Full-size statues of SD Barman, Kishore Kumar installed on Southern Avenue
Kolkata: Full-size statues of Sachin Dev Barman and Kishore Kumar were installed on a boulevard on Southern Avenue on Monday afternoon.
The statues are one of a kind in India where one finds SD in a sitting posture, while Kishore Kumar is standing behind him. SD considered Kishore Kumar to be his second son.
The statues were unveiled by Amit Kumar, Debashis Kumar, Member Mayor-in-Council (parks and squares), Anatara Chowdhury and Saikat Mitra. Hundreds of music lovers were present
at the function.
The boulevard where the statues have been installed is situated opposite the one having a statue of RD Burman and across is the main entrance of Nazrul Mancha.
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has allowed Amit Kumar Fan club to install the statues on the boulevard. The fan club has earlier installed the
statue of RD.
The boulevard is situated close to South End Park where SD had constructed a house and stayed with his wife Meera in the late 1930s.
He left for Mumbai in 1944 but was a frequent visitor to the city. The house is now in a shambles and SD's fans have approached the KMC to renovate the house and set up a museum after his name.
SD had composed for 20 Bengali and 89 Hindi feature films. SD had sung some of the unforgettable Bengali folk songs like "Takdum takdum baje", "Tora ke jas bhati gan gaiya," and modern Bengali songs like "Bore gandhe chonde geeti te."
Almost all the Indian vocalists had sung songs composed by SD like Geeta Dutt, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Shamdsad Begum, Hemant Kumar, Manna Dey, Kishore Kumar, Mohammad Rafi, Mukesh and
Talat Mahmood.
In 1958, SD composed the songs for famous Hindi film where three Ganguly brothers, Ashok Kumar, Anup Kumar nd Kishore Kumar acted along with Madhubala. In 1969, "Aradhana" was released and it became a super duper hit. In 1965, SD composed the music in "Guide" where the songs sung by Rafi and Kishore became very popular.
SD had a stroke and could not be present at the studio when Kishore Kumar's immortal song "Badi Sooni Sooni" in "Milli" was being recorded in 1975.
