Kishore Kumar B'day Spl: 10 Evergreen Heart-Wrenching Songs

Updated: Monday, August 4, 2014, 16:03 [IST]

Kishore Kumar was born on August 4th, 1929 and today we are celebrating his 85th birthday. He was a popular Indian film playback singer, actor, lyricist, composer, producer, director, screenplay writer and scriptwriter.

Kishore was introduced to the world of cinema by his elder brother Ashok Kumar who was already a star in the film industry and did you know, Kishore Kumar's first song recorded as a playback singer was for Dev Anand's Ziddi (1948). The song was a ghazal composed by Prem Dhawan called 'Marne ki duayen kyun mangoon'.

He was the most successful playback singer, the Bollywood industry has ever seen. He sang in many Indian languages including Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Bhojpuri, Malayalam, Oriya, and Urdu.

The legend was born into the Bengali Ganguly family in Khandwa, Central Provinces and Berar (now in Madhya Pradesh) as Abhas Kumar Ganguly. While Kishore was still a child, his brother Ashok became a Bollywood actor. Later, he also ventured into cinema with his brother's help where he became interested in films and music and the rest is history. He idolized KL Saigal and considered him his guru, started his career as a chorus singer in the film Bombay Talkies which featured his brother Ashok Kumar in the lead role.

He has won many accolades for his heart wrenching songs and he has won many awards for the same as well. He won 8 Filmfare Awards for Best Male Playback Singer and holds the record for winning the most Filmfare Awards in that category. He was awarded the "Lata Mangeshkar Award" by the Madhya Pradesh government and from that year onwards, the Madhya Pradesh Government initiated a new award called the "Kishore Kumar Award" for contributions to Hindi cinema.

His songs are famous all over the world and some of his sad songs will make you cry at the drop of a hat. Kishore Kumar songs are addictive and here are his 10 best evergreen heart-wrenching songs.