कमल दासगुप्ता

Kamal Dasgupta (28 July 1912 – 20 July 1974), later known as Kamal Uddin Ahmed, was a Bengali music director, composer, and singer active across Hindi and Bengali cinema, best remembered for his work in ghazal, thumri, and modern Bengali song. Born in Kalia village, Narail, in undivided Bengal, he matriculated from Calcutta Academy in 1928 and later trained in music under Dilip Kumar Roy, K.C. Dey, and Jamiruddin Khan; in 1943 he earned a doctorate in music from Banaras Hindu University for research on the bhajan compositions of Meerabai.

Dasgupta joined the Gramophone Company of India as a music director in 1935 and became closely associated with the poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, composing music for close to 400 of his songs (Nazrulgeeti). His Hindi film career began in earnest after director Pramathesh Barua, impressed by his music, gave him a break on Jawab (1942), which became a hit; he went on to score Hindi films including Hospital (1943), Rani (1943), Meghdoot (1945), Arabian Nights (1946), Bindiya (1946), Zamin Aasman (1946), Faisla (1947), Manmani (1947), Chander Shekhar (1948), Iran Ki Ek Raat (1949), and Phulwari (1951), alongside roughly eighty Bengali films. Over his career he is credited with composing music for around 8,000 songs across Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, and Tamil.

In 1955-56 he converted to Islam, took the name Kamal Uddin Ahmed, and married the celebrated Nazrulgeeti singer Feroza Begum; the couple eventually settled in East Pakistan/Bangladesh. During the Bengal famine of 1943 he devoted much of his personal fortune to running langarkhanas (relief kitchens) for the starving and destitute. He is also credited with devising a shorthand system for swaralipi (Bengali musical notation). Kamal Dasgupta died on 20 July 1974 in Dhaka.