Kishore’s ancestral home may turn museum
Legendary Bollywood singer Kishore Kumar’s ancestral home in Madhya Pradesh’s Khandwa may soon be converted into a museum if the initiative taken by the local administration bears fruit.
Khandwa district SDM Mamata Khede on Tuesday visited “GauriKunj”, where late singer and his two other brothers Ashok and Anup were born, to inspect the condition of the building.
“We are going to submit a proposal to the Madhya Pradesh government to renovate the house which is in a dilapidated condition and turn into a museum in memory of the legendary playback singer,” Ms Khede told this newspaper on Tuesday.
The initiative by the local administration came after the Kishore Kumar cultural association, a group of die-hard fans of the singer, met the Khandwa district collector Anay Dwivedy on Monday and demanded to take over the building and convert it into a museum.
“If Pakistan government develops ancestral homes of Bollywood legends Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor in its country by purchasing them from their legal heirs, why cannot our country do the same for Kishore Kumar to honour him,” the association president Sunil Jain asked. He said his association has been demanding to develop ‘Gauri-Kunj’ as a museum for the last 15 years.
According to Ms Khede, Kishore Kumar’s son Amit and the latter’s cousin Arjun are now the joint owners of the property.
The 6,000-sq-ft property was developed by the late singer’s father Kunjlal Ganguli, a local lawyer.
Kishore Kumar, who passed away on October 13, 1987, completed his school in Khandwa and higher education in Indore before moving to Mumbai after being called by his actor brother Ashok Kumar.