Himangshu Dutta

Himangshu Dutta (Bengali: হিমাংশু দত্ত; 1908 – 15 November 1944) was a Bengali music director. Amongst several contemporary legendary composers of his time as Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, and Atulprasad Sen, Dutta is renowned for his unique and melodious composition of music. Songs composed by him is usually known as "Himangshu Dutta-er Gaan" (songs of Himangshu Dutta). The Saraswat Samaj of Dhaka awarded him the title 'Surasagar' (Sea of Music) for his contribution to Bengali music. He himself was an accomplished singer as well.

Himangshu Dutta died on 15 November 1944 at the age of 36.

Himangshu started using 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, Ghazal, and Ragapradhan, 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.

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, and Himangshu emerged as a star in the history of so-called modern Bengali songs.

In 1928, Himangshu met singer Dr. Sudhamadhab Dutta. Next year, Dr. Dutta sang two songs composed by Himangshu at 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, Sudhamadhab continued singing "Himangshu Dutta-er Gaan", broadcast by All India Radio every Sunday.

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.

In the year 1922 Himangshu Dutta composed music for a song whose lyric was written by his classmate Subodh Purkayastha (subodh purkayastha er gaan). 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.

Himangshu Dutta was born in Comilla (now in Bangladesh) in 1908, to Jogendrachandra Dutta and Nirada Devi. He was the fifth child of the couple. After receiving primary and secondary education at Comilla and passing the entrance examination from Comilla Zilla School in 1924, he came to Kolkata and joined Presidency College to get the ISC degree. He received his bachelor degree from Vidyasagar College under Calcutta University.