Stalwart singer Suman Kalyanpur passes on at age 89

Mumbai: Weeks after Asha Bhosle passed away April 12, India lost another stalwart singer Suman Kalyanpur at age 89 on Sunday. Her voice bore such striking similarity to that of melody queen Lata Mangeshkar that common listeners sometimes mistook one for the other.

Born Suman Hemmady on January 28, 1937, in Dhaka (undivided India), she went on to make a glorious career as a playback singer in Hindi and Marathi apart from a few other Indian languages. Her non-film songs span bhajans, ghazals and Marathi abhang and bhavgeet.

After completing school from St Columba, Mumbai, an artistic Suman enrolled in the JJ School of Art to learn painting. She went on to learn vocal music from Pt Keshavrao Bhole, Ustad Khan Abdul Rehman Khan and Master Navrang.

Her early successes came in two films ‘Shukrachi Chandni’ and ‘Mangu’ (1954) followed by a colourful pyramid layered with ‘Sharaabi sharaabi, yeh saawan ka mausam’, ‘Rahein na rahein hum’, ‘Aajkal tere mere pyar ke charche’, ‘Na na karte pyaar’, ‘Na tum hamein jaano’, ‘Parbaton ke pedon par’ and ‘Nimbonichya zhaada maage’. Her duets with Mohammed Rafi peaked in the early 1960s, driven by the Lata-Rafi rift.

As news of her death broke Sunday, NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar and singer Fayyaz were among the first to express condolence.

Pawar said, "The news of the passing of Suman Kalyanpur is extremely heartbreaking. With her sweet, melodious, and soul-stirring voice, she enriched the world of Indian music. Her immortal songs in Hindi, Marathi, and numerous other regional languages have reigned supreme over the emotional realms of generations. With her demise, the curtains are drawn on an era of gold in Indian classical and light music. I offer my heartfelt tribute to her and extend my condolences to her family."

Suman had married businessman Ramanand Kalyanpur in 1958. She is survived by her daughter Charu and son-in-law Manoj Agny. They did not respond to calls and texts Sunday.