Bhishma Dev Chatterjee

A renowned music director in the Bengali Film industry, Bhishma Dev Chatterjee was an Indian Classical Music vocal artist. He was recognized and respected as a Guru (also known as Ustad) for his outstanding contribution to the music industry in the 1930s. He was born in Barrackpore, West Bengal, and had been interested in Hindustani music since his childhood. His exceptional skills made him a child prodigy and earned him the title of Ustad at the mere age of 12 years.

He did his schooling at Sanskrit Collegiate School in Calcutta. Later he joined Calcutta Training Academy after which he enrolled in the prestigious Vidyasagar College. He was imparted his first lesson in classical music from Shri Nagendranath Datta then trained under Khalifa Badal Khan of Delhi Gharana for fourteen years. Later, he received learnings from Ustad Faiyaz Khan from AGharanarana. HMV released his first album in May 1926 with two songs highlighting  Toppa of Nidhubabu.

His career took a turn in 1933 when Nazrul Islam Vishmadev asked him to join Megaphone Company as the music director and Instructor. He released his music records on Khayal. Later in the year 1936, Bhishma Dev was approached by J.N. Ghosh, the owner of the Megaphone Company, along with poet Ajay Bhattacharya Ajay Bhattacharya was an Indian poet, lyricist, pl >> Read More... to compose songs in Bengali language. He surprised them both with his talent by composing music for the poems written by Ajay Bhattacharya with ease. Moreover, the peak of his career came in the year 1937 when he joined Film Corporation as Music Director.

As a music director, he composed music for six Hindi and six Bengali movies. The first movie whose music he directed was “Rikta(1939)” in which he fused music styles from both East and West. It was the first time in the history of the Indian music industry to do that and thus became a milestone. Moreover, Sachin Dev Burman who went on to revolutionize the Indian music industry was Bhishma Dev’s assistant initially.

He has also trained the Rabindra Sangeet legend Chinmoy Chattopadhyay Chinmoy Chattopadhyay also known as Chinmoy Chatte >> Read More... for twelve years. His talent was recognized by UNESCO when it collected two records of his four songs to give an idea of Indian Music. Also, he is still remembered through a street in New Alipur, Kolkata which is named after him- Pd Vishmadev Chattopadhyay Sarani. In 2006, Kolkata Doorshan released a Documentary film on the life of Acharya Vishmadev Chattopadhyay.