In this video : Hemanta Mukhopadhyay, known professionally as Hemant Kumar, (16 June 1920 - 26 September 1989) was an Indian singer and music director who sang in Bengali, Hindi and other Indian languages like Marathi, Gujarati, Odia, Assamese, Tamil, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, Konkani, Sanskrit and Urdu. He was an artist of Bengali and Hindi film music, Rabindra Sangeet, and many other songs. He was the recipient of two National Awards for Best Male Playback Singer.হেমন্ত মুখোপাধ্যায়ের জীবনী। biography of hemanta mukhapadhyay. Hemnata kumar Hemanta was born in Varanasi, in the house of his maternal grandfather who was a leading physician. From the paternal side his family originated from Jaynagar. They migrated to Kolkata in the early 1900s. Hemanta grew up there and attended Nasiruddin School and later Mitra Institution school of Bhawanipore area. There he met his longtime friend Subhas Mukhopadhyay who later became a Bengali poet. During this time, he developed a friendship with the noted writer Santosh Kumar Ghosh. At that time, Hemanta wrote short stories, Santosh Kumar wrote poems and Subhash Mukhopadhyay sang songs.[citation needed]
After passing the intermediate examinations (12th grade), Hemanta joined Bengal Technical Institute at Jadavpur to pursue Engineering. However, he quit academics to pursue a career in music, despite objections from his father. He briefly tried literature and published a short story in the prestigious Bengali magazine called Desh, but by the late 1930s he was committed entirely to music.