Salil Chowdhury was an Indian song writer, music director, writer and poet who composed for Bengali, Hindi and Malayalam films.

Salil Chowdhury composed music for the first Bengali film “Paribortan” released in 1949. He was writing the short story about a peasant who was disowned of his land and had gone to Calcutta to earn money as a Riksha puller. Bimal Roy taking this story for his film “Do Bigha Zamin”. Chowdhury was composed music for this film. Film was awarded the All India Certificate of Merit for Best Feature Film. Film won Filmfare Award for Best Film and Best Director (1954). The first Indian Film to win the International Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

After working for about 20 years in Bengali and Hindi films, he entered the Malayalam film industry in 1964. Chowdhury would usually ask the film maker to explain the situation to him, then he would compose a tune to suit the mood and the lyric writer would set in words.

Chowdhury’s music was blending of Eastern and the Western music tradition. He was the founder of Bombay Youth Choir.

Photo courtesy Google. Excerpts taken from Google.