Shyamal Mitra

Shyamal Mitra (14 January 1929 – 15 November 1987) was a Bengali singer, composer and producer. Along with Hemanta Mukherjee and Manna Dey, he was the most notable musician of the golden era of Bengali music industry. His baritone voice reflected a range of emotions. Beside recording a huge number of popular Bengali basic songs, he also worked as a playback singer in more than a hundred Bengali movies and directed music in more than fifty Bengali films. He also sang in various other Indian languages, like Hindi, Assamese and Oriya.

Shyamal Mitra was born in Naihati, a city near Kolkata, India. His father, Dr. Sadhan Kumar Mitra, was a reputed doctor there. The father wanted his son to follow in his footsteps and to become a doctor, but the son was very keen about music and always inspired by his mother and the local singer Mrinal Kanti Ghosh. People associated with the I.P.T.A. movement used to visit Sadhan-babu's house and this gave the chance to young Shyamal Mitra to come in contact with Salil Chowdhury. Young Shyamal Mitra and his youngest sister Reba used to sing "O Aalor Pathajatree" on the road for I.P.T.A.

Shyamal Mitra went to Hooghly Mohsin College, then affiliated with the University of Calcutta, for his graduation degree. There he met Satinath Mukhopadhyay, another prominent exponent of modern music. Satinath inspired him. Then Shyamal Mitra came to Kolkata and met Sudhirlal Chackraborty. That was the turning point of his life. He started struggling till he got a chance to playback in "Sunandar Biye" with Supriti Ghosh in 1949, and recorded his first basic songs from H.M.V. under the supervision of Sudhirlal Chackraborty. After the sad demise of Sudhirlal Chackraborty in 1952, he recorded "Smriti Tumi Bedonar". That was the turning point and he never looked back after that. He became one of the leading singers and composers of the country.

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