u2014in it, the primary emotion that burned deep inside me was one of fierce protest. I railed against the torment and cruelty that was killing humanity little by little. I saw on the one hand terrible famine and on the other hand utter waste. And this terrible unfairness opened for me the creative forces of my music.”<\/p>\n

After this first phase began his second one, which was of Hindi cinema in Bombay. Do Bigha Zamin<\/em> made by Bimal Roy was fortunately his first Hindi venture, because it was to become a landmark film. It got the Filmfare Award for Best Picture in the very first year the awards were set up. Salil Chowdhury gave good music in it, but he would have to wait for another Bimal Roy film, Madhumati<\/em>, to earn his own first Filmfare award. Meanwhile in Do Bigha Zamin<\/em> Balraj Sahni did an excellent job as an impoverished farmer who pulls a rickshaw in Calcutta to earn money and save his land in the village from being taken away by a wealthy industrialist. We don’t have to look hard to see Salil Chowdhury put his experiences and convictions into the music in the film’s story. The number Mausam beeta jaaye<\/em> (Manna Dey, Lata, chorus) is a good representation of it. The film clicked, Salil Chowdhury got more opportunities and settled in. Another film, Naukri<\/em>, starring Kishore Kumar, dealt with the story of an educated young man in search of a job in the urban jungle. The film’s best song, Chhota sa ghar hoga baadalon ki chhaon mein<\/em> (suggesting the golden tomorrows) was right up Salil Chowdhury’s alley. Another man for the masses, Shailendra, wrote the lyrics, so the collaboration was forceful. Biraj Bahu, Jagto Raho<\/em>, and many films happened to Salilda (as he came to be known) in the coming few years. In Musafir<\/em>, he actually made Dilip Kumar sing his only song ever, a duet with Lata: Laagi naahi chhoote Rama, chaahe jiya jaaye.<\/em><\/p>\n

Laagi naahi chhoote Rama, chaahe jiya jaaye<\/strong><\/em> (Musafir<\/em>, 1957) Salil Chowdhury \/ Shailendra \/ Dilip Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar<\/span><\/p>\n