The World of Salil Chowdhury

Lata Mangeshkar

The combination of Salil Chowdhury and Lata Mangeshkar changed the course of modern Bengali song for ever. The song 'na jeo na' became one of the most important and most beautiful Bengali songs in history. Bengalees were thrilled to get Lata singing Bengali songs with practically flawless accent. She became one of them and the wonderful songs Salil composed for Lata  during the next three decades still remain possibly the most melodic and lyrical Bengali modern songs.

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

In 1988 a much awaited Lata LP was released with eight songs. Everybody waited for some new Lata/Salil songs. Unfortunately, it turned out that six out of eight songs on this LP have all been previously recorded by other singers, sometimes with different lyrics. For example,"Ei jibono" is a Bengali version of that Jesudas classic(DD6) from the Hindi Film 'Dil ka saathi dil' and the only new composition on this LP is the song "Saat sakaaley moner dorey". What is even more disappointing is that the song "Sabaar aaDaaley" was previously sung by Sandhya Mukherjee (Guru guru guru megh garaje - for AIR) and recorded by Sabita Chowdhury (Tumi ki kakhano sei gaan shono) and the song "Bhulonaa prothom sei din" was previously recorded by Sandhya Mulherjee (Kichhu aar kohibo naa). Besides this Salil got Lata to record that Hemanta classic 'Runner' which most of the Bengalees could not accept .Besides this Lata had to sing Subir Sen's all-time classic "Dhoronir pathey pathey" and it destroyed the song. Lata's voice was gone. In short, this LP was a disaster. The only satisfaction for Salil lovers were the new arrangements of the songs and one new song. The old Lata and Salil magic was gone for ever.