Singer K.L. Saigal's biography re-released

It was an emotional moment for legendary singer Kundan Lal Saigal's grandson Rabinder Chopra as he witnessed the re-release of the national-award winning biography on his grand father in a paperback edition Monday.

'It is a great honour to be his grand son and be part of the family tree of a legend. Though I could not meet my 'nanaji' (maternal grand father), I feel proud to be associated with him,' said Rabinder Chopra, son of Saigal's late daughter Bina Chopra. The re-release of the singer's biography also marked his 63rd death anniversary.

Titled 'Kundan', the book has been penned by Sharad Dutt, a former director of the Delhi Doordarshan Kendra.

First released in hardbound on Saigal's birth centenary in 2004, the 2005 national award winning book by Penguin was unveiled by former information and broadcasting minister Vasant Sathe at a function organised by Saigal Sangeet Sarita (SSS) at the Films Division Auditorium.

A documentary on Saigal entitled 'Saigal aye, baso more man mein', directed by Dutt, was also screened at the function. The film was released with the book in 2004.

Amarjit Singh Kohli, organising secretary of SSS, also appealed to the government to name a flyover or a road in the capital in memory of the singer, who had stayed in Delhi for some time in the 1930s.

Some of Saigal's all-time hits are 'Jab dil hi toot gaya', 'Ek bangla bane nyara', 'Dukhake din aab bitat nahin', 'Duniyamen hun duniyaka talabgaar nahin hun' and 'So ja rajkumari so ja'.

Saigal was born in Jammu, where his father was a tehsildar at the court of the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir. He took to music in the 1930s after the Kolkata-based film studio New Theatres, owned by B.N. Sircar, hired him. Before that, he worked as a salesman at Remington Typewriters there.

Having received his grounding in Indian classical music from Ustad Fayyaz Khan, Saigal was afraid of his father who was against his singing. The multilingual artist thus started singing in his initial movies under the name of Saigal Kashmiri.

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