Sandhya Mukherjee

Sandhya Mukhopadhyay, born 4 October 1931 – died 15 February 2022, was a famous Indian singer and musician, specialising in Bengali music. She was born in Kolkata, India. She is also known as Sandhya Mukherjee. Sandhya started her music training under the direction of Pandit Santosh Kumar Basu, Professor A Kannan and Professor Chinmay Lahiri. However, her guru was Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan under whom she mastered Indian classical music. Though classically trained, the bulk of her work consists of Bengali modern songs. She began her career in Mumbai singing Hindi songs, starting with a song in the film Anjan Garh at the age of 17. Following her marriage to the Bengali poet Shyamal Gupta she settled in her home city of Kolkata. Gupta went on to write the lyrics for many of her famous songs. Her most famous collaboration is arguably with the Bengali singer Hemanta Mukherjee with whom she sang numerous duets, primarily as playback for Bengali films produced from Kolkata. Hemanta and Sandhya became known as the voices behind the pairings of the Bengali superstar Uttam Kumar and his numerous heroines. She also sang several of Salil Chowdhury's hit Bengali songs, such as Ujjwal Ek Jhank Payra, regarded as a classic. During the Bangladesh Liberation War she joined the mass movement among Indian Bengali artistes to raise money for the millions of refugees who had poured into Kolkata and West Bengal to escape the fighting, and to raise global awareness for the cause of Bangladesh. She assisted Bangladeshi musician Samar Das as he set up the Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendro, the clandestine radio station broadcasting to Bangladesh and recorded several patriotic songs for him. On the occasion of the release of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the imprisoned leader of the new country of Bangladesh, she released a famous song Bangabandhu Tumi Phirey Ele. She later became one of the first foreign artistes to visit Dhaka, performing at an open-air concert in Paltan Maidan in Dhaka to celebrate the first Ekushey February after Bangladeshi independence in 1971. She also recorded several songs for Samar Das's film Dhirey Bohey Meghna and Salil Chowdhury's Raktakta Bangla.