Gourikedar Bhattacharya

Gouri Kedar was born in 1916 in paraikora village of Chittagong district of East Bengal, British India. His family migrated to Varanasi and here, in his childhood, Gouri Kedar received music lessons from Dhrupadacharya Harinarayan Mukhopadhyay for three years. In the mid-twenties Gouri Kedar was sent to Calcutta for formal school education but he pursued his musical interest here also and was in fact rusticated from his school for singing during school hours and within the school premises. He started earning by giving music lessons. In 1933, he got his first chance to sing for All India Radio, Calcutta. His first gramophone record was published in February, 1937 from Hindustan Musical Products. The popularity of his songs resulted in more gramophone records, not only in his own name but also with different names like Gholam Kader for Islamic songs and Sukumar Bhattacharya for folk songs. In 1939, Gouri Kedar joined The Columbia and in 1940 he recorded songs for The Gramophone Company. 1945 was the year when he became an exclusive artiste of the company. In 1949, at the age of 26, he got married to Shefali Devi. From 1940 onwards, Gouri Kedar entered into a special contract to sing for version records of HMV. The songs included those from films Rattan, Baiju Bawra, Awara, Naya Daur Shree 420 and many others. Gouri Kedar's association with the film world started with two short Bengali films-Happy Club (1936) and Kuhu O Keka (1936). In 1940, he acted and sang his own song in the role of Baul in Nimai Sanyas. Other films included Chandrasekhar, both versions, Indrajaal, Ei To Jiban, Mahasampad, Ek Aurat, Mouchake Dhhil and many others as singer music director or assistant music director. In 1955 Gouri Kedar dissociated himself from The Gramophone Company. Thereafter he slowly drifted towards spiritual world and became closely associated with Bharat Sevasram Sangh and singing only devotional songs. On the 23rd of Ap[ril, 1974 he took Sanyas. His name became Mohanta Chandrasekhar Giri. On 8th February 1983, he breathed his last.