Himangshu Dutta (1908–1944) was a music composer in the Bengali music industry. He appeared in the arena of Bengali music during the period when legendary composers like Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Atulprasad Sen were delivering at full swing but Himangshu Dutta proved his uniqueness without any problem. Songs composed by him is usually known as “Himangshu Dutta-er Gaan” (song of Himangshu Dutta).
Background
Himangshu Dutta was born in Comilla (currently in Bangladesh) in the year of 1908. His father was Jogendrachandra Dutta and mother Nirada Devi. He was the fifth child of the couple. He received his schooling at Comilla and passed the entrance examination from Comilla Zilla School in 1924. After that he came to Kolkata and joined Presidency College to get the ISC degree. He received his bachelor degree from Vidyasagar College under Calcutta University.
Jogendrachandra was very fond of music and eminent musicians of Comilla used to visit his house in regular manner. This not only helped child Himangshu to listen quality classical music at his very young age but also to get closer to various forms of music like Dhrupad, Kheyal, Gazal, Lokogiti, and other various local music forms of Comilla.
Himangshu Dutta’s mother was also a noted singer of that time and she used to sing Rabindrasangeet to his sons and daughters. Himangshu Dutta received the first lessons of music from her mother.
Himangshu Dutta learned Dhrupad from Acharya Shyamacharan Dutta and Bhajan from Ustad Khasru Miya, and Pandit Khitimohan Sensashtri. He also received training on classical music from his elder brother Shachindra Dutta.
Career
Before reaching his teenage, Himangshu Dutta started singing Brambhasangeet and Bhajan in different local functions at Comilla.
In the year 1922 Himangshu Dutta composed music for a song whose lyric was written by his classmate Subodh Purokayastha. Himangshu sang the song in a function of his school. The duo, Himangshu and Subodh, later gave the Bengali audience a vast number of super-hit songs.
In 1923 Rabindranath Tagore visited Comilla and the young boy sang Rabindrasangeet in a public function in front of Rabindranath Tagore. Rabindranath appreciated it very much.
Beside having a deep interest in music composition, Himangshu Dutta was an avid notation writer from the very young age. He wrote notations for various musicians including Atulprasad Sen and Rabindranath Tagore. Maestros like Pankaj Kumar Mullick also mentioned this point in his writing.
Himangshu Dutta came into contact with singer Dr. Sudhamadhab Dutta in the year of 1928 and in 1929 Dr. Dutta sang two “Himangshu Dutta-er Gaan” from All India Radio, Kolkata. This is possibly the first occurrence at which Bengali audience got the taste of Himangshu Dutta over radio. From this point onwards, Dr. Sudhanmadhab Dutta used to sing “Himangshu Dutta-er Gaan” from All India Radio at every Sunday.
In the year 1931 Gramophone Company of India released the first record based on the composition of Himangshu Dutta. The artist was Haripada Roy. In the same year, the company also published another record from its HMV division where Sati Devi was the singer. This marked as the beginning of a maestro in the history of so-called modern Bengali songs.
Himangshu Dutta used both Indian classical music and western harmony to bring a complete new type of music in the history of Bengali music composition. Beside composing music for basic Bengali song, Gazal, and Ragpradhan, he also composed music for a number of Bengali as well as Hindi film songs. In the year 1934, he entered the world of film industry through the film called “Taruni”. In the next ten years he worked as composers in many Bengali as well as Hindi films.
Himangshu Dutta composed music for various lyricists like Subodh Purokayastha, Ajay Bhattacharyya, Sailen Roy, Sunirmal Basu, Mamata Mitra, Premendra Mitra, Binay Mukhopadhyay, Pranab Roy and many others. He also composed music for Kaji Nazrul Islam.
Almost all renowned singers of that time like Haripada Roy, Umapada Bhattacharyya, Sati Devi, Kanak Das, Saila Devi, Sabitri Ghosh, Kanak Das, Tarapada Chakraborty, Suprava Sarkar, Supriti Ghosh, Jaganmay Mitra etc. recorded “Himangshu Dutta-er Gaan”.
Artists like Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay, Sachin Dev Burman, Sandhya Mukhopadhyay, Pratima Bandyopadhyay, Shyamal Mitra, Manabendra Mukhopadhyay, Aarti Mukherji, Kabir Suman also recorded his song successfully.
His compositions for songs like "Aloko Andhar Jetha Kore Khela", "Alo Chaya Dola", Champa Chameli Beli", "Chand Kohe Chameli Go", "Chameli Melo Ankhi", "Tumi Je Andhar", "Tomari Potho Pane Chahi", "Nishithe Chole Himelo Bai", "Boroshar Megh Name", "Bidayer Sesh Bani", "Birohini Chiro Birohini", "Jodi Dokhina Pobono Ashiya", "Rater Deule Jage", and many others will remain as favorites to the audience of Bengali songs forever.
Himangshu Dutta died in the year of 1944. He was just thirty six years old at that point of time.