India’s most celebrated pre-independence silver screen superstar, K.L Saigal would have been 114 years today.
Popularly known as the first superstar of Indian film industry, K.L. Saigal acted in more than 36 films – 28 in Hindi, seven in Bengali and one in Tamil. He sang around 185 songs including a mix of ghazals, films and non-films, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil and Persian.
Born as Kundanlal Saigal on April 11, 1904 in Jammu, the singer gave music lovers melodies like “Jab Dil Hi Toot Gaya”, “Bangla Bane Nyara”, “Hum Apna Unhe Bana Na Sake”, “Do Naina Matwale Tihare”, “Main Kya Janoon Kya Jadu”, “Babul Mora” and “Katibe Taqdeer’ among others.
Introduced to music in the 1930s, he quickly gained popularity in ghazal singing. His voice gave expression to the lost love in soul-stirring ghazals like “Premnagar mein bassaaoonga ghar main” and “Nuktacheen Hai Ghame Dil”.
Later, he signed a contract with B N Sircar’s film studio New Theatres where he was paid Rs 200 per month to work on their films. Saigal’s first movie was an Urdu film Mohabbat Ke Ansoo (1932). Thereafter, he starred in several movies like Subah Ke Sitare, Zinda Laash, Chandidas, Devdas and others. Devdas (1935), based on Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay novel of the same name, was the actor-singer’s first superhit film. It established him as a talented actor in the Indian film industry.
In 1935, Saigal married Asha Rani and had three children, one son and two daughters. Films like Bhakta Surdas, Tansen, Kurukshetra, Omar Khayyam, Tadbeer, Shahjahan and Parwana are a few of his other hit movies.
Unfortunately, due to alcoholism, the actor died at the early age of 42 in 1947. He is an inspiration for noted singers like Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar and Mohammad Rafi and for generations of musicians to come.