THE TRUE STORY OF THE VOICE OF A GENERATION

This is the story of Kishore Kumar, the most outrageous performer of the Hindi film screen, loved for his voice, adored for his comedy and famous for his eccentricity. Big-screen performances such as Half Ticket, Pyar Kiye Jaa and Padosan could leave audiences in splits, but songs such as Koi Humdum Na Raha and Badi Sooni Sooni Hai could make them cry.

What was his life really like? Beginning with his time spent in Khandwa, Bhagalpur and Indore and going on to Bombay, this new biography tells all. A product of over 30 years of research, it goes beyond Kishore Kumar’s nearly 3,000 songs and his contributions to cinema, and reveals unknown facts about his four marriages, his runins with the government in the 1970s, and his health issues.

Anirudha Bhattacharjee, Parthiv Dhar

592pp, ₹699, HarperCollins