Sandhya Mukherjee . . . in whose melody passion was poetry

In Sandhya Mukherjee's voice was the passion of every Bengali woman in love. All that pathos and pain and good cheer she brought into her songs rose from deep within her soul. Music was as spontaneous to Sandhya as monsoon rains are to the fertile landscape of Bengal. Sandhya Mukherjee was a natural, in every fibre of her musical being. Go back to ogo mor geetimoy, that song etched in the eternity of romance, and you will know of the ease with which she identifies with the pain coursing through the heart of the woman lip-syncing it on-screen.

Sandhya Mukherjee's voice had about it a grandeur that truly was an embodiment of the blessings divinity often causes to arise in a select band of mortals. And the voice came in perfect accompaniment to the beauty of the women she sang those songs for. When, therefore, Suchitra Sen breaks, suddenly and happily as it were, into tumi na hoy rohite kachhe, compelling enough for a surprised Uttam Kumar to stop dead in his tracks, Sandhya is all over the place. She is the artiste losing herself in the artiste that is Suchitra.

Just as Hemanta Mukherjee was inseparable from Uttam Kumar, Sandhya's voice consistently enhanced the appeal in Suchitra Sen.

But, then again, Sandhya's melody went beyond the artistes she sang for. The sublime underpinned her songs even as they related to matters of the heart, to a point where every young man listening to her sing invariably transposed the songs to his beloved, to the woman he secretly desired in the soul. Which Bengali man will not fall in love for the umpteenth time every time the room fills with aami shopne tomae dekhechhi? Sandhya had this unique ability to create, in her songs and in her delivery of the lyrics, a perfect image of the Bengali woman --- dusky features, dark flashing eyes, long tresses, a tinge of shyness and a heart throbbing in the fullness of emotion.

We who have grown to adulthood, indeed are in our sixties, have observed in Sandhya's songs a definitive permanence that they etched on our lives. The songs --- listen to ei to amar prothom phagun bela, ghum ghum chand, e shudhu gaaner din --- come to us, decades after she first mesmerized music aficionados with the sheer poetry they came wrapped in, in permanence which does not let go of us. And we have little desire to go beyond and away from Sandhya's songs. How many of us men have caused the heart to break in some of the women we once loved and yet could not consummate that love? Reflect on such a woman, heart splintering into pieces and yet loyal to the noble calling of love, in solitude giving voice to hoyto kichhui nahi pabo. That woman, singing perhaps even as the clouds threaten to break into pastoral showers, is Sandhya Mukherjee.

And, yes, there is requited love in such cheerful stirrings of the soul as modhur modhur baanshi baaje. An entirety of nature, images of blossoms and light, bring a spring to the steps of the woman in love. And that is where Sandhya succeeds again in causing a universality of melodic appeal. Hum that other number, modhumaloti daake aaye, and you will find this universe in the woman for whom romance is in the garden she happens to be traipsing through. Move on to ki mishti dekho mishti to spot the degree of excitement rise manifold in your being. Love, being naturally linked to the possessive, is what Sandhya gives voice to in tumi je amar ogo tumi je amar. A picture of supreme confidence in the beloved, in love shared, comes through. But then comes too the purely sensual in chondono palonke shue eka eka ki hobe. A woman waits in rising passion, in an intensity of desire only Sandhya can bring forth.

Sandhya Mukherjee was every inch an epitome of Bengali melody and yet she went forth to lend her voice to a number of songs in Hindi. In the movie Tarana, the duet she sings with Lata Mangeshkar --- bol papihe bol --- remains unbeaten in terms of quality. Sandhya's pronunciation of Hindi in the song as in other songs in the language is flawless, one more sign that Bengali artistes in India as also Bangladesh have consistently demonstrated an adaptive quality to singing in languages, Urdu and Hindi, not their own. Aaja re baalam tujhe meri qasam is testimony to her skills in Urdu melody and so is ye baat koi samjhaye re / kyun aaj nazar sharmaye re. There is too maine jo li angrhai in the movie Jaagte Raho. And that remembered number, sung with Hemanta? Aa ghupchup ghupchup pyaar karen in the movie Sazaa is melody which years ago introduced us to Sandhya's versatility.

Sandhya's duets with Hemanta were an inspiration for generations of lovers of Bengali modern and movie songs. It was happenstance which brought Sandhya and Hemanta together --- Geeta Dutt, who had been contracted for it but had withdrawn at the last moment, as we have been given to understand --- in ei poth jodi na shesh hoy. The song has endured the test of time, but so has all of Sandhya's songs. The song she shares with Hemanta --- ei je Bangla shoshyo shyamola --- is not much remembered, but it nevertheless remains a sign of the profundity of patriotism they brought into it. In ei chhonde chhonde bhora gondhe gondhe jhora / madhobir ei din jaaye jodi jaak is reflected the fullness of love between man and woman, two individuals for whom the world they have constructed for and between themselves is all. The rest is pointless. Listen to this song and then go to aaj krishnochurar abir niye akash khele holi. Poetry, rising through cheerful waves in the heart, has come full circle.

Sandhya Mukherjee's repertory is deep. You look for a song, only to find that you have come away with a handful. On a laidback day, it could be that the strains of amader chhuti chhuti will lengthen themselves across a clear sky on a cool afternoon, transporting you back to your childhood. Or there is history for you, when Sandhya Mukherjee sings Bangabandhu phire ele tomar shopner shadhin Bangla-e.

The star that was Sandhya Mukherjee in our lives today belongs in time and space, casting her luminosity on the stars she passes by. Her songs are heard in the cosmic region even as they are sung on this planet, a world which once was the playground of the pre-eminent melody maker that was our Sandhya, every Bengali's Sandhya. 

Syed Badrul Ahsan is a senior journalist, columnist & political commentator.