Being a singer myself[not professional...but not amateur either... well...you can say, In the Making!], I truly owe a great part, or rather everything to two people, which finally results into a single person only. Well, I won't go on to confuse you any further, and what I mean is that the two persons I owe my singing to are my father[he sings, so it's literally in my genes], and the other, too big a name to say, Kishore Kumar....well...you actually run out of superlatives to describe the singing GOD. I owe them my singing, and the fact that it leads to one person only means that even my father owes his singing to Kishore Kumar, since my father, a beautiful singer, learnt everything by listening to, and singing Kishoreda's songs. So, in a big way, Kishore Kumar has greatly influenced my life.
I can think of very few singers, whom I genuinely admire, apart from Kishore Kumar, whom I not only admire, but also worship. So, the main thing is that practically, I've grown up listening to songs of Kishore Kumar, right since my childhood, till date. You may or may not believe it, but I actually have found flaws in two of Mohd. Rafi...the great Mohd. Rafi's songs! But never ever in Kishoreda's songs. Well, he was GOD! How could he make mistakes after all.
Take any song of his and you will find that no other singer has dared to sing all genres. Sad, Romantic, Fast, Catchy, Slow, Upbeat, Adventurous[can you imagine a song to be adventurous? But that's Kishoreda's magic], Emotional, Comedy....EVERYTHING! The most astonishing fact is that Kishoreda never ever learnt music! Can you believe it? Yes, that Kishoreda never learnt singing or any music, is a truth, but still, he became a singer that the universe sees once in it's course of disintegration and rebirth. The sun may expand, blast, cool off, and be reborn, but a singer like Kishore Kumar can never be reincarnated.
Born as Abhas Kumar Ganguly on the 4th August, 1929, to a lawyer, Mr. Kunjilal Ganguly, in a small town of Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh, Kishoreda was tagged a 'failed singer' by his elder brother, the great actor Ashok Kumar. This did not deter Kishoreda from pursuing his singing, and he vowed that he would prove all others wrong, including his brother. ComposerSalil Chaudhary, who had initially said that Kishore Kumar couldn't sing, went on to sign him for every movie he composed for thereafter! As a student in college too, Kishoreda would memorize all his answers by composing them into a song!
He was a complete artist, a singer, a composer, a writer, a lyricist, an actor, a director, a producer, and gained huge success in every field. Some called him mad, due to his activities, but that was because he was a humorous person. Some incidents regarding this are that he would always take his harmonium and climb up the roof of his house whenever income tax officers used to come to his house, and NO...he did not have any issues, but just that he liked to have a little fun, and he would say always, "Peeche Pad Gaya Income Taxam, Jai Govindam Jai Gopalam!". A little known fact is that once, he actually demanded that he be allowed to record a song standing upside down....and guess what....He actually recorded the song that way. Even RD Burman, one of the greatest composers India has ever seen, and Kishoreda's friend, acknowledged Kishoreda's genius, and used to include Kishoreda's song in all his ventures. RD Burman even openly admitted that he was bias towards Kishoreda. In RD Burman's own words, "How Rafi struggled as Asha so exemplarily stretched the crucial Aaha-ha aa jaa aaha-ha aa jaa notes. Give me Kishore any time - he would've latched on to it in a trice!” and “Only I know how I got Rafi to do Tum ne mujhe dekhaa! ” insisted Pancham. “With OP, remember, Rafi was on his home Punjabi ground. I don't agree I was more patient with Kishore, not so patient I was with Rafi, he slipped into the same vocal error - time and again. Kishore - you had to teach him but once, he was onto it like a shot. See the feel Kishore brought to Chingaree koii bhadke. But that's straight Bhairavi even for Kishore.”
Be it the lowest pitch or the highest, Kishoreda's voice remained the same, and the tonal quality never suffered. Hail Kishoreda, the greatest singer ever to step on the planet Earth...There are people who come and go, but Kishoreda will remain...
