Kishore Kumar

Kishore Kumar was the Hindi screen's great showman: a playback singer whose voice listeners adored, a comic actor who made audiences howl, and a man whose eccentricities were as famous as his talent. In films like Half Ticket, Pyar Kiye Jaa and Padosan he was pure mischief, yet songs such as Koi humdum na raha, Badi sooni sooni hai and Ghungroo ki tarah could leave the same audiences close to tears.

This biography, written by Parthiv Dhar with Anirudha Bhattacharjee, follows his path from his early years in Khandwa, Bhagalpur and Indore to Bombay, where he went to make a place for himself in the film world. It draws on more than thirty years of research, and it looks past the career milestones to the private and political sides of his life.

Alongside his nearly three thousand songs and his many contributions to cinema, the book covers his four marriages, his clashes with the government in the 1970s and his struggles with health. It is a full portrait of a performer whose work still shapes how Hindi film music sounds, written for readers who are meeting him for the first time as well as long-time fans. The book won the National Award for Best Book on Cinema in 2022.