Salil Chowdhury’s versatility as a music composer unique in style, creativity and expression flourished during his stint with Bimal Roy Films. In Do Bigha Zamin, there is a beautiful lullaby by Lata Mangeshkar, Aajaa re aaja lip-synched by Meena Kumari in a guest appearance. Juxtaposed against this are the two peasant songs, Hariyala saawan dhol bajata aaya and Dharti kahe pukar ke, one of which is taken from the Russian Red March, in keeping with the Leftist spirit of the film. Both these songs were in chorus led by the robust baritone of Manna Dey. The background score uses Western music. Do Bigha ... remains the best example of Salilda’s mass songs written and composed for the IPTA back in Bengal.
Sabita Chowdhury was felicitated for completing 50 years of singing Bengali songs. The organisers presented her with a memento while Vishwas Nerurkat presented her with two of his books of which, one was on composer Madan Mohan and the other was on Kishore Kumar. The programme also took the opportunity to release an audio CD of the music maestro’s compilation of Salilda’s compositions for Malayalam films of yore. Salilda had taken the Malayalam film music world by storm when he first composed the music for Chemeen which won the National Award for Best Film the following year. The CD has been brought out by Saregama HMV. Bhanu Gupta, one of the best-known harmonica players in the country, who later learnt the guitar all by himself, was a close associate of Salilda for more than three decades.
The best rendering in songs in the entire evening was performed by Salilda’s daughter, Antara, sometimes accompanied by her mother. Their opening number was a famous song from Salilda’s Indian People’s Theatre of India’s repertory, O Alo Patho Jatri, e-je Raatri, ekhaane themonaa.
