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‘Demeaning ’: Bengali singer Sandhya Mukherjee, 90, declines Padma offer
Veteran playback singer, Sandhya Mukherjee, according to a family friend, said the Padma Shri is not an award that should be conferred on a veteran like her and it would be demeaning for her to accept it,
KOLKATA: Sandhya Mukherjee, the most veteran among female playback singers and musicians in Bengal, received a phone call from a government official for her consent to receive the Padma Shri on Tuesday afternoon but she refused, a family friend said on condition of anonymity.
The Centre announced the list of awardees late on Tuesday evening.
The singer, who lives in the Lake Gardens area of south Kolkata, is considered a legend for rendering thousands of songs for Bengali cinema and her albums of modern and semi-classical music. Her duets with the legendary Hemanta Mukherjee, who became popular in the Hindi film industry as Hemant Kumar, are considered assets by millions of her fans.
“She said an official from Delhi called her up in the afternoon. She told him that Padma Shri is not an award that should be conferred on a veteran like her. It would be demeaning for her to accept it,” the family friend said, citing a conversation with the singer.
Born in 1931, Sandhya Mukherjee recorded her first song in 1948 for the Hindi movie Anjaan Garh. The music was directed by Rai Chand Boral. She sang under the direction of famous composers such as S D Burman, Roshan and Madan Mohan.
Mukherjee received the Banga Bibhusan, the highest civilian honour given by the West Bengal government in 2011 and the National Film Award for best female playback singer in 1970 for the movies Jay Jayanti (a Bengali remake of Sound of Music) and Nishi Padma. Nishi Padma was remade in Hindi as Amar Prem, starring Rajesh Khanna.
