In the year 1952, who among the following lent his voice for the film ‘Amar Bhupali’, which was being produced in two languages simultaneously and he sang in both Bengali and Marathi ?
- (a)Hemanta Mukherjee
- (b)Debabrata Biswas
- (c)Kishore Kumar
- (d)Manna Dey
Answer
Why
Correct — D. Manna Dey is the singer credited with Amar Bhupali, made as the same story in Marathi and Bengali, and he recorded in both languages.
That was the kind of assignment he was called for. A Bengali singer with a Hindustani classical training deep enough to carry raga-based film songs, and portable across languages because of it.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)Hemanta Mukherjee — Hemanta Mukherjee was a major Bengali singer and composer of exactly these years, and worked in Hindi cinema as Hemant Kumar — but the Amar Bhupali bilingual is not his credit.
- (b)Debabrata Biswas — Debabrata Biswas is remembered as an exponent of Rabindra Sangeet rather than as a film playback singer.
- (c)Kishore Kumar — Kishore Kumar was then building a Hindi film career, and sang largely without formal classical training. The Marathi half of this assignment is not his.
Concept
Manna Dey, born Prabodh Chandra Dey, learned music from his uncle, the singer and composer Krishna Chandra Dey, and trained in Hindustani classical music.
That grounding gave him a niche no other playback singer of the era filled as completely — the classically demanding song, the raga-based piece, the duet with a trained vocalist.
He recorded in Bengali, Hindi, Marathi and other languages across a career of six decades, and received the Padma Bhushan and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award.
Release years for this film vary by source. The Marathi Amar Bhoopali, directed by V. Shantaram, is commonly listed as a 1951 release, while the stem dates the work to 1952.
The item turns on the singer, not the year.
Key facts
- Manna Dey sang for Amar Bhupali, made in Marathi and Bengali with the same story.
- His birth name was Prabodh Chandra Dey, and he learned music from his uncle Krishna Chandra Dey.
- He was trained in Hindustani classical music and recorded in Bengali, Hindi, Marathi and other languages.
- He received the Padma Bhushan and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award.
Study next
Common traps
- Choosing Kishore Kumar because he is the most famous name on the list.
- Reading 'Bengali singer' as Hemanta Mukherjee or Debabrata Biswas without asking which of them worked in Marathi cinema.
SSC's arts items ask who sang, composed or directed a named work, and fill the options with contemporaries from the same industry.
The same shift sets the music-award version at GA Q.7 (09 Sep 2024, 12:30), on the National Lata Mangeshkar Award for 2020.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.