Sudhin Dasgupta

Music

The years of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s are considered as the golden era for Bengali modern song as well as Bengali basic song. During this period, Bengali music industry saw numerous music directors and lyricists like Gouri Prasanna Majumdar, Shaymal Gupta, Pronob Roy, Robin Chattopadhya, Pabitra Chattopadhya, Anol Chattopadhya, Anupam Ghatak, Anil Bagchi, Jnan Prakash Ghosh, Salil Chowdhury, Nachiketa Ghosh, Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay, Shyamal Mitra, Bhupen Hazarika and obviously Sudhin Dasgupta.

In 1957, Sudhin Dasgupta entered the Bengali Film industry as the music composer for film called “Ulka”. His second film was “Dakharkara”, where famous Bengali novelist, Tarashankar Bandopadhyay worked as the lyricist. He never looked back and Bengali film industry got a series of mega hits from him like “Antaral”, “Shankhabela”, “Tin Bhuboner Pare”, “Prothom Kodom Phul”, “Chaddabeshi”, “Picnic”, “Har Mana Har”, “Basanta Bilap”, “Hangsaraj”, “Amrito Kumbher Sondhane” and many more. In many of the films he acted both as the lyricist and the composer. He worked for around fifty Bengali films.

In basic Bengali song, Sudhin Dasgupta gifted the audience a number of super-hit tracks, including “Ei Jhir Jhir Batase”, “Bhanga Torir Sudhu E Gaan”, “Ami Taar Thikana Rakhini”, “Ekta Gaan Likho Amar Jonno”, “Oi Ujjolo Din”, “Saat Ronga Ek Pakhi”, “Akash Eto Meghla”, “Naam Rekhechi Bonolata” and many others. Again, he contributed both as composer and lyricist in many of the items.

The trio Sudhin Dasgupta, Uttam Kumar, and Manna Dey produced several combination in playback singing in films like “Shankhabela”, “Kokhono Megh”, “Manjari Opera”, “Chhadmabeshi”, "Har Mana Har", "Raater Rajanigandha" and others. He worked extensively with all the legendary singers like Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay, Manna Dey, Dwijen Mukhopadhyay, Shyamal Mitra, Manabendra Mukhopadhyay, Satinath Mukhopadhyay, Sandhya Mukhopadhyay, Pratima Bandyopadhyay, Arati Mukhopadhyay, Talat Mahmood, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhonsle, Mohammed Rafi etc.

Sudhin Dasgupta experienced with different forms of music all through his musical career. He used Baul, South Indian Tunes, Folk, and Western Chorus in his different creations.

He was also an excellent player of different Indian and Western musical instruments like Tabla, Sitar, Piano, Harmonium and others.

Sudhin Dasgupta also worked for advertisement jingles including compositions such as “Mathar Ghonochul Jokhon, Morubhumi Hoye Jai…”.

Bengali song has got a rich episode for the world of the kids and Sudhin Dasgupta contributed in that field too. He contributed to “Hingsute Doitto”, “Chotoder Ramayan”. He also composed music for many of the well-known Bengali poems from authors like Sunirmal Basu, Jogindranath Sarkar etc.

Personal life

Born on 9 October 1929, Sudhindranath dasgupta, popularly known as Sudhin Dasgupta was brought up at Darjeeling. The ancestral house of his family was in 'Kalia' village, Jessore, Bangladesh. His father, Mahendranath Dasgupta was a teacher at Darjeeling Govt. School. His mother was a social activist in those days. He was also adept in playing various games like hockey.

It was 1949-50 when Sudhin settled permanently in Calcutta(Kolkata). This was when he gradually delved into the colourful world of Bengali modern music. Apart from working as music assistant to the legendary music director Kamal Dasgupta, he maintained his responsibility of creating songs for the Calcutta North squad of IPTA (Indian Peoples Theatres' Association). And a day came when Sudhin met Kshitish Basu of His Master's Voice (HMV) who gave him the opportunity to compose Bengali modern music. The first two modern songs composed by him was 'Kato Asha Kato Bhalobasha' & 'Keno Akash Hote' which were recorded by Bechu Dutta in 1953. And eventually the versatile musical journey began which was consistent till the last day of his life.

Sudhin Dasgupta was married to Smt. Majushree Dasgupta(Sengupta). They have one son, Soumya, and one daughter, Saberi. Soumya is an architect by profession, and Saberi is a fashion designer.