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http://web.mid-day.com/news/city/2003/july/58053.htm
Kishore Kumar's son debuts today
By: Mayank Shekhar
July 9, 2003
The yodel is back. Sixteen years after Kishore Kumar, one the greatest popular vocalists of the last century left us to a generation of impersonators, his youngest son, Sumit Kumar (21), turns a playback singer today.
He will leave home at Kishore Kumar Ganguly Marg at Juhu in the evening to don headphones and reach for a microphone at an Andheri studio for a film, Mudda - The Issue.
That puts the second Kishore Kumar scion on the music charts, after Amit Kumar, who had a good run in the '80s but spawned a career nowhere close to his illustrious father or his top contemporaries.
Amit (49) was Kumar's son from his first marriage to Ruma Guha Thakurata, while Mithibai College graduate Sumit's mother is Kumar's last wife, the '70s movie actress Leena Chandavarkar.
The obvious curiosity before the album is cut, remains: does he sound like his inimitable father? The album is composed by Jeet-Pritam for writer-director Saurabh Shukla's debut film.
"He yodels like him. That's what the press said when he performed on stage once" says his mother, Chandavarkar, to explain the inevitable comparisons between her husband and son.
"As a mother I obviously think he sings well, the rest is for the public to decide. He is 21, but looks 17. At that age, even Kishore Kumar didn't sound like Kishore Kumar. He's too young to give voice to mature actors. In the film, he sings for Raj Babbar's son (Arya Babbar), which makes sense."
Like his father, Sumit isn't a trained singer. "I play the keyboard and arrange music. The singing assignment happened all of a sudden. But it's not the same as baba.
"He was god-gifted" says Sumit, who has memories of his father despite the fact that he was only five when the great man passed away.
"I used to be quite plump and shifty when I was a kid and my father would call me 'gabdu lal banjara'! Baba was extremely loud and jovial and I remember how he'd enter home, call out for me and give me chocolates and toys."
The producer of Sumit's debut film Mudda - The Issue, Raju Mavani, whose "sole decision it was to sign him up," incidentally hasn't heard him sing.
"He is Kishore Kumar's son and that is enough for me," says Mavani, his lips sealed on promotional plans devised specifically with the singer in mind.
The similarities between the father and son in a sense extend to their versatile interests.
Says Chandavarkar, "He is heavily into dancing, mostly at college functions, and has also initiated the Kishore Kumar Dancing Institute."
Next, we hear - though the young boy pleads it's too early to mention - he is to turn actor.
For now, the 21-year-old, on whose shoulders sit the legacy of an unparalleled comedian-crooner, will render his first film number today, dedicated to his "baba".
What songs did Amit Kumar sing?
Edited By DragunR2 on 1057897440
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