A man of many facets, Kishore Kumar (or Kishore Da as he was fondly
called) was an actor, singer, writer and producer whose rich timbered voice
kept him in the limelight for almost four decades. Nominated for 19 Filmfare
awards, he won the best Male Playback Filmfare Awards eight times, a record
till date. His first real debut as a singer commenced with Kemchand Prakash’s
‘Marne ki duayen kyon mangu’ (Ziddi), but many of the songs that immortalised
Kishore Kumar were composed by the legendary S D Burman. Later it was the R D
Burman-Kishore Da combination that rocked the nation. He became the voice of
many reigning Indian film superstars including Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan,
Dharmendra and Dev Anand. He also sung for the younger crop of actors like
Jackie Shroff, Govinda and Mithun Chakraborty. The singer with a magnetic aura
who was born Abhas Kumar Ganguly on August 4, 1929 in Madhya Pradesh and passed
away in 1987, remains an irreplaceable legend as the country celebrated his
85th birth anniversary on August 4.