Remembering Kishore Kumar on his 85th birth anniversary

Zee Media Bureau/Parul Sabherwal New Delhi: Born as Abhas Kumar in a wealthy Bengali family, little did anyone know that this young man would someday carve his place in millions of hearts. Yes, we are talking about none other than legendary singer Kishore Kumar.Considered as one of the most successful playback singers of the Hindi film industry, Kishore Kumar was known for his eccentricity. Not only a singer, he was also a lyricist, composer, producer, director, screenplay writer and scriptwriter besides being a spontaneous actor. Kishoreda, as he is fondly called, started his career in the acting domain with a 1946 film Shikari. But it was in the year 1948 that he got the golden opportunity to sing a song. And since then there was no looking back for the legendary singer. He lent his voice to several leading actors like- Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Jeetendra, Sanjeev Kumar, Dev Anand, Shashi Kapoor, Mithun Chakraborty, Vinod Khanna and Dilip Kumar to name a few. The legend, during his long career sang in several languages including Bengali,Hindi,Marathi,Assamese,Gujarati,Kannada,Bhojpuri,Malayalam,Oriya, and Urdu. It was during his early days that people said that Kishore Kumar follows Kundan Lal Saigal`s singing style, but in no time he created a niche for himself in the industry and won eight Filmfare `Best playback singer` awards. This is a record in the `Best playback singer (male)` category. Undoubtedly one of the most valuable artists that Hindi Cinema has ever produced, Kishore Kumar had several moods and shades to his character that people still talk about. On his 85th birth anniversary today, we would like to wish the legend a very happy birthday!