Salil Chowdhury

Salil Chowdhury (Bengali: সলিল চৌধুরী; 'Sholil Choudhuri' in phonetic Wiki-Bengali; 19 November 1923 – 5 September 1995) was an Indian music composer, who mainly composed for Bengali, Hindi and Malayalam films. He was also a poet and a playwright. He is affectionately called Salilda by his admirers.

His musical ability was widely recognised and acknowledged in the Indian film industry. He was an accomplished composer and arranger who was proficient in several musical instruments, including flute, the piano, and the esraj. He was also widely acclaimed and admired for his inspirational and original poetry in Bengali language.

Career

Early influences

Salil Chowdhury was born on 19 November 1923 in a village called Harinavi in West Bengal. Salil's childhood was spent in the tea gardens region of Assam. From an early age he listened to the Western Classical collection of his father. His father was reputed to stage plays with coolies and other low-paid workers of the tea-gardens. He studied in Harinavi D.V.A.S High School and there after graduated from Bangabasi College, affiliated to the University of Calcutta in Kolkata, and during this period his political ideas were formulated along with a considerable maturity in his musical ideas.