Abhijeet Bhattacharya

30 Oct, 1958 |

Singer

Biography

Abhijeet was born as Abhijeet Bhattacharya in a middle-class Bengali family from Kanpur (UP). His parents were against his singing but Abhijeet went against his parent's wishes to become a singer. In Kanpur, his family members were all into music and were educated professionals. Money was never a contextual concern. In Kanpur, education and culture were all his family courted, leisure was driving around the tree-lined lanes on bicycles. Confident and feted for his success, today the star-singer lives in a Bollywood dream bungalow (named Sunny vistas) of white façade and red-tiled roof. He was the apple of the eye of the community for his singing talents and pampered and cosseted by a fond family. Abhijeet was the youngest of four brothers. He came to Mumbai in 1981 to study chartered accountancy. But owing to his fascination for singing and music he decided to pursue a career in playback singing. Despite being gifted with a melodious voice, he had to struggle for a very long time. During his struggle period, due to economic constraints, Abhijeet had to reside in tiny rooms and stingy guesthouses. He returned to Kanpur but each time was drawn to the magnetism of Mumbai with a dream to be fulfilled. He was packing his bags after a long struggle in Bombay when he received a call from R.D. Burman to sing for Dev Anand's son's debut film. Abhijeet also got to sing with Kishore Kumar, his idol, in the same film. It all happened to Abhijeet as he received a new lease of life when music director Ravindra Jain gave him an offer to live with him. It was during his stay with Ravindra that Abhijeet's proximity to Bollywood grew in a phased and gradual manner. He began visiting R.D. Burman's residence and started getting frequent opportunities to sing for stage shows. Abhijeet got opportunities to sing as a chorus singer for music directors Rajesh Roshan and Jagjit Singh. It was R.D. Burman who acted like a mentor to Abhijeet and gave him his first break as a playback singer in Dev Anand's Anand Aur Anand. The song was, 'Waadon ki shaam aayi, yaaron ke naam aayi'. But the film flopped and he was struggling to find work again. For quite a few years after that he resorted to singing cover versions of Kishore Kumar hits. In the 1990s he got his due reward when the songs of Baaghi of Anand-Milind, 'Ek chanchal shokh hasina', 'Chandni raat hai' and 'Har kasam se badi hai' were superhits. Today Abhijeet is one of the top names when it comes to male playback singers. He has entrenched himself firmly in the music world, with several other hits like 'Ole Ole' from Yeh Dillagi, the title track of Main Khiladi Tu Anari, 'Zara sa jhoom loo main', Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge, 'Teri ankhen jhuki jhuki' from Fareb, 'Shaher ki ladki' from Rakshak, 'Jhanjhriya' from Krishna and 'Tan tana tan tan tara' from Judwaa. Be it a Sunil Shetty, Anil Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan, Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan or a Hrithik Roshan, Abhijeet has sung for them all. He sang for many films like Baaghi, Sadak, Khiladi, Raja Babu, Yeh Dillagi, Yes Boss, Baadshah, Josh and Dhadkan and many more. After his success in playback singing he thought of singing pop. He launched two albums, Main Deewana Hoon and Tapori No. 1. But both albums did not click commercially. After these two pop albums, he launched Aashiqui, which was appreciated by the audience. Then he launched a pop album, Tere Bina, whose songs and video are chartbusters. He is married to Sumati Bhattacharya and has two children.