मुकेश

Mukesh Chand Mathur (22 July 1923 – 27 August 1976), known simply as Mukesh, was one of Hindi cinema's most beloved playback singers — the voice of longing, of the working-man's sorrow, of Raj Kapoor's screen persona for three decades. Born in Delhi to a middle-class family, Mukesh came to Bombay in the early 1940s, his voice modelled initially on K.L. Saigal. His debut breakthrough came with 'Dil Jalta Hai Toh Jalane De' for the film Pehli Nazar (1945) — a song that immediately identified his characteristic tone: the catch in the throat, the open nasal resonance, the quality that listeners described as 'the voice that weeps without crying'. He became the permanent playback voice for Raj Kapoor and a regular collaborator of Shankar-Jaikishan, Kalyanji-Anandji and Laxmikant-Pyarelal. He died on tour in Cleveland, Ohio, in August 1976, mid-sentence as it were — in full active career.