sandhya mukherjee biography
Sandhya Mukherjee (also spelled Mukhopadhyay; 4 October 1931 – 15 February 2022) was an Indian playback singer and musician, specialising in Bengali music.
She received Banga Bibhushan, the highest civilian honour of the Indian state of West Bengal in 2011.
She also won the National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer for her songs in the films Jay Jayanti and Nishi Padma in the year 1970
Early life
Mukherjee was born in Dhakuria, Calcutta, on 4 October 1931 to Narendranath Mukherjee, a railway official, and Hemprova Devi. She was the youngest of six children.
Her grandfather was a police officer, and the family had lived in Dhakuria since 1911.(sandhya mukherjee biography)
Training & career
Sandhya started her music training under the direction of Pandit Santosh Kumar Basu, Professor A T Kannan, and Professor Chinmoy Lahiri.
However, her guru was Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, followed by his son Ustad Munavvar Ali Khan, under whom she mastered Indian classical music.
sandhya mukhopadhyay biography
According to Manorma Sharma, “Sandhya has been able to maintain her popularity as a classical vocalist even after acquiring the gloss and the glow of playback singing …
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 Taarana in 1950. She sang, as a playback singer,
sandhya mukhopadhyay biography
in 17 Hindi films. She decided to come back to and settle in her home city Kolkata in 1952 due to personal reasons.
She married Bengali poet Shyamal Gupta in 1966. Gupta went on to write the lyrics for many of her songs.(sandhya mukherjee biography)
Her best known collaboration is arguably with the Bengali singer Hemanta Mukherjee with whom she sang numerous duets, primarily as playback for Bengali films.
Hemanta and Sandhya became known as the voices behind the pairings of the Bengali superstar Uttam Kumar and his numerous heroines,
sandhya mukhopadhyay biography
most notably being the actress Suchitra Sen, whose singing voice she became. Besides Hemanta Mukherjee’s compositions, her largest body of work is with Robin Chattopadhyay and Nachiketa Ghosh.(sandhya mukherjee biography)
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 Kendra, (sandhya mukherjee biography)
sandhya mukhopadhyay biography
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 song Bangabandhu Tumi Phirey Ele.
She later became one of the first foreign artists 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.(sandhya mukherjee biography)
Deeply saddened that Geetashree Sandhya Mukhopadhyay, the queen of melody in Bengal, is no more. Her departure creates an eternal void in our world of music and in the hearts of millions of her followers here and in the diaspora.(1/3)
— Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) February 15, 2022
sandhya mukhopadhyay biography
On 26 January 2022, on the Republic Day and a few days before testing positive for COVID-19, Mukherjee was awarded the Padma Shri for her performance in music.
However, she refused the award, labelling it “disparaging and degrading”. Mukherjee died of cardiac arrest at a private hospital in Kolkata on 15 February 2022, at the age of 90.(sandhya mukherjee biography)
Legendary Bengali semi-classical singer Sandhya Mukherjee, who had worked with leading music directors such as SD Burman, Naushad and Salil Chaudhury,
died on Tuesday evening following a massive cardiac arrest. She was 90. Mukherjee breathed her last at around 7.30 PM, a hospital official said.(sandhya mukherjee biography)
She had been in the hospital since January 27 due to ill health and was put on vasopressor support and shifted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) earlier in the day following a drop in her blood pressure, hospital sources said.
sandhya mukherjee death reason
“She suffered a massive heart attack at around 7.30 PM following which she expired. Because of irregular heart beats she could not be revived,” the senior hospital official told PTI.
Mourning Mukherjee’s death, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who had a close relationship with the singer, (sandhya mukherjee biography)
sandhya mukherjee death reason
said she would curtail a three-day tour to the northern districts of the state which had embarked on and would return to the city to attend her last rites.
Ms Banerjee said that the singer’s body would be kept at the ‘Rabindra Sadan’ from noon to 5PM for her admirers to pay their last respect.
“Sandhyadi’s last rites will be conducted with full state honours which include a gun salute. Her body will be kept at the ‘peace heaven’
(mortuary)
sandhya mukherjee death reason
tonight and I am trying to be back in the city by tomorrow after which the last rites will be conducted,” Ms Banerjee said.(sandhya mukherjee biography)
Born in 1931 in Kolkata, Mukherjee’s death comes just days after the death of Lata Mangeshkar earlier this month.(sandhya mukherjee biography)
She is survived by her daughter and son in law. Mukherjee was rushed to the state-run SSKM hospital on January 27, a day after she had a fall in the bathroom at her south Kolkata residence.
The singer had tested positive for Covid-19 and suffered multi-organ dysfunction and fracture in the neck of femur (left side) due to the fall, for which she was being treated.(sandhya mukherjee biography)
sandhya mukherjee death reason
The singer, a recipient of ‘Banga Bibhushan’, and National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer had refused an offer of a Padma Shri
award when she was contacted by central government officials telephonically for her consent before Republic Day this year.
Condoling her death, Hindustani classical maestro Pandit Ajoy Chakraborty said, “It was a personal loss for me. She was a mother figure for all of us.
I still can’t believe she is no more.” Yesteryears Tollywood star Madhabi Mukherjee,
for whose movies Sandhya Mukherjee had sung several musical numbers, also described her as an elder sister to the juniors of her era.(sandhya mukherjee biography)
sandhya mukherjee death reason
“I shared a special bond with her. She was at times like an elder sister, and at the time, she was like a mother to me. I still remember the period we worked together,” she said.
Singer Usha Uthup said the love, affection and support she had received from her would be some of the most cherished moments of her life.
“She was such a motherly figure to all of us. The kind of affection I received from her would be the most cherished moments of my life,” she said.
The passing away of Gitashree Sandhya Mukhopadhyay Ji leaves us all extremely saddened. Our cultural world is a lot poorer. Her melodious renditions will continue to enthral the coming generations. My thoughts are with her family and admirers in this sad hour. Om Shanti.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 15, 2022
In the late forties, she started learning music from Santosh Kumar Basu, AT Kannan and Chinmoy Lahiri; however,
she began her formal training under Patiala Gharana under legendary Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. Under his tutelage, she mastered the art of Indian classical music.(sandhya mukherjee biography)
She began her career as a playback singer in the early fifties but returned to Kolkata in the late 1950s due to personal reasons.
Cutting across borders, for millions of Bengalis across the globe, Mukherjee had become the musical voice of an era of romance, where Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen ruled the matinee lights.
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Mukherjee played a role in the Bangladesh liberation war joining many leading artists who performed at concerts for free to raise money for the 10 million East Pakistani citizens who were forced to seek refuge in India.(sandhya mukherjee biography)
She also sang for the ‘Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra’ (Free Bangladesh Radio) in Kolkata, set up by the Government of Bangladesh in exile.
sandhya mukherjee husband
– Shyamal Gupta
sandhya mukherjee Family
– Husband/Spouse : Shyamal Gupta (Bengali poet)
Parents : Father- Narendranath Mukherjee (Railway officer)
Mother – Hemprova …
