Who was this man who made generations of Indians so happy? No formal training in music (he never learnt to read musical notes), yet a voice and a talent the likes of which have never been seen before or since. And not just a singer, though that is what he will be remembered most for. (When Satyajit Ray wanted someone to sing a song in Charulata with no musical accompaniment other than a piano, he turned to Kishore Kumar; Kishore’s voice, he declared, was the only one which could carry it off). The man was also an actor of enormous charm, a film director who could make people sniffle when he wanted to, a composer who pushed the limits, a film producer, writer and the maddest man in the history of the Hindi film industry. Is it an overstatement to say that he was one of the most talented men of 20th century India?

Of course, the man was, well, very dramatically eccentric. His 1985 interview in The Illustrated Weekly of India remains a classic. It was the portrait of a man, in his own words, who was not restrained by any set of norms or rules that make up that Freudian construct called superego. He talked about the trees in his garden that were his friends: “I took (a reporter) to the garden and introduced her to some of the friendlier trees. Janardhan; Raghunandan; Gangadhar; Jagannath; Buddhuram; Jhatpatajhatpatpat. I said they were my closest friends in this cruel world. She went and wrote this bizarre piece... What’s wrong with that, you tell me? What’s wrong making friends with trees?”

... contd.