Singer Anup Ghoshal, best known as the voice of Goopi Gyne in Satyajit Ray’s Goopi-Bagha films, passed away at a city hospital on Friday. He was 78.
Ghoshal’s doctoral thesis from Rabindra Bharati University was on Nazrulgeeti, in which he was proficient as a performer. He also sang songs of other composers, light classical and folk music as well as modern Bengali songs.
Sangeetacharya Tarapada Chakraborty and Debabrata Biswas were among his teachers.
His first break as a playback singer came in Satyajit Ray’s 1969 film Goopi
Gyne Bagha Byne. Kishore Kumar was unavailable to act and sing as Goopi, as was originally conceived by Ray, who then cast Tapen Chatterjee in the village singer’s role and chose Ghoshal to sing for him.
Ray’s compositions for Goopi that Ghoshal gave voice to included Dekho re nayan mele, Bhuter raja dilo bor and O montrimoshai.
Ghoshal got a National Award for singing in the sequel Hirak Rajar Deshe in 1980, which featured songs like Aha ki ananda. He had an open-throated pitching style, which suited the character’s simplicity.
Ghoshal was the music composer in Tapan Sinha’s 1970 Dilip Kumar-Saira Banu starrer Sagina Mahato, in which his duet with Arati Mukherjee, Chhoti si panchhi, became popular.
R.D. Burman introduced him to Hindi film playback with the song Tujhse naraaz nahi zindagi from the film Masoom (1983). Ghoshal was a friend of the film’s producer Devi Dutt.
“If you take that voice away, I don’t think that the song would have the same meaning,” director Shekhar Kapur has said in an interview.
His other film hits include Ek ochin pakhi in Banchharamer Bagan and Mohun
Bagan East Bengaler khela hoyechhe in Mohunbaganer Meye.
Other than Bengali and Hindi movies, he sang in Bhojpuri and Assamese films.
Ghoshal entered politics and won the Uttarpara Assembly seat in Hooghly district in the 2011 Bengal Assembly elections on the Trinamul Congress ticket.
But in 2016, he was denied a ticket. He was not seen in any party programme for several years.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee condoled his death. “I express my deep grief and condolence over the death of Anup Ghoshal who had sung in Bengali, Hindi and other languages,” she said.