Suman Kalyanpur voice was a good competition to Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosale monopoly. In some songs it is hard to believe that it is Suman Kalyanpur and not Lata.
In retirement now for over 10 years, Suman Kalyanpur remains the only female playback singer who made a sustained impact in the era of Lata Mangeshkar-Asha Bhosle dominance. A successful professional for four decades, she has just won the Lata Mangeshkar award
The Versatile Diva
A hausfrau who was also a successful career woman, barely a tiny fraction of Suman Kalyanpur’s career was under her maiden name of Suman Hemmady, and arguably she was the first female playback singer of importance who balanced art and hearth.
Suman Kalyanpur perhaps recorded far less frequently than her talent deserved. Yet she spawned an enviably percentage of immortal songs and hits (mostly synonymous terms in those days), primarily in Hindi and Marathi films. But she also scored in devotionals, ghazal, Marathi bhavgeet, the occasional thumri and songs in Gujarati, Kannada (interestingly only under Hindi film composer Jaidev!), Bengali, Punjabi, Maithili, Oriya, Rajasthani, Assamese, Bhojpuri and many other languages, including Chhattisgarhi. Her legacy of priceless music continues to be heard by a legion of fans even as she lives like a recluse in Pune.
From the 1950s to the mid-’80s (her last hit song was Zindagi imtihan leti hai from the 1981 Naseeb for Laxmikant-Pyarelal, though she last recorded Saathi re o mere saathi for Bappi Lahiri’s Veerana in 1988) she had a fulfilling career. Suman was born on January 28, 1937 in Dhaka in East Bengal in undivided India where her family was based then. They shifted to Mumbai in 1943. In 1958, barely four years into her profession, she married industrialist Ramanand S. Kalyanpur.
The present day
“It’s not as if I have stopped singing just because I have not sung for films,” Suman Kalyanpur told Screen some years ago. “In any case, I never sang too many songs. In 1976 and 1977 I declined a good amount of work as I was preoccupied with my husband’s ill-health. And after that I never recorded for Marathi films as trends had changed. But I did occasional Hindi films, and my numbers from Badaltey Rishtey (Na jaane kaise with Rafi and Kishore) and Naseeb were hits. I also recorded for new composers like Rajesh Roshan (Jay-Vejay, Dillagi, Unnees Bees, Ek Aur Sikandar), Bappi Lahiri (Waqt Ki Pukar besides Veerana) and Anu Malik (Aapas Ki Baat).”
But Suman Kalyanpur later worked on various albums. She sang Ashtavinayak, a Marathi album in 1994, followed by an album of Sant Tukaram’s abhang and albums like He Govind He Gopal, Te Sur Aikataa and Kaise Karu Dhyan. Till the present day, Suman does her riyaaz regularly. T-Series released Sunehri Yaadein, a re-recorded two-volume pack of her film hits in 1997 with Sonu Niigaam and Babla Mehta for the duets.
Unlike many seniors, Suman finds the music scene decent from the ‘90s. She loved Lekin and likes A.R. Rahman. She admires technological changes that facilitate perfection. But she is against the remix concept.
Mangeshkar and Kalyanpur
Did she suffer from the Mangeshkar monopoly as always speculated?
The lady smiles and says placidly, “I like to look back and think whatever came to me was my destiny. I never had any burning ambitions and I think that I had a great career. I may have had 10 per cent of the quantity of work, but a very huge percentage of my songs have become hits. Actually I never had any specific intention of becoming a playback singer, and one more factor could be that someone always accompanied me to the recordings, so that a certain kind of professional associate was kept away.”
She goes on, “I must add one more important point. I never sang cabarets, mujras or any songs with lyricsor situations wherein the visuals would have offended everyone’s and my own sensibilities and upset my joint family and my in-laws. In any case, I always felt that I could not do justice to those kind of songs. My skills and tastes were both towards soft, melody-based numbers.”
The Lata Mangeshkar Award is testimony to the fact, perhaps, that there is no acrimony between the Mangeshkars and Suman Kalyanpur. Lata and Suman even sang the duet Kabhi aaj kabhi kal kabhi parson in Shart under Hemant Kumar.
At best, a certain vocal similarity and resemblance in style might have affected Suman’s career, or as she prefers to call, it, her destiny.
Life is for living
Suman’s interests include painting, embroidery, flower arrangement and gardening, and she was in the second year of Arts when she recorded her first song. “My family always loved music and I was quite fond of singing. Our neighbours included the famed Marathi musicians Keshavrao and Jyotsna Bhole. At one point I joined the music class in my school, where the famous music director Yeshwant Deo was a teacher. When I sang at a cultural programme in school, a relative of the Bholes was impressed and offered Yeshwant Deo and me a Marathi film called Shukraachee Chandani. My friends coerced me too. But the film never took off and after that I never sang in Marathi for a year.”
Take-off point
Talat Mahmood heard her at a concert and put her in touch with Saregama (then HMV), where Suman took a voice-test. Composer Mohammed Shafi heard her and signed her for Mangu. But soon afterwards, the film went to O.P. Nayyar, and of the four songs that she had recorded, only one lori was retained, Koi pukare dheere se tujhe. She then sang for small-time composer Nashad, whom she calls “a great talent”, in Darwaza in which she had two solos, Aag lage iss saawan mein and Chale hum to. Her breakthrough came with the song Meri preet mera pyar (Teerth-Yatra) in 1958.
“All my music directors had their own styles and strong points. All of them had something to teach and enhance my skills. If one music director’s songs were like basundi, another’s were like shrikhand. I must say that I was lucky to get memorable songs with every composer, including those who recorded only one or two songs with me, like Salil Chowdhury and R.D. Burman. Quantity-wise I sang most for Usha Khanna - over 100 songs - and Shankar-Jaikishan, for whom I sang over 50 songs that were mostly hits. Actually I am grateful to their assistant Dattaram, who employed my voice in almost 15 films like Shreeman Satyawadi and paved the way for Shankar-Jaikishan to call me. My last song for Dattaramji, Sun le Bapu yeh paigham from the 1969 release Balak was a major hit. My composers included Naushad, S.D.Burman, Roshan, Madan Mohan, Chitragupta, Shankar-Jaikishan, Kalyanji-Anandji, Laxmikant-Pyarelal and almost everyone else.”
The lucky co-singer
“In Hindi films I was considered lucky for duets,” recalls the singer. The co-singers ranged from Mohammed Rafi and Talat Mehmood to Mukesh, Manna Dey and Kishore Kumar. “But it is a myth that I sang very few solos, and I don’t know why the media perpetuated it. Again, though I sang a lot for B-grade films, I still have a 70 per cent hit percentage.”
Suman did benefit when Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammed Rafi did not record for a while in the early ‘60s, but that was a miniscule benefit in a truly illustrious career.
The Marathi grandslam
Suman’s first song in Marathi was the super-hit Bhaatuklichaa khel maandila for Vasant Prabhu, for the film Pasant Aahe Mulgi. After that she never looked back for over 20 years. Putra Vhawa Aisaa, Ekti, Manini and Annapoorna were but a few of her memorable films. But even outside films, her hits are legion and include over 50 timeless gems of Marathi films, bhavgeet and bhaktigeet.