The World of Salil Chowdhury

Haimanti Shukla

A classically trained and very experienced singer, Haimanti has a solid reputation in Bengal. Her repertoire is also vast. She is also a very popular concert singer and travels abroad frequently. Has excellent voice and can tackle any song. Until of course she had to sing Salil songs like "dey dey re sokhi chokhey nilaanjan" and "mon bon pakhi chandana". While singing the hindi version of this song "aaj par sakhi aankhon mein anjan" on Doordarshan she definitely had a lot of problems trying to hit the notes. Her hindi accent was of course disastrous. Her recorded bengali version of this song "dey dey sokhi chokhey nilaanjan" a little better perhaps but one can hear that she wasn't feeling comfortable singing this song. The original Hindi version of this song "jaa jaa tose bolu.n kanhaiyaa" was sung by Lata and Manna Dey in the film 'Parivaar'. Its one of Salil's best compositions based on raag "Hamsadhwani" and Lata had absolutely no problem singing that song. Later Salil remarked privately 'They all want to sing like Latadidi and try to sing in high keys'. Well, we all know what happens to trained singers when they face Salil songs ! . Haimanti also had serious problems trying to hit the notes in the song "mon bon pakhi chandana"(see below) in her 1990 Puja album. Although I must say that she did sing another quite complex Salil song 'Eibaar sapner bandhan khullaam' back in 1983. A lot younger perhaps ?

Hnd = Hindi; Mal = Malayalam; Tam = Tamil; Tel = Telegu; Kan = Kannada; Bng = Bengali; Oth = Other