Sandhya Mukherjee was to popular Bengali music what Lata Mangeshkar was to Bollywood. The First Lady among Bengali singers died after a prolonged illness at a city hospital on Tuesday. She was 90. She is survived by her daughter Soumi Sengupta.Primarily known as the playback voice of Suchitra Sen in her innumerable hits with Uttam Kumar, Mukherjee recorded her first disc when she was in her early teens.Her phenomenal rise began with the Uttam-Suchitra starrer Agnipariksha in 1954, where the song ‘Ganey mor kon Indradhanu’ (A rainbow leaps up from my song) composed by Anupam Ghatak, mesmerised the Bengali listener. Her ethereal tremolo in the middle of that song, even by today’s standards, is hard to replicate.Around the same time, she had a stint in Bollywood too. Old-timers still recall her lilting duet ‘Bol Papiha Bol’ with Lata Mangeshkar in the film Tarana (1951), ‘Aa gupchup pyar Karen’ with Hemant Kumar in Sazaa (1951) and solos ‘Raja ki Ayegi Barat’ in Aah (1953) and ‘Aaja re Balam’ in Ek Do Teen (1953). Among the composers she worked with were Anil Biswas, S.D. Burman and Shankar Jaikishen. However, she chose to consolidate her reign in Tollywood and returned to Kolkata.Mukherjee’s sway over the Bengali music world is total even today. Songs like ‘Ghum ghum chand’ (The sleepy moon) or ‘E Shudhu Ganer Din’ (The day belongs to music) sung over 60 years ago are still a big draw with reality show contestants. From composers like Anupam Ghatak to Nachiketa Ghosh, from Robin Chatterjee to Hemanta Mukherjee, from Salil Chowdhury to Manabendra Mukherjee, she had hit songs with everyone.Looking back on her illustrious career, one finds, though she was numero uno in the 50s, when the 60s rolled in, she had to cede some ground to gifted singers like Arati Mukherjee, Pratima Banerjee and Nirmala Mishra. Ironically, it was during this phase that she got the national award for playback songs in the films Nishi Padma (remade in Hindi as Amar Prem) and Jai Jayanti (Bengali remake of The Sound of Music) in 1971.Throughout the 60s and 70s, Mukherjee was a much sought-after artiste in the classical music circuit too. Despite her busy schedule, she found time for music lessons from the doyens of Patiala Gharana, Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and his son Ustad Munawar Ali Khan.In 1966, Mukherjee got married to noted lyricist Shyamal Gupta. He, along with Gouri Prasanna Majumdar and Pulak Banerjee, formed the holy trinity of Bengali lyricists of the Golden Era (the 1950s to mid-1970s). Gupta passed away in 2010.Among Mukherjee’s major attributes was the ability to move with the times. She made it a point to call up younger artistes like Monomoy Bhattacharya and Lopamudra Mitra if she liked their performances. On the other hand, at a programme in Science City over a decade ago, like an elder sister, she helped co-singer Manna Dey to revisit the lines in ‘Champa Chameli’ (Champa and chameli flowers bloom in my rose garden) from the 60s musical Anthony Firingee.In the 80s and 90s, her hits were few and far between. An intensely private person, her decision to shy away from interviews also played a key role in the arclights shifting elsewhere. But she hit centre stage in 2000 with ‘Ashchhe Shatabdite’ (In the next century) composed by the enfant terrible of Bengali music Kabir Suman.Just a few days ago, Mukherjee was caught in a controversy over the Padma Shri. After a career spanning seven decades, she thought she deserved better and politely declined it. The Bengali culturati fumed over the alleged ‘insult’ to the legendary singer and a war of words erupted between Kabir Suman and classical maestro Ustad Rashid Khan.With the change of guard in West Bengal’s political spectrum, Mukherjee finally got her due. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee made her the head of West Bengal State Music Akademi and felicitated her with the Banga Bibhushan award. Banerjee even wrote the obit for Mukherjee in one of the local dailies on Wednesday.I would like to end on a personal note. In 1991, a major recording label ad organised a programme at Kalamandir in Kolkata to present a platinum disc to Mukherjee for her contribution to music. While speakers showered praise on Mukherjee, she was neither on stage nor in the audience. The second half began with her solo performance. A mere 10 songs but all bearing the gold hallmark. But where was she in the first half? The lady only smiled. I later heard from the grapevine she was practising her songs in the green room, a place where she felt most comfortable.Abhijit Sen is an independent media professional, who also dabbles in music and quizzing. He was associated with ET and Ei Samay from 1992 to 2020.
