Mahendra Kapoorਮਹਿੰਦਰ ਕਪੂਰ

Mahendra Kapoor (9 January 1934 to 27 September 2008) was an Indian playback singer from Amritsar whose ringing, patriotic delivery made him one of the defining voices of Hindi cinema's golden era. He is remembered above all for Mere Desh Ki Dharti in the film Upkaar, a song that became an anthem of the Indian countryside, and for a five decade career in which he sang some two thousand five hundred songs across many Indian languages.

Amritsar to Bombay, in Rafi's shadow and light

Kapoor was born in Amritsar, Punjab, and the family moved to Bombay while he was still young. As a boy he fell under the spell of Mohammed Rafi, the great singer from Punjab whom he regarded all his life as his guru. He trained seriously in classical music under Pandit Hussanlal, Pandit Jagannath Bua, Ustad Niaz Ahmed Khan, Ustad Abdul Rehman Khan and Pandit Tulsidaas Sharma, shaping a style that was modelled largely on Rafi yet unmistakably his own: brighter, higher and built to soar.

His break came through a competition rather than a recommendation. Kapoor won the Metro Murphy All India singing competition, and the victory carried him to his playback debut in V. Shantaram's Navrang (1958), singing Aadha Hai Chandrama Raat Aadhi under composer C. Ramchandra. In an industry full of established voices it was a remarkable door to walk through, and he never really stopped working after it opened.

The voice of B. R. Chopra and Manoj Kumar

Two associations defined Kapoor's career. The first was with director producer B. R. Chopra, for whose films he sang many of his finest songs: Dhool Ka Phool, Gumrah, Waqt, Hamraaz, Dhund and Nikaah, and later the title theme of the television epic Mahabharat (1988), heard in millions of homes every week. The second was with actor director Manoj Kumar, whose patriotic films made Kapoor a household name. He lent his voice to Manoj Kumar and to Sunil Dutt in most of their films.

The songs from those years are now part of India's shared memory. Chalo Ek Baar Phir Se from Gumrah (1963) won him his first Filmfare Award. Hamraaz (1967) gave him Neele Gagan Ke Tale, Kisi Pathar Ki Moorat Se and Tum Agar Saath Dene Ka Wada Karo. And Upkaar (1967) gave Indian cinema Mere Desh Ki Dharti, the celebration of the farmer and the soil that won Kapoor the National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer and still opens agricultural programmes and school functions across the country. Purab Aur Paschim (1970) added Bharat Ka Rahnewala Hoon, and Roti Kapada Aur Makaan (1974) another Filmfare Award for Aur Nahin Bas Aur Nahin.

Why did Mahendra Kapoor become the voice of patriotic songs?

The fit was in the voice itself. His singing had an open, clarion quality, closer to a public address than a whisper, and composers reached for it when a song had to carry pride rather than romance. Manoj Kumar's films, Upkaar, Purab Aur Paschim and Kranti among them, built a whole cinema of national feeling, and Kapoor's voice, trained in classical music but projected like a folk singer's, became its natural instrument. Yet the patriotic shelf is only part of the record: the same voice carried some of the era's most tender love songs and some of its darkest laments.

Five languages and a very large repertoire

Kapoor's range ran well beyond Hindi film music. He sang in a large number of Indian languages, and he is credited as the playback singer who performed in the largest number of Gujarati, Punjabi, Bhojpuri and Marathi films. In Marathi cinema he was beloved as the voice of the comedian Dada Kondke, though his Marathi work ranged far wider than comedy. He was also the first Indian playback singer to record music in English, and later recorded a Hindi pop album, M-3, built on Boney M songs. For Punjabi audiences there is a particular pride in the connection: an Amritsar boy who carried a Punjabi singing tradition into the heart of Bombay's film industry, and duetted once with his own guru when the song Kaisi Haseen Aaj Baharon Ki Raat in Aadmi (1967) was re-recorded with Kapoor alongside Mohammed Rafi.

The Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri in 1972. He won three Filmfare Awards in all, state honours from Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Gujarat, and the Lata Mangeshkar Award in 2002. Kapoor was married, with three daughters and a son, Rohan Kapoor, who became an actor and singer and performed on stage with his father. Mahendra Kapoor died of cardiac failure at his home in Mumbai on 27 September 2008, aged seventy four. The songs have not aged at all: every harvest season, somewhere in India, Mere Desh Ki Dharti is still the first song the loudspeakers play.